Which wasn’t going to happen.
She kissed him and then kept at it, kissing hello and goodbye and just because, because she knew that all this was going to stop soon. When she left. She’d had trouble sleeping because she missed him already, so much.
He seemed to feel the same as her as he put everything he had into the kiss, his hands running reverently over her body. “Did you wear this dress for me?”
“No, I actually forgot how much you like it.”
He chuckled. “Liar.” He tightened his grip on her. “I’m going to miss you too.” He pulled her into his bedroom, and then she was in free fall to the bed.
He stood at the foot of the mattress looking down at her, eyes dark with nefarious intent, and something new swirled through past the sadness she was keeping at bay.
Anticipation.
Lust.
She’d felt the pull of both those things before with him, of course, but this time there was also something else.
Affection.
Deep affection.
New, terrifying, and . . . even more arousing. “Spence.” She crooked her finger at him.
He responded by climbing up her body to kiss her hard, both demanding and gaining access to her mouth. Leaning over her, his hands roughly ran the length of her body until she was caught up in a rising tide of hunger and need that didn’t give a damn about commitments or declarations of love.
When he pulled her phone from her pocket, she had to laugh.
He removed his phone from his own pocket as well, held up both for her to see, and then vanished.
He was back in twenty seconds.
“Did you throw them out the window?” she asked.
“No. Even I can’t bring them back from a five-story fall. I put them in the freezer.”
She laughed.
He didn’t. She could see the effect she was having on him and it was incredibly empowering. She started to sit up to get her hands on him, but before she could, he slid to her ankles and yanked, making her fall to her back.
She stopped laughing and maybe moaned as he crawled up her body. Holding her gaze, he slowly pulled her hands above her head, pinning her to the mattress beneath him, covering her mouth with his. This was no simple goodbye kiss but rather a “not letting you go before I make sure you never forget me” sort of kiss, and it gave her a full-body shiver of the very best kind.
“Off,” he murmured, fisting a hand in the material of her dress, pushing it up enough to reveal her black lacy panties. Then, before she could lend a hand, he’d stripped her himself. Which wasn’t to say he did this impatiently. In fact, he spent a lot of time kissing and suckling and fanning the flames over every inch he exposed.
Nope, the only person in a hurry was her as she shoved up his shirt, struggling to get him as naked as she. He came up on his knees to help, shrugging out of his shirt. Her hands traveled the now familiar path of muscles and smooth skin, down the length of his torso and beyond.
He was rock solid and gorgeous, and she had no idea how she was supposed to walk away.
“Colbie.”
“Off,” she said, mimicking his much lower voice. “Everything off.”
A laugh rumbled from him and he complied. Then dipping his head, he licked and sucked a trail down her body, taking his damn sweet time about it too, so that by the time he reached her thighs, every cell in her body was alive, waiting for the moment when he’d press his mouth against her.
She cried out when he finally did, fisting her fingers in his hair as his tongue worked its magic, leaving her helpless to do anything but quiver and squirm and whimper with each expert stroke as he took her to the edge and held her there for an impossibly long beat before nudging her over.
While she struggled to remember how to work her lungs, he made his way back up her body, planting a series of warm, wet kisses over her stomach and ribcage and then her breasts . . . and then at last his face was level with hers.
His eyes were penetrating, dark with desire. His breathing fragmented as he pushed inside her, hard and thick. “You’ll remember me,” he said.
Of that she was most certain. “I’ll remember you,” she promised, already halfway to another orgasm. “Always.”
With that, he finally gave her what she wanted and pounded into her, making her writhe against him as she came, crying out his name between shuddered gasps. She knew he came right along with her and reveled in the pounding of his heart against hers as they struggled to come down from the stroke-level intensity.
They fell asleep like that, limbs entwined, sharing air.
When she opened her eyes again, she had no idea how long they’d been out. All she could remember was cuddling under the covers and hearing the question she hadn’t meant to ask escape her lips anyway. “Would you really come visit me?”
“If you ask, yes.”
She thought about that long after he’d fallen asleep. Because with their lives so deeply entrenched in their respective cities, three thousand miles apart, she didn’t see how this could work. She just didn’t. Very carefully, she turned her head and looked at the clock.
Four a.m.
She had to go. Spence was on his back, face turned toward her, entire body relaxed and still, his chest slowly rising and falling.
He was deeply asleep. She could tell he was exhausted. Mentally, physically, and if it was at all possible, emotionally as well.
“I’ll remember you,” she promised and walked away.
Chapter 28
#Mudderfudder
When Spence woke up, Colbie was gone. He knew it before he even opened his eyes; it was in the cold silence of the room. It was in the lack of joy in his heart. It was the pit sitting deep in his gut.
She’d left and it was going to be okay. He was going to be okay. Hell, he’d been okay only three weeks ago, right? Right.
So why did he feel like that time when he was five years old and his grandpa had told him, “There’s no Santa Claus, kid. No one’s ever going to hand you what you want—you gotta do that for yourself.”
Spence blew out a breath and stared at the ceiling. What did he want? That was the easy part.
But he didn’t want someone who could walk away from him, or someone he had to chase. He’d had enough of that for a lifetime, thank you very much. He’d go back to work and he’d be fine.
Just like always.
Colbie sat in the kitchen of her family home, the one that she’d bought with her first big royalty check. She’d settled everyone into it so that she could take care of them as she always had.
It was noon.
No, scratch that. That was California time, but she was in New York now. It was three o’clock here and she hadn’t slept—although blissfully, Cinder had and was in fact curled up on the rug in front of the kitchen sink because that’s where the heat vent was.
She was glad the cat seemed happy. But Colbie needed to find some happy herself. She was exhausted. She hadn’t been able to catch any z’s, not on the plane and not in the hour since she’d arrived.