“How?”
“He was a coward. Kept pushing her away. Shut her out.”
“What was he afraid of? Involvement?”
“Too late for that. He was sunk the minute he tackled her and saw her face for the first time. No, what he was afraid of was that she would see him for what he was, and tell him to stay the hell out of her life.
“But the poor sap held out the hope that one day she would show up unexpectedly. He sort of hoped that if that happened, she wouldn’t be as desirable as he remembered, that he wouldn’t want her any more. Instead, it was all he could do to keep his hands off her.”
Nothing was said for a time, then Brynn said with exasperation, “You’ll fly through zero visibility and a mile and a half of thunderstorms, but you won’t walk across ten feet of ugly carpet? You are a coward.”
He turned and cocked his head to one side. “What? Oh. You thought I was talking about me?”
She ducked her head and laughed, then looked up at him again, challenge in her eyes.
He sighed. “You’re gonna make me come after you, aren’t you?”
“If you want me, it’s required.”
In two long strides, he was cupping her shoulders, pressing her back onto the bed, settling atop her as she stretched out beneath him. He pushed his hands up through her hair, clasped her head, said, “I want you,” then fused his mouth to hers. Though it was broad daylight, they kissed with the unleashed desire reserved for the dark.
He couldn’t get enough of her, of feeling her breasts moving against his chest, her breath rushing across his lips with excitement and happiness, both evident in her glistening eyes when he finally raised his head and looked into them.
“We’ve known each other for less than two full days,” he said. “This could be the worst mistake you ever make, Brynn.”
“I’ll take my chances.”
Reaching under her sweater, he unhooked her bra, then put his hands inside the cups, reshaped her breasts with gentle squeezes, tweaked the hard tips, then bared them to his seeking mouth.
She ground the back of her head against the mattress. “I could kill you for putting me through the torture of the last six weeks.”
He fanned his tongue over her nipple.
“But don’t stop that,” she groaned and began to paw at the buttons on his jeans.
He pulled her sweater over her head. She wiggled off the loosened bra. He tore open the buttons of his shirt and lay on her again, skin to skin, their hearts thumping together, their breaths ghosting between their lips, eyes locked.
He slid his hand into the slit of her skirt, caressing her inner thigh to the top, then into her panties, his fingers separating, stroking, slipping inside. She clenched around his fingers, tilting her hips toward him in an appeal for more, even as she worked her underwear down her legs and off.
She opened his fly. He swelled against the fist she made around him. He could feel his pulse pumping hot and thick against her palm, her fingers. Pulling his hand from beneath her skirt, he spread her moisture over the head of his cock. “Guide me in.”
With his hands under her bottom, he lifted her. She planted him snugly just inside her. She squeezed, and he moaned her name. He pulsed, and her breath hitched. Then a strong, swift thrust embedded him. They held there for the endurance of a deep, soulful kiss.
Then, in perfect synchronization, they began to move.
Day faded into dusk. Twilight gave way to full darkness. The passage of time went unnoticed.
They languished in bed, eyes and hands and mouths overindulging in what they’d been able only to sample six weeks earlier, when the pace, even for lovemaking, had been hectic.
The water in the shower turned cool before they got out. When they returned to the bed, he put his bomber jacket on her. Lying facing her, he rested his cheek on one hand and, with the other, opened the jacket.
Lazily, he toyed and teased until her eyes were lambent, her lips parted, her skin flushed with arousal.
He told her he might replace the existing lining of his jacket with a new one, a painting on silk of her, posed just that way. He nosed her hair aside and whispered directly into her ear, “Knowing you’re wet.”
She said that changing his prized jacket sounded like serious business, like permanence. “Won’t you get tired of me?”
He eased her onto her back, settled in the cradle of her thighs, and rubbed against her to demonstrate how much he wanted her yet again, as badly as before.
“You know what I told you about the feeling I get right before every takeoff?”
“You can’t wait?”
He smiled.