If I felt like it, I might lay out in the sun rather than sleeping in my bed.

That was going to be my day.

It sounded like a good day.

Two hands, undoubtedly connected to arms which connected to Lee’s body, settled on the balcony railing on either side of me. I felt his warmth at my back.

I had a moment where I felt I should turn around, screaming like a banshee and scratching his eyes out for having the audacity to handcuff me to his bed.

Then I thought about how he held me while I trembled and played with my hair until I fell asleep and decided against it.

“Hey,” I said as he moved my hair with his chin and kissed my neck.

“How’re you feelin’ this morning?” His voice sounded in my ear and tingles slid across my skin.

“Okay.”

I realized I forgot to factor Lee in my plans for the day.

I didn’t have time to perform any mental recalculations as he turned me around, took the coffee cup and put it on the teak table that was just within reach. Then his arms slid around me, I opened my mouth to say something, anything, and then he kissed me.

The tingles intensified by about one hundred percent and started to target specific zones.

After the kiss, his lips trailed along my cheek to my ear, I had my hands pressed against his chest and I said, perhaps stupidly and definitely shakily, “What are you doing?”

He answered, “Saying good morning.”

He said, “good morning” really, really well. Far better than he said, “thank you”.

Okay, I decided, something had to give here.

All this playing around was all well and good (some of it really good). The thing was, I’d made a decision about keeping my distance from Lee a decade ago and I wasn’t so sure I wanted to go back on that decision.

Well, if I was honest, I had to admit I wanted to, no doubt about it. It was Lee and I’d spent a lifetime wanting exactly this.

But, there was a lot at stake here. What happened if it didn’t work out? What happened if he got bored and moved on? It would change everything. I’d be devastated but also there were relationships to consider, family, people that meant a great deal to both of us.

“Lee, we need to talk.”

“Mm?” This was mumbled before his tongue ran from the skin at the hinge of my jaw, down the line of my neck.

“Lee!” My toes were curling, my ni**les were hard, this was getting serious.

“Talk,” he said. “I’m listening.”

He was not listening. His hands had gone up under my shirt and were sliding up my sides.

“We need to talk about what’s happening between us.”

His mouth came to mine again. “Okay, shoot.”

Then he kissed me, this time serious tongue action and I was forced to put my arms around his neck to remain standing.

When his mouth went away, one of his hands went to cup my ass and pull me closer and I could feel his God-given talent pressing against my belly. Tingles shot down the insides of my thighs.

“I’m not sure about this,” I told him even though I was kind of sure and my body was definitely sure and getting surer by the second.

“No?” he asked, his head coming up and he was looking at me. His brown eyes were melty-chocolate and one look at them made me catch my breath.

The hand at my ass came up and in and then cupped my breast, the rough pad of his thumb sliding across my hardened nipple. I bit my lip as electricity shot straight from my nipple to my nether regions.

“That feels pretty sure,” he said.

“That’s not what I mean,” I whispered.

“I see. You mean something else. I’ll check there too,” He grinned, his hand moving from my breast down my belly straight to…

“Lee!” My body jerked, half to get away from him and half in surprise but I had nowhere to go, except over the railing and to an icky death on the sidewalk fourteen stories below.

He smiled, full-fledged, causing my stomach to do a quick dip and his hand detoured back to my ass. “Let’s have this talk after I make love to you.”

My stomach had lurched at the smile, my legs went even weaker at his hand at my ass and I knew I couldn’t take much more and somehow, don’t ask me why, that made my eyes sting with tears.

Both his hands went to my ass and he lifted me up. I gave a small cry of surprise and my arms tightened around his neck as I threw my legs around his hips.

Holding me by the bottom, he turned and strode back into the condo. One hand left my ass and went into my hair and he tilted my head back with a soft yank, kissing me as he walked me to the couch. He put me down and came down right on top of me, his mouth still on mine.

I moved my head and, using the last shreds of my ragged control, tried one last time to talk. “We f**k this up, Lee, we f**k everything up. Ally, Hank, your folks, my Dad, are you prepared for that?”

His body became still.

After a moment he slid a hand in the hair at either side of my head and held my face to look at him.

And when I did, it felt like a lead weight settled in my chest at what I saw.

Something significant had changed. Something significant and scary. He wasn’t happy, the melty-chocolate look was gone and something hard had come into his face.

“You think I want a quick f**k?”

I shook my head and bit my lip. Honestly, I didn’t know what he wanted but at that precise moment, I wasn’t going to say that.

“You think I’d touch you unless it meant something?”

Holy crap.

I held my breath thinking about what that might mean, my eyes widened, the tears stinging them began to threaten to fill them.

His hands moved from my face to my hips.

“Christ, Indy, there’s more to me than this.” He yanked my hips, putting them in brutal, intimate contact with his and the hardness between them.

He held me there for a minute and stared into my eyes.

Then he said, “Forget it.”

He put his hands on the couch, pushed himself up and got off me.

“What?” I asked, dumbfounded, my body in temporary shock at the loss of the weight of his, my brain not caffeinated enough to think clearly.

He stared down at me, his face hard and blank. Just like it was when it closed down when Dad asked him if he hit me.

“Get dressed, I’ll take you home.”

I blinked.

“What?” I asked again.

He hauled me off the couch and set me on my jellied legs.

“I said, get dressed, pack your shit. I’ll take you home.”

I blinked again. Then I did it again.