Sam’s hand slipped between her legs, fingers pushing her thighs apart and finding where she was warm and wet. “Riley,” he whispered. “I should take my time with you.”

“You’ve taken more than ten years,” she said, her hand gliding over his hip before her fingers wrapped around where he was firm and smooth.

He let out a harsh breath, his forehead against her shoulder. “You’re sure you’ve never done this before?”

“No, but you know … I read somewhere …” She tightened her grip just slightly as her thumb moved over him and his groan banished the last of her lingering insecurities.

“This is going to end badly if you don’t stop that,” he said, grabbing her wrist and pulling it to his mouth, brushing his lips against her knuckles.

“So get on with it already,” she said. She tried for teasing and came out desperate, and she didn’t care. She may not have been an expert at this, but she knew one or both of them were likely to die if they waited much longer.

“You sure are demanding for a newbie,” he said, sliding over her and nudging her chin up with his nose so he could nuzzle her neck.

She turned her head, lips seeking his. He complied, and their kisses turned frantic.

“Condom,” he grunted, pulling back. “Where’s my wallet?”

She leaned over to her nightstand, pulling out an unopened box.

He took it from her, lifting his eyebrows.

“Hey, I like to be prepared,” she said. “Although … do those things expire?”

He tilted the box to read as he opened it, checking the date. “We’re good.”

She tried to pay attention to the deft way he opened the package, but the wrapper was on the floor and he was rolling the condom over himself in one easy motion before she could get a proper lesson.

Next time.

Riley tensed for a half second as he settled over her, only to realize that the weight of him felt right, and her palms ran up his back as her lips sought his and pulled him in for another of those tongue-tangling kisses.

He placed hands on either side of her head, rising up so he could watch her face, eyes questioning.

In response to his silent question, she opened her legs wider and licked her lips coyly.

The corner of his mouth tilted up. “I should have known. Even as a rookie, you’re a tease.”

Then he moved closer, positioning himself as he slid just the slightest bit inside of her.

Riley had been fully prepared for this moment to feel strange and uncomfortable, but the slight unfamiliarity of the sensation only made it more perfect.

“Okay?” he asked.

In response, she rocked her h*ps upward, taking him all the way in. She watched as his eyes closed and his breath became more shallow. Sam lowered himself from his palms to his elbows, cradling her head protectively as he began to move in slow, shallow circles, giving her time to get used to him.

But Riley didn’t need the extra time.

It was as though she had been born for this moment, and every failed date, every potential sexual encounter that had fizzled out had been building toward this moment with this man.

Sam knew her perfectly. Knew she didn’t want to be treated like a delicate novice, and took the pace from tentative to purposeful as she lifted to meet him in perfect rhythm.

He nudged her knees slightly higher, widening her so that his movements ground against her most sensitive spot, and Riley moaned her approval.

“Sam!”

And then, in one blistering moment, she finally realized the true gap between writing about sex and experiencing it.

There was nothing—nothing—like experiencing an orgasm with Sam Compton staring into your eyes.

And then there was a component of sex that even Riley had never considered: that moment when you’re looking into his eyes as his body tenses. The moment when he says your name like a prayer before burying his head in your shoulder as he shakes and shudders and then collapses warmly on top of you.

This is what I should have been writing about.

But she didn’t want to share it.

Riley ran her palms over his sides, loving the crushing weight of him as their heartbeats returned to normal.

Sam propped himself up on one elbow, brushing her damp hair off her face with the other hand. “Well?”

She blinked up at him, relishing the unfamiliar sensation of postcoital bliss. “A secure man wouldn’t have to ask.”

“He would if he were bedding a sex columnist.”

Riley squinted as though considering his rating.

Then she gave the only response that seemed fitting, pulling his mouth down to hers, lightly nipping his bottom lip with her teeth. “Again.”

Sam groaned.

And complied.

Chapter Sixteen

Dinner parties.

Not something Sam Compton thought he’d enjoy. Ever. Particularly a dinner party to celebrate an engagement.

But then he’d never gone to a dinner party with Riley. The result was unexpectedly … nice? Was that the right word?

