Mia hadn’t realized how much she’d needed that support and approval until her mother had gently pushed her to have faith in what she was feeling for Ford...and to know that it was natural to second-guess a love this powerful, even for a woman as amazing as her mother.

“You’re the person I want to laugh with. You’re the person I want to cry with. You’re the person I want to tell all of my secrets to. You’re the first one I want to call when I close a big new deal and also to make up new curse words with when one goes bad. You’re my best friend, Ford, and I know you always will be. I’m saying that I want to be yours in exactly every possible way.”

All week, when things had gotten heated and desperate between them, Ford had always been the one to stop them from going too far. But tonight, after telling him he was her new best friend, he immediately pulled the lever that lowered the seat back and flipped them over so that she was lying beneath him.

“Do you remember our first night together?” he asked.

The memory sent thrill bumps racing across her skin, even though she was burning up from the inside out at his nearness. “God, yes.”

When they’d left the venue, the limo door had barely closed and the privacy screen hadn’t quite rolled all the way up to the ceiling when they’d attacked each other. She could remember everything about making love with Ford for the first time in the back of his limo, except whose clothes had come off first. They’d been that desperate for each other.

“You ruined limos for me,” he told her.

In the dark, all she knew was how deliciously heavy Ford was as he pressed her into the seat, his clean masculine scent taking over her senses one shaky breath at a time.

“Next limo we’re in,” she whispered into his ear, “I promise I’ll make it up to you.” Her teeth closed over his earlobe as she yanked his shirt all the way open. “Want a preview tonight?”

“I want everything tonight,” he said a beat before his mouth covered hers in a kiss that was shockingly possessive, thrillingly dominant...and utterly loving.

* * *

Mia was hot and needy and so damned ready everywhere he touched, but even as he greedily ran kisses over her face, her shoulders, the swell of her br**sts, and then up her thighs to her hips, he knew he’d never be able to get enough of her in the cramped seat. He wanted to see her skin flush, he needed to watch her eyes spark, then cloud, as he took her closer and closer to pleasure, then sent her rushing all the way past.

“Home.” But even as he made the nearly impossible decision to wait a few more minutes to have her, he had to press his mouth to the spot on her neck where her pulse was racing and she smelled like hothouse flowers. “I’m taking you home, and then I’m going to make love to you until neither of us can move.”

“No.” Her arms tightened around his back as she turned her face so that her lips brushed against his. “I can’t make it that far feeling like this.”

She moved, limber and insistent against him, and when his hand that was beneath her skirt slid against her slick heat, he silently agreed that he couldn’t let her suffer for the short ride back to his house.

He didn’t give her so much as a word of warning before he thrust two fingers hard and deep inside her. She rewarded him with a low moan of pleasure that resonated all the way down to his soul. Shifting on the seat just enough that she could push her hips against his hand, he urged, “Show me what a bad girl you are by coming apart for me, Mia. Just like this, in the car, with my fingers inside you.”

Oh yes, he thought as her climax approached like a runaway train, she still loved dirty talk. For five years he’d remembered every naughty moment with her in the week they’d spent together. He’d need at least fifty more years of loving her to make it through the new list of naughty fantasies he’d come up with this week.

Cupping her left breast with his free hand, he teased her erect nipple mercilessly as he increased the pace and force of his fingers inside. And even though he should have been prepared for her climax, he wasn’t even close to ready for it.

Because she wasn’t just coming for him, she was shattering completely, and totally, against and beneath him. Surrendering not just her body...but all of her doubts and fears, too.

Despite being harder than he’d ever been in his life, he gathered her close and simply held her until her breathing evened out. Somehow, he managed to let her go for long enough to gently lift her back into her seat and slip the buckle over her, and to corral his focus so that he could drive safely out through the neighborhood and onto the freeway that would take them to his house.

He’d heard her come, he’d felt her come, but, damn it, he needed to see her come. And that wouldn’t happen in his car on a dark, deserted road. He needed to get them back to his house in one piece so that he could take her inside, turn on every goddamned light in the place, and strip off her clothes to appreciate every inch of her.

In the faint glow of the streetlights, Mia was so beautiful that he could barely trust himself to look at her without crashing. But though he made sure to drive carefully, he simply didn’t have the control left not to take a glimpse of her whenever it was safe to look away from the road for a brief moment.

Her high heels had come off as they’d tangled together on his seat and her legs were curled up beneath her, her face turned to him as she relaxed against her head rest. Her eyes were closed and he might have thought she was sleeping off the aftereffects of her powerful orgasm, were it not for the way her hand was creeping steadily but surely across his thigh.

“Are we almost there?” she murmured in a heavy voice without bothering to open her eyes.

“Keep doing that with your hand, and I sure as hell will be,” he warned her.

Of course, instead of moving her hand away, her beautiful lips curved up into a smile and she shifted in her seat so that she could feel him up even more.

Sweet Lord, if her fingers came one inch closer to his erection, they were going to be in danger of his crashing the car into a utility pole. Thankfully, he pulled onto his street and through his security gate before he could get them into an accident.

Seconds later, he was scooping her up into his arms and making a dash for the tower. She wrapped her arms around his neck and nuzzled him, soft and trusting for whatever he had planned for them now that they were home.

Home. At the base of the tower stairs, he faltered, and she finally opened her eyes to look at him. “Ford?”