I wanted all of him, and I wanted him all for myself in the most desperate way possible.

My gaze rose to meet his, and I stared into heavy-lidded green eyes blazing with a hunger that was almost intimidating. He was trying to hold himself back, to rein it all in, but this time, it was a losing battle. He knew it. I knew it. And I heard the moment he cracked.

He kissed me as if he meant it—no slow tease, no detailed exploration, just his mouth on mine, hot and possessive. The hands that had softly stroked me were now pulling off my clothes as if they were on fire. He had me naked in seconds, mumbling, “Finally,” as if it had taken him hours. I got his belt unbuckled and tugged at the buttons on his fly while he urged me around the fallen chair and onto the rug. He sprang into my waiting hand, hot and thick and proud. I wrapped my fingers around him, enjoying the hissing sound his breath made when he inhaled sharply through gritted teeth.

“Jesus, that feels good,” he murmured.

“My thoughts exactly.”

“Fuck. I’ll never last if you keep that up. Come here.”

We sank to the floor, and after his mouth blazed a southward trail from my breasts down my stomach, I bowed off the rug and roughly grabbed his hair—first to keep his face between my legs, then to push him away. I, too, wasn’t going to last.

“Lon,” I begged. But I didn’t need to. He knew.

His body covered mine. He hooked one of my legs around his waist and hiked it higher, spreading my legs wider with his knees. When I felt him nudge my center, I thrust my hips upward and welcomed him inside.

Joy-joy-joy!

Relief-relief-relief!

Whether I was hearing him or experiencing my own feelings, I couldn’t tell anymore. Emotion and pleasure emulsified until I couldn’t separate one from the other, his from mine, mine from his. There was only his driving weight above me and the intense, raw thrill that bloomed between us.

When he spread his knees wider, I twined both my legs around his and dug my toes into his calves, pinning him from below. With his weight braced on one forearm, he used his free hand to cup the back of my neck and pull my head up to meet his, pressing his forehead to mine. His long hair tickled my cheeks.

“You hear that?” he asked between huffed breaths.

“Yes,” I whispered. “I hear us.”

Exhilaration shot through me, and just like that, everything picked up speed and violence—his hips, my shaking muscles, and the urgent release we were both chasing.

He begged me; I threatened him.

He warned me; I cursed him.

And I knew the exact second he was lost, when he couldn’t hold back. His forehead pushed against mine hard enough to bruise, and I felt all that strength crumble under the free fall of his surrender. And it was so good, watching him come, so sweet and disarming and brutal, that I forgot about my own racing needs, just for a moment. Just long enough for me to be caught off-guard when my own orgasm came at the tail end of his.

It was almost as if my body had forgotten how to do it right and that it, too, was surprised. Then it felt as if the floor dropped out beneath me. I clung to Lon as if I were dying. It was so intense it was almost painful, and I was half afraid I’d broken something. But when the last shudder ran through me, I collapsed in a pile of relief, satiated and thoroughly wrung out.

Lon didn’t say anything. He just rolled off onto his back and took me with him, settling me on top of his chest, penning my legs between his, as if we’d done this a million times. He held me loosely and kissed the top of my head as it fell against his neck.

The lingering, pulsing pleasure that steadily thumped through the middle third of my body made me forget my own name for a long moment. But somewhere in the distance, in a deep, quiet place inside him, I heard something. It spread like warm honey, slow and unmanageable, a wild thing that had no center or borders. I didn’t know what it was, but it grew so loud that I was overwhelmed by the unexpected strength of it. I felt the wet tickle down my cheeks before I realized I was quietly crying.

And then he said something that turned my world upside down.

A simple thing. Innocuous, almost. A sentiment that clearly just slipped from his lips. A casual confession that was an outgrowth of the thing I could already hear him feeling.

He said, “Jesus fucking Christ. I’ve missed you so much.”

And that’s when I absolutely knew something wasn’t right inside my head.

I slid to my side, heart hammering in my chest, and stared at him. “What did you say?”

Had I not been wielding the empathic knack, I might have believed his poker face when he said, “Hmm?” God, he was good. Better than I ever realized. Because behind his languorous façade, his emotions were going haywire, practically screaming Oh, shit! in my face.

My mouth dropped open. “We’ve had sex before.”

“Cady—”

“My screwed-up memories . . . that night I can’t remember before our road trip. Did we have sex that night?”

“No.” He was telling the truth.

“But we’ve had sex before,” I said, putting a palm on the center of his chest.

He closed his eyes and let his head loll on the rug. “Yes.”

“Not just once. Lots.”

His panic slowed and trickled into heavy resignation. “I haven’t kept count.”

“Try. How many?”

“Once or twice a day, four or five days a week, give or take . . .”

“Mother of God. Since when?”