Another time, he’d take the game to the next level by making her stay still, too, but this morning he knew that wouldn’t be fair to either of them. Not when they’d both waited so long to be together again like this. In fact, Ford suddenly decided, it was long past time to reward them both.

Without giving her any warning, he slid his hands up and over her br**sts at the exact moment that he covered her sex with his mouth. His name erupted from her lips on a scream of pleasure as he opened her wide for his tongue and slid inside her clenching heat. Her skin was damp beneath his palms, her ni**les hard beneath his fingertips, her arousal sweet against his tongue.

No doubt about it, lifting his mouth and hands from her a moment later was one of the hardest things he’d ever done. Even harder than it had been for him to stop at goodnight kisses all week.

“Ford?” His name was more gasp than word. “Why did you stop?”

“Shh,” he whispered as he moved up over her to press a soft kiss against her neck. Her mouth was still a no-go zone if he wanted to have even the slightest prayer of prolonging their pleasure. “We’re almost there.”

With her eyes still closed, she didn’t see that his hands were shaking as he sat up to slip on a condom. Or that it took every last ounce of his self-control to position himself between her legs without thrusting into her gorgeously slick heat.

“Open for me, baby.” She was so turned on, so ready for him to love her, that his heart nearly stopped as she did what he asked. “Wider,” he urged, barely above a whisper, needing more even as he knew that he’d never get enough of her.

As she shifted her thighs apart even farther, a little moan fell from her lips, and he had to reach up to rub his thumb across them as if to soothe her. Her tongue sneaked out to lick at him. She sucked his thumb all the way into her mouth, scraping her teeth over it in a way that made him pulse inside the condom without his erection even touching her yet.

Taking his hand away from her mouth, he put it on her hip to hold her still. Seeing that her eyes were about to flicker open, he said, “Remember, hands on the bars and eyes shut.”

He could see her warring with herself for a few moments, but then, she obviously decided it was in her best interests to keep following his sensual orders. And he damn well planned to make sure that she didn’t regret it as he curved his hands around to cup her hips and lift her slightly off the bed so that she was even more open to him. He used his other hand to prop himself up on the bed beside her...and then he slid the full length of his erection against her sex.

Her gasp of surprised pleasure tore at him, making him want to give up the sexy game and slam all the way into her in the next breath. Only, knowing he could make Mia feel this good, and that she trusted him to take her to exactly the place she needed to go, gave him the strength to hold on to his original intention.

To make her feel better than she ever had before.

Again and again, he slid back, then forward, and she moved with him, lifting her hips from the bed so that they were as close as two people could be without actually making love.

“I have to look,” she pleaded. “Please let me look.”

She was right, it wasn’t fair that only he had the pleasure of watching their bodies slip and slide against each other like this. “Open your eyes.”

On a deeply relieved exhale, she lifted her lids and immediately locked her gaze on his erection as he slid once again up against the slickly aroused vee between her legs. “Oh God, Ford. You’re so beautiful.”

“So are you,” he told her. “The most beautiful thing I’ve ever known.”

He held out for as long as he could, teasing both of them just like that until her abdominal muscles began to tighten and he knew she was right on the edge of release. Ford wrapped his hands around Mia’s and together they held onto each other and the bed frame as he finally slid hard and deep inside her.

With both of them racing together toward ecstasy, just as her body began to pulse and pull at his, he lowered his mouth to hers to tell her how much he loved her in every possible way he could.

* * *

A little while later, Mia sat on a stool at Ford’s kitchen island sipping the coffee she’d made and wearing one of his long-sleeved shirts with nothing on underneath it. He’d pulled on a pair of boxers, which rode low across his hips. With nearly every last inch of skin and muscle and tattoo on display, she was definitely hungry. Only, not nearly as hungry for the yummy smelling breakfast he was making her as she was for him.

“Wow,” she said as he quickly mixed batter together and poured it onto the sizzling waffle maker, then began to beat the six eggs he’d pulled out of the fridge, “I didn’t know you could cook.”

“Living on a tour bus for as long as I did, you get pretty good at figuring out a few things you can make without having to go into another greasy spoon or eat out of another to-go box. Turns out that waffles and eggs work for breakfast, lunch and dinner if you need them to.”

On the one hand, she could see that life on the road hadn’t always been glamorous, regardless of how fancy his bus had been or how much money he had to pave his way from city to city. But on the other, even as he talked about being tired of greasy spoons and too many takeout boxes, it was obvious that he hadn’t really minded the downsides of his career all that much. And, after all, didn’t every job have a few difficult aspects? Being a Realtor, for instance, meant that her weekends were usually busy with showings, where most people took Saturdays and Sundays to relax with friends and family. But she enjoyed what she did enough that taking Mondays off instead of Saturdays never bothered her.

After liberally covering the waffles with butter and syrup, he carried one big plate of food over to the table.

“You planning on sharing any of that?”

He sat down and patted his lap. “Come here and you’ll find out exactly what I’ve got planned.”

Despite the fact that he’d just blown her mind in a half-dozen different ways in bed, her body instantly revved up for another round. His cotton shirt scratched against her sensitive br**sts in the sexiest possible way as she slowly walked over to him, then lifted one leg over both of his so that she could straddle him on the chair.

Their mouths came together at the same instant, his erection growing bigger and hotter against the vee of her legs as she rocked closer to him.

“Jesus, Mia,” he said as he finally drew back, “I swear I was planning on feeding you breakfast.”