His heart raced as she remained quiet, finishing up her dinner and mowing through the cheesecake.

He wanted to groan at the sight of her licking the tines of the fork when she’d polished off the last of the cheesecake but relief came when she nodded.

“All right, you have a deal.”

Moving to her, he grabbed her wrist and pulled her up against his body. “Well then, if you’re finished eating your way though Atlanta, let’s get started.”

Her gaze met his and he fell in, leapt into her with open arms because she meant everything to him and he wanted her to know it. He sensed her hesitation but she straightened her spine and opened her gaze. The shadows fell away and he saw her fear, her uncertainty and more importantly, her love. Licking her lips, she exhaled and cleared her throat. “I worry that what you’re really attracted to is the novelty. You know, the woman who didn’t fall into your bed, thighs wide and begging you to f**k her. The woman who walked away first. Knowing you felt that bit of temptation but realized what we had was bigger, more than what you were giving up, means something to me.”

Touched that she’d shared something so intimate, he gave in and kissed each eyelid before replying. “I love you, Liv. Enough that it’s changed me in so many important ways. That day with Nancy, the one I didn’t tell you about, it wasn’t even that I was tempted. The fact is I haven’t been tempted by anyone else but you since before I kissed you in April. It was just a moment when I realized that it was us. You and me. And it was forever. You weren’t a passing fancy or a novelty. And you did so beg me to f**k you.”

She grinned. “You’re bad.”

“I am. You make me that way.”

She snorted. “You were born that way.”

“Okay, partially. But you’re the key. You unlocked part of me I didn’t realize existed until you came along. I never ordered a woman to hold her thighs open while I went down on her or I’d stop. You make me crave pushing you in bed, seeing what your limits are.”

“That was pretty hot. I can tell you if any other man had said the same thing to me I’d have held his head with my thighs until he suffocated.”

Throwing his head back, he laughed. “There’s no one like you, Olivia Davis.”

And there wasn’t.

Need rushed through him. Need to be with her, to share intimacy, to touch and taste her in ways no other man would again. The need to re-establish their bond and connection.

Chapter Thirteen

If he didn’t start the sexin’, and soon, she’d wither and die. Liv needed him so badly she’d be begging him within moments.

He touched her. Deeply and with a rawness that was both intimate and scary. She wanted these two days to be real, to see the truth of his commitment because she meant what she said. She’d move on with her life because she’d wasted enough time on the wrong men for the wrong reasons. But she wanted this man. Younger or not, he was the man of her dreams. And she wanted to dare imagining forever with him. But first, she wanted him to f**k her six ways ’til Sunday.

Arching her upper body away from him, she writhed until she got her longsleeved shirt up and off, tossing it behind her.

“Oh. Well now.” His cocky grin made things inside her tingle and then tighten.

“It’s like that is it?” His shirt followed and in three quick movements her bra was gone. He crushed his upper body to hers, skin to skin. The pleasure shot through her and out her mouth as a groan. Her ni**les were diamond-hard, throbbing in time with her clit.

“You feel unbelievably good. I’ve missed this. I slept every night hugging my pillow but it wasn’t the same.” Liv’s emotion thickened her words but she knew he needed to hear them as much as she needed to say them.

“Girl, I love you. No one ever said anything like that to me before. It disarms me,” he murmured against her temple as he pressed hot kisses down her face, over the edge of her jaw to her mouth.

When he finally kissed her, after over a week of absence, she came home, felt the shape and form of a future she’d dared not imagine. His lips covered hers. No gentleness, only barely leashed passion as she opened to him in a gasp and his tongue barged in, taking what was his, had been his for months. He possessed her mouth, ate at it, devoured her, nibbled, licked, nipped and sucked.

Heat shot through her as his tongue flicked against hers, seductive. She’d missed his taste, the way his mouth felt against her own like he was made to be there.

Frissons of heat and pleasure flickered, sparking as his fingertips played at the small of her back, tracing over the indentations on either side of her spine and then along the top of her pants around to her belly button. She groaned as shivers of delight racked her body. He wrecked her, utterly. Small touches and caresses reached into her heart and captured it.

She swallowed his moan when her thumbs played over his collarbone, down the lightly haired chest to his ni**les. He arched into her when she scored his ni**les lightly with her fingernails and came back to flick her thumbs over them back and forth.

A slight roll of his hips and his c**k pressed, hot and hard, against her body. Needing him with great intensity, her hands traced down each ridge of his abdomen and upon reaching his jeans, jerked them open.

One hand at the back of her head, holding her to the kiss, he yanked his jeans off. She heard the dual clunk of his boots and felt the breeze of movement when he threw the jeans over her shoulder. Quick, clever hands shoved her yoga pants down and she stepped out of them, kicking them away. Impatiently, he yanked her panties off. They stood pressed together a few moments, still. He backed her toward the corner of the room where the small couch stopped her movement.