It helped that he’d always genuinely enjoyed Riley’s friends, and the more he got to know them, the more he suspected that they could be his friends as well. Julie, while at first meeting a little too bubbly for his tastes, had a sharp wit beneath her chipper smiles, something her boyfriend, Mitchell, seemed to bring out in spades.

Grace too had made a good match in Jake. On the surface they should have been one of those absurdly good-looking, too-perfect couples with their glossy dark hair and classically attractive features. But Grace’s good manners disguised a wicked sense of humor, and Sam quickly learned that Jake was no brainless pretty boy but a smart guy’s guy he could easily see going to a game with.

The only one Jake wasn’t crazy about was Aaron, Emma’s date for the evening, although if Sam was reading the signs correctly, nobody else seemed to be crazy about Aaron either.

Including Emma.

“So, Grace, I’ve been thinking,” Riley said, pushing back the plate she’d practically licked clean. He’d forgotten how the girl could eat. “What if I be flower girl? That’s one less person in the running for the maid of honor slot.”

Grace topped off her wineglass before passing the bottle of pinot around the table. “What part of ‘small destination wedding’ didn’t you understand?”

“I think it was the ‘small destination’ part. I thought you always wanted a big old society affair here in New York.”

Grace snapped her fingers in realization. “Damn. I’d forgotten that one has to stick with the same dream wedding they thought they wanted at age twenty-one.”

“I think small’s the way to go,” Sam said, topping off both his and Riley’s glasses even though he’d have preferred whisky to the fruity red.

“Yeah, because small weddings worked out so well for you?” she asked without heat. “You stay out of this. I want to be flower girl.”

Julie just pointed in bafflement at Sam while looking at Riley. “Did you just belittle the man’s failed marriage?”

“Not belittle. It was just that it was so … brief? Barely there?” Riley said, shooting him an uneasy look.

Sam lifted his shoulder. “It’s kind of true. I’m not proud of it, but my marriage isn’t nearly as big a part of my past as it should be.”

A little tickle formed between his shoulder blades that he tried to ignore, because he knew what it meant. It meant that he was lying. He might not think about his failed marriage very often—okay, hardly ever—and he certainly didn’t think very often about Hannah, and he wasn’t proud of that. They’d been married, for God’s sake.

But deep down, he knew that the failure of his marriage had helped shape him as surely as any of his other failures. His mother had perhaps said it best. He wasn’t a good investment banker, wasn’t a good son … wasn’t a good husband.

Which begged the question: Just what the hell was he doing at a party with two nearly married couples while sitting next to a woman who he—hell. No. He was not thinking about Riley and marriage in the same sentence. He just wasn’t.

As though reading his mind, Emma chimed in from the other end of the table. “Failed marriages. What a delightful topic for an engagement party,” she said in that mellow southern voice.

“Ooh, you know what would be a more appropriate topic?” Riley asked, eyes wide. “Failed engagements! Emma, you go!”

Sam half braced himself for a catfight, but Emma Sinclair merely stared at Riley over the rim of her wineglass with a raised eyebrow that said I will kill you with this teaspoon.

Aaron looked around the table in confusion. “What am I missing?”

“Actually, nothing,” Grace said. “Sinclair here has more secrets than the vault at Langley.”

Julie picked an asparagus off the platter and ate it with her fingers as she gestured toward the mess of dishes. “Mitchell, baby, how about you recruit your boys to do cleanup, since I cooked?”

Mitchell cleared his throat and dropped an arm around his fiancée’s chair as he leaned in slightly. “Um, baby? I don’t think picking up the phone to have dinner for eight catered counts as cooking.”

She pointed at the bread basket. “I baked that.”

“No, you put it in the oven, after which I had to go rescue it and remove the plastic.”

Sam hid his smile beyond his glass of wine, thoroughly enjoying himself. Even when he’d been married, he’d never liked hanging out with other couples. Most twosomes seemed like they were either faking the whole lovey-dovey routine for the sake of their audience or else straining to be civil with that universal I-can’t-wait-to-finish-that-fight-from-earlier tension.

