She could see how tightly clenched his jaw was, how much effort it had cost him not to come with her. She wished he had, wished he had completely lost control, wanted to know that she could do that to him.

He ground out the words, “I need to pull out.”

“No, you don't.” If he left her now, she'd feel so empty. “I'm on the pill. And I'm safe. I swear I'm safe.” Physically at least.

Because the truth was that she'd just put her own heart in the most dangerous position imaginable.

Even for how huge he already was, she felt him grow bigger at her words, thicker, harder.

“Fuck, Janica, I'm gonna come.”

His rough words, said with such heat, sent a new rush of arousal flooding through her. It wasn't going to be the first time she'd had multiple orgasms.

But she was pretty damn sure it was about to be the very best.

“So am I.” She pulled his mouth down to hers and whispered, “Again,” before she kissed him passionately.

And then, he was fucking her fast and hard and she was fucking him right back, their bodies slamming together. Slick skin sliding against slick skin. Mouths biting, sucking. Hands grabbing, pulling. She felt the first shot of his hot ejaculate against the very back of her vagina and she groaned at the extreme pleasure of taking all of him, his very essence, inside of her. Her body reacted with a flood of moisture in the tightening of her inner muscles around his huge shaft, milking him.

Loving him.

* * *

He never wanted to let her go.

Luke started at his unconscious thought. What the hell was he thinking?

Of course he was going to let her go. Just as soon as he'd worked the craziness out of his system, just as soon as he'd had his fill of her heat, her warmth, she'd return back to her normal life. And he'd return to his.

Things would go back to the way they were supposed to be.

The harsh reality of his thoughts made him suddenly realize his knees were killing him on the hardwood floor. Moving slowly – not wanting to let her go, damn it - he maneuvered them both onto the couch, lying back and pulling her body over his like a blanket. Her head settled in at the crook of his shoulder and they lay there together, both catching their breath.

And despite reminding himself that this lapse with his sexy-as-hell sister-in-law was going to have to come to an end in the very near future, over and over, his brain replayed what she'd said.

I love you because you're good.

I love you because you're honest.

I love you, Luke, because of everything you do and everything you are.

The most amazing thing of all was that she could say those things to him when he wasn't being fair to her. When he wasn't being good. Or honest.

All his life, he'd had a role to play. His brother, Travis, had been the dog. The player. So Luke had taken the opposite side. He'd been the good guy. The honest guy. The safe guy.

It wasn't until last night with Janica that he'd stopped being all those things, that he'd let himself explore the man hiding beneath the layers, beneath the driven surgeon who never let anyone down.

Jesus, he was letting Janica down. He knew he was, with the way he kept using her body, with the way he kept pushing and shoving at her, not just physically, but emotionally.

And still, she thought she loved him.

He still didn't see it. Couldn't possibly understand why. How.

Didn't even begin to comprehend why his chest felt so tight every time she was close. Every time he looked at her, or touched her. Every time she said “I love you.”

He and Janica shouldn't fit together like this. She shouldn't feel like the missing piece of him. Not when anyone could see that the two of them were all wrong for each other.

Completely, impossibly wrong.

But it was hard to think clearly about anything with her naked body warm and soft on his.

He loved the way she smelled, loved the way she tasted, loved the way her taut muscles gave way to purely feminine heat when she was coming.

His muscles that had been so taut since the night before in the ER, except for those few hours when he'd fallen asleep holding her, finally settled down, relaxing into her warmth. He let his eyes drift out to the ocean waves out the front window, seeing how blue it was for the very first time. And then he closed his eyes and unconsciously pulled her closer against him as his mind finally stopped racing.

* * *

Janica felt him fall asleep beneath her, just as he had the night before. She knew how hard he drove himself, knew how exhausted he had to be, and was glad that he felt comfortable enough to fall asleep with her not once, but twice, even with the sunlight streaming in.

She, on the other hand, felt much too amped up to sleep. And she knew if she stayed with him like this, there'd be no way to stop herself from waking him up to make love to him again.

It wasn't that she didn't want to have sex with him again. Of course she did. He was the most spectacular lover she'd ever been with. No one else had ever made her body come alive like he did.

But right now, before she took him inside her body again, before she came apart beneath his mouth and hands, before he pressed his mouth to hers and she took her next breath from his lungs, she needed to figure out a way to deal with all the secrets she'd just admitted to him.

It was one thing to tell him she loved him.

It was another entirely to detail it, to lay it out in such painful clarity.

Now, there was no way she could ever back away from it. No way she could try to take it back, or say she'd simply been wrapped up in the great sex.

And from this moment forward, her stark emotional admission would always be between them.

Shifting gently out of his arms, she covered him with a blanket, put her clothes back on, and went outside to get her sketchbook out of the car.

During the hardest times in her life, when she felt twisted up inside, the only chance she had of making it through in one piece was if she was putting her feelings down on paper, one image at a time.

So that's what she'd do now, in this cabin on the ocean in Big Sure, with Luke sleeping on the couch beneath a soft blanket she pulled up over his naked body. Even though she already knew that this time the problem was bigger than her pencil and paper.

Chapter Twelve

Where was she?

Luke kicked off the blanket and sat up, looking for any sign that Janica was still there. But her clothes and her bag were gone.

She was gone.

No!

It was almost impossible to breathe until he walked to the door and saw her sitting on a rock just off the deck, her head bent down over her notepad as she captured the setting sun over the ocean.

My God, she was beautiful. How had he missed seeing her all these years?