“I’ve missed you.”

She took a deep breath and tried to move away but he shook his head. “Oh no you don’t. No more pushing me away. I know you want me, Lily. I know you like being with me. You can lie to yourself if you want, but you can’t lie to me.”

“You mesmerized me once and again with your cock. It’s like you’re carrying four rolls of quarters down the front of your jeans. How can I resist?”

He shook his head. “Baby, you and your sweet nothings will turn a man’s head. Anyway, it’s more than my apparently massive cock. Four? You like me. You like being Nathan and Lily again.”

“Look, Nathan, you’re still Chris’s teacher. In case it’s escaped your notice we live in a small town where even what kinds of birds eat at which feeders in which yard are a topic for gossip. Chris has had enough to deal with after what happened with our father. People are still talking about it. I can’t do this and make it even worse for him.”

“Thank God he’s got you.” Nathan wasn’t all that impressed with Pamela and her parenting. He understood she’d been devastated when her husband up and left, though it was common knowledge he’d been catting around for years. But that was no excuse to just stop being a mother to a teenager. He was convinced that without Lily’s intervention things would have gotten far worse for Chris.

“I keep hoping my mother will get her act together.”

“That why you decided to stay?”

She made a face, and he knew he was poking her out of her comfort zone. She didn’t like to speak ill of her family, he got it and he respected that. She’d already shared negatives about her mother and sister as well. But it was different when it was him. He wanted her to remember, to trust him like she used to.

“He’s had enough people fail him. Whatever the reason for it. I had a good mom growing up. Scattered maybe, but she was there after school. Drove me to this and that. And even then my dad was pretty good. Chris is my family. He needs me and that’s that. So this thing”—she waved a hand between them—“isn’t possible right now.”

He canted his hips, brushing his c**k against her. “Oh it is. I’ve got great recovery where you’re concerned. And it is happening. It happened twice if I recall correctly. And it will happen again. You know it.”

She got up and moved to the windows, the light framing her.

“We can keep it quiet until the school year ends. He won’t be my student anymore. Be with me, Lily.” He hated that it sounded as if he was begging. But he needed her. And now that he’d had her in bed again, he wasn’t going to let that go. This was it for him. She was the one.

She turned, keeping her distance, which was a good thing because she looked so sexy and tousled he would have been all over her if she’d been within reach.

“We have to keep it quiet. I mean it. I won’t hurt him any more than he’s already been hurt.”

Now that she’d acquiesced, he relaxed into a satisfied man. “Adds some spice I say. Keeping it quiet.” And it wasn’t that much longer.

“All right. We can keep doing this part.”

“This part?”

“The sex part, silly.”

Oh did she think so? Did she think he’d look at her face and believe all she wanted was a hot f**k? Did she think he’d ever, for one minute, be satisfied with what his parents had and then proceeded to destroy over decades?

“I’m not interested in you as a quick, furtive f**k.”

Lily heard the anger in his voice and moments later figured out why. She moved to him, sliding back into bed and close to him again. Damn it, she still loved him. Probably never stopped. But it wouldn’t do to get attached. No. Still, she didn’t mean to hurt him. That she’d make a comparison between his drunk of an abusive father and his skank of a mother, even not meaning to, was untenable. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it that way. You’re not him and I’m sure as hell not her. I meant we can…”

“This is how it is, Lily. You aren’t just some random woman I’m dating. I’m up front with you right now that I want something deeper. We have something deeper. We always have. So don’t insult either one of us by saying something stupid. What we have is more than friends. And that’s how I like it. We’re together.”

She sat up, angry herself. “Really? Like before?”

“I deserve that. And more most likely. But things are different. We’re different. You’re the only woman I want. Full stop. There’s no one else. Nothing else, but you. I wouldn’t be able to assert that as totally surely as I can now if I hadn’t lost it and known what it was to be without you. But secret for a little while or not, we’re together, Lily.”

Torn between wanting to believe and wanting to deny it, she said nothing as she watched him, so beautiful and male, spread out in bed like the best-looking item on any menu ever.

“I like it when you look at me that way. Say you’re with me, Lily.”

She sighed. “You broke my heart, Nathan. It took me years to get over you. Years. It wasn’t the kiss, it was the way you loved me one minute and tossed me away the next. You made me feel like absolutely nothing.” That her voice broke as she said the words should have embarrassed her, but it felt good to say. To let him know the outcome of what he’d done.

Good to remind herself that this little fun time in bed was great, but the devastation he left, that she slogged through as a result of his so-called love, had been a heavy burden for some time. She had enough burdens just then.