Flashback

“I never meant to break yours.”

“At least let me think I’m getting my revenge, okay?”

Her toes were killing him. So were her legs, the ones all caught up in his. And somehow he had a thigh between hers…

She propped her head up with her good hand, staring at him in the oddly lit room. Now he could see her forehead and her nose, but not her eyes or her mouth.

“It really is going to be you nursing the heart this time,” she whispered.

That could very well be. But honestly, he wasn’t sure his bruised heart functioned enough to break. Hell, it was probably dried up from misuse. And yet…and yet lying there with her in his arms seemed to jump-start the organ. It ached, and not just because of their past, it ached for the here and now, for the woman she’d become.

“You,” she repeated softly, even a little smugly, and for some reason, some sick reason, it was a turn-on.

And because he was weak and maybe just a little bit stupid, he put his hand on her hip and leaned in to see her better, which he couldn’t. She was still in slatted black and white. “I meant what I said, Kenz. I’m sorry you got hurt.”

“Good. I want you sorry. Very, very sorry.”

Yes, but did she want him aroused? Because he was. Her T-shirt had risen up enough to remind him she wasn’t wearing panties.

Yeah, colossally stupid.

By now it had to be crystal clear to her that he was butt-ass naked. In the name of fair warning, he pulled her in a little closer.

“What are you doing?”

What was he doing? No idea. Bending his head, he rubbed his jaw to hers, bumped the tip of his nose to her earlobe.

With a shiver, she clutched at him and arched her neck, giving him better access.

Which he took.

“I can’t remember what I was saying,” she murmured.

He let out a breath in her ear and she shivered again, which he liked. He liked that a lot. “You were telling me how you’re going to break my heart.”

“That’s right.” Her fingers dug into the small of his back as she moved, the black and white shadows shifting over her. “I am. Aidan?”

“Yeah?”

“You’re naked.”

He’d been wondering when that would come up. Seeing as he was already quite “up”…

She gulped, and then did something he didn’t expect. She rolled to her back and pulled him on top of her, allowing him to settle between her thighs, which were not cold like her feet, but warm and cushy and very, very welcoming.

“You should know,” she whispered in his ear, making sure her lips brushed his flesh, causing a series of shivers of his own. “I plan to make you beg for mercy this time.”

God. “I’m close to begging right now,” he admitted.

“Really?”

She sounded breathless as hell, which was another big turn-on. So many…“Really.”

He was hard. She was soft, so soft, and pressing all that softness up against him. “If you’re not sleepwalking, or having a bad dream,” he wondered, “why are you in here?”

“No hotels, remember?”

“Why are you in bed with me?” he clarified.

Her hands glided up and down his back, going lower on each pass. “My feet were cold.”

He pressed his feet to hers, and then his mouth to her throat. “Is that all?”

“Absolutely. That and the begging.”

He let out a huff of low laughter against her skin, and then because his mouth was right there against her neck, and because she was touching his butt, and because she smelled good, he took a little nibble.

Her fingers dug into him, telling him how much she liked it but she shook her head. “No more touching until you beg.”

“I wasn’t touching, I was kissing.”

“No kissing until you beg. No anything until you beg.”

“I’ve never begged for this before.”

“No? Well, it’s good for your character to try new things.”

He laughed again. Laughed while trying to get laid. That was new. “Okay.” Lifting his head, he cupped her face between his hands and looked into her eyes. She was smiling, too, and it was good to see her doing so. It was good to see her period; his smile slowly faded. “Can I kiss you, Kenzie?”

“Is that the best you got?”

“Can I pretty-please kiss you?”

“Well, I suppose…”

That was all he let her get out before he lowered his mouth to hers and kissed her. She let out a little murmur of surprise and what he sincerely hoped was pleasure, because holy shit, it was like taking a time machine back in time, back to that sweet, hot, most amazing summer he’d once spent in her arms.

She made the sound again, the one that drove him crazy with wanting, and then she entwined her arms up around his neck, gliding her fingers into his short hair and tightening them, as if she didn’t want him going anywhere.

Fat chance.

When he slid his tongue to hers, it was another homecoming, and this time her shuddery sigh was pure, hungry delight with a sprinkle of unadulterated lust on top.

Oh, yeah. Pulling back just enough to look into her eyes, he found the same sense of bewildered wonderment across her face that he imagined was across his. Because, yes, they were attracted to each other because of their past, but suddenly it was much, much more than that. Then the next thing he knew, they’d lunged for each other again, trying to climb into each other’s body, just like old times.

Only it was new, all so damn new, and all the more heart-wrenching and gripping for it. They were no longer young and stupid. They were old enough to know better, old enough to know exactly what they were doing, old enough that he knew that this time, there would be no escaping unscathed.

It didn’t stop him.

7

O H . M Y . G OD .

Kenzie struggled to think, but Aidan had taken her breath away And, as he surged up to his knees between her spread thighs, his hands fisted in the hem of his own shirt, his intention perfectly clear, he nearly stole her sanity- but she held on by a thread. “Wait,” she gasped, putting a hand to his chest. “Hold it.”

Still kneeling between her sprawled legs, his hands on the big T-shirt, about to strip her as naked as he was, he looked into her eyes. “Wait?”

She could have drowned in his gaze. Happily drowned. “You stopped begging.”

He arched an eyebrow, which was highlighted by the slants of moonlight across his face. Stripes of light and dark, and in them, he was beautiful. “I mean it,” she managed. “Absolutely nothing else happens here without some serious begging.”

He stared at her, then lowered his head for a moment. When he lifted it again, she expected him to tell her he never begged for anything. That this-she-wasn’t worth it. After all, she hadn’t been once.

But he surprised her. “When we were together,” he said quietly, “I dreamed about your body on the nights we didn’t sleep in the same bed. Did you know that?”