“I’m so sorry.” I breathed it into her soft skin and kissed her pulse all the way up to her ear. I felt the tight vise of her body start to loosen just a fraction at the motion. I used my teeth on her earlobe and heard her sigh in pleasure.

She wiggled her h*ps just a little, and as I traced the outside shell of her ear with my tongue, the snug fit suddenly let go and I slid in to the hilt, so we were pelvis to pelvis. I rubbed my cheek against her much softer one and she told me, “You just have to give me a second to catch up.”

I laughed into her hair and the sound quickly turned into a groan as her inner muscles started to squeeze and move along my throbbing c**k in a way that made my eyes roll back in my head.

“Fair enough.” I cupped her around the back of the neck and sealed my mouth over hers as I stared to move now that I had the freedom to do so.

I kissed her so she could feel all the things I was working with. I kissed her so she could feel me. I kissed her so that I could tell her without words how badly I was hurting and how disoriented I suddenly felt. She kissed me back and I felt like it was where my home had always been.

Now that her libido was on board with my own, I dug my fingers into the giving flesh of her backside and really started to thrust into her. She crossed her legs around my waist and I felt her heels dig into my ass. I had to break the kiss to suck in a much-needed breath, and when I did she switched her attention to my jaw and dropped sweet little kisses all along the clenched line. Even while I was powering into her, rutting like an animal into her soft heat, she was still trying to soothe me and make it all better, even though she had no idea what was wrong.

I clamped my teeth on the curve of her neck and sucked hard enough that I knew a mark would be left behind on her dusky skin.

I felt the response deep inside her and that made my dick very happy. Actually my dick was way happier than it normally was when it was buried inside of her and it wasn’t until I felt my balls draw up and the orgasm blindside me with a tidal wave of pleasure that I understood why. I inhaled her scent, kissed the red mark I had left on her throat as she shivered and quaked around me as she reached her own pinnacle of release. I told her quietly as she came down and peeled her eyes open to look at me, “I didn’t use anything, Salem.”

She was quiet for a minute and I almost panicked. We still hadn’t had the been-there-and-done-that-with-every-girl-on-the-block talk and I wasn’t exactly eager to know who she had been spending her time with in the last decade, so I just used a rubber every time we were together and called it good enough.

She lifted a black eyebrow and put her hands on either side of my face. “We’re fine. As long as you don’t have any scary things hiding in your sexual closet, I’m on the pill and have been for a long time.”

I lifted an eyebrow to match her own wry expression. “Clean as a whistle.”

“Me, too.”

Well, that was a much easier conversation to have than I had anticipated and I had to admit it gave me an odd kind of thrill to think about ha**ng s*x without anything between me and her. I had been sexually active for a long time and I couldn’t remember ever being with a girl and not having latex be part of the program. Yet another first this woman was for me.

I kissed her again. This time with the care she deserved and with all the gratitude I could put into it. We both made a strangled noise of pleasure and regret as I pulled out of her and bent to lean my forehead against hers. I still had her caught up against the door and I liked the position she was in because we were eye to eye and even if I wanted to it was really hard to look away from her pitch-black gaze.

She rubbed her hands over the sides of my head where my hair was short and reached up to smooth down some of the strands that were still sticking up all wild and out of control on the top of my head.

“Not that I’m ever going to complain about being thoroughly ravished by a blond sex god, but maybe you can explain to me what brought that all on so I can be more prepared for it next time.”

I rubbed my forehead against hers as I shook my head and made her laugh when I pulled her off the door and stumbled to the couch still holding her in my arms. My pants were still undone and half off of my ass, so when her damp core hit my lower belly my traitorous dick twitched in awareness. I wondered if I was ever going to get enough of her.

She braced her hands on my shoulders and asked me in a very serious tone, “Rowdy, what happened?”

I thought maybe I could get through spilling my guts easier if I had something else to focus on, so I stripped her cool T-shirt off of her and reached behind her to pop open the clasp on her bra. She rolled her eyes at me and told me I had a one-track mind. I didn’t argue and instead pulled my own shirt off over my head and pulled her to my chest so that our hearts were pressed together and beating in time. There was nothing sexier than the slide of metal across my skin as her ni**les brushed my tattooed skin. She was the hottest thing in the world.

“You know the lawyer?”

She tucked her head under my chin as she trailed her fingers up and down my ribs.

“Sayer? The one that works down by the LoDo shop?”

“She’s the one.” I could hear bitterness creeping into my tone as the unbelievability of her claims made my body go tense even though Salem was petting me and rubbing me down like I was a rabid wolf. After the way I had gone after her without any warning it was no wonder she was treading lightly with me.

“What about her? Did she finally work up the nerve to get a tattoo?”

I barked out a choked laugh and decided I needed her all the way na**d before I could go on. I urged her up so that she was standing in front of me and pulled her now-wrinkled skirt off of her and settled her back across my lap so that she was straddling me. Everything below my waist took immediate notice of all my favorite parts of her hovering na**d and close by.

“No, but she finally worked up the nerve to tell me that she’s here in Denver because of me.”

“What!”

Maybe that wasn’t the best thing to say to the na**d woman on my lap but my brain was tired and my c**k was getting hard again.

“Not like that. She claims she’s my half sister. She said my dad”—I made air quotes in air around the word “dad”—“died last year, and when she went through his estate she was stunned to find out he had left half of everything to a long-lost son . . . me. What in hell am I supposed to do with that?”

“Wow.” It was just a puff of sound. “That’s insane and intense.”