But there was none of that tonight. Riley’s friends radiated a happy-with-their-lives confidence that was as rare as it was refreshing. There was no competition, no bragging. Just a group of people who genuinely enjoyed one another.

Although some twosomes were enjoying each other more than others, he noted, as Jake leaned in to kiss Grace before he began stacking dishes.

Sam had never considered himself a PDA type of guy, so he was a little surprised at the stab of jealousy he felt. What would it be like to lean over and plant one on Riley right now? God knew he wanted to.

Especially since right before coming over to Julie and Mitchell’s, she’d hauled out her collection of Stiletto magazines and told him to pick out one of her previous articles to try in person later.

He knew exactly which one he was going with too.

He hoped she was flexible.

But it wasn’t just sex.

Granted, there had been a lot of that since that first evening.

But there had also been a baseball game, and a spontaneous midweek lunch, and a movie night, and now a dinner party.

It was both terrifying and the best damn time he’d had in years.

Riley had always been like a magnetic spark plug—one he’d tried to resist. He’d always known he’d end up drowning in her.

And he was drowning, all right.

But in the best way possible.

Riley the girlfriend—was she a girlfriend?—was surprisingly sweet. Whether it was bringing him late-night pizza when one of his distillers broke or joining him to taste test his latest whisky competitors instead of going to whatever nightclub was opening in the city, she was exactly the low-maintenance kind of companion he’d been dreading.

Dreading, because if she’d been a drama-loving prima donna, it would be easy to chalk up their sexual chemistry to just that—chemistry. And it would be easy to let her go.

But this sweet, fun, can’t-get-enough Riley? Danger.

As it was, outside the bedroom felt just as right as in.

Well. Almost.

Sam glanced over to where Riley continued to badger Grace about flower-girl status, her black hair spilling over her shoulders, her blue eyes sparkling.

He was in serious trouble.

“You’re staring,” Jake muttered quietly as he picked up the empty salmon platter in front of Sam. “You’d best help us with dishes unless you want to be the one contemplating a destination wedding.”

His stomach clenched at the word wedding, and he almost knocked over his chair in his hurry to get up from the table and distance himself from dangerous thoughts. Been there, done that, never again.

He stacked up the plates on the table, intentionally turning a deaf ear to the women’s wedding talk. Sam didn’t dare look at Riley. Why hadn’t he thought of this before agreeing to the dinner? Two of her best friends were engaged.

That would turn even the most independent woman’s mind toward wedding mania.

Though, that wasn’t fair. Riley hadn’t even referred to him as a boyfriend, much less hinted that she expected them to go ring shopping together. And this wasn’t the 1800s.

Women didn’t get ideas from just a couple of weeks of fooling around.

He snuck a peek at her profile before heading into the kitchen.

“Told ya he’s whipped,” Jake whispered to Mitchell.

Sam’s head turned in time to see Jake smiling smugly as he handed Aaron dishes to rinse off. Mitchell, who was busy putting leftovers in Tupperware to go in the fridge, stopped what he was doing and took one glance at Sam’s murderous expression.

He went to the fridge and emerged with four beers, handing the first one to Sam as though sensing he needed it the most.

He had the right idea.

“Wanna talk?” Mitchell asked. “Or want us to f*ck off?”

And there it was. The holy grail of men’s friendship. It was then that Sam realized how much he’d been missing Liam. Not only because his best friend was in Amsterdam more often than he was in New York these days. But because even when Liam was around, he remained blissfully unaware that Sam was banging his little sister. And liking it.

Really liking it.

Maybe he did want to talk. Especially now that Aaron had muttered something about having done his “share” of the cleaning and gone back to join the women at the table.

“That one’s a winner,” Jake said.

“We’ll never see him again,” Mitchell said decisively. “Now shut up. Sam was about to explain how Riley’s got his balls in a knot.”

I was? “I’m not really sure what’s happening,” Sam heard himself saying.

Jake snorted. “Who is?”

“She’s my best friend’s baby sister.”

“Nothing baby about Riley McKenna,” Mitchell said. “And I say that in a platonic, observant kind of way,” he hurried to add when Sam glared.