“Are you sure?” he said, his breath catching in the back of his throat.
She smiled. “Never more sure in my life,” she whispered, stretching up on her tiptoes, but still she could only reach his chin. She kissed him gently.
He leaned down to give her a kiss on the lips. The first kiss was tentative and gentle, more of a searching kiss to see if there was a response. And what a response there was, as she could feel her heart slamming against her ribs and then her body straining to get closer to his. She threw her arms around his neck and passionately kissed him back.
His arms wrapped around her and held her tight.
With her pressed against his bare chest, she could already feel his response. She loved it. She loved everything about it. She’d missed being held, missed making love and missed being close to somebody. She hadn’t been with anyone since her husband, thinking she could never trust another man. But instinctively she knew this would be a man she could trust, not just for now but forever.
When he finally stepped back, he slipped off the rest of his clothes, and she unclipped her bra so she stood there just in tiny panties. But, even then, she stopped, amazed when she saw all of him. His quads were massive and, of course, the rest of him made her smile. She reached out, her fingers wrapping around his erection. He sucked in his breath, his hands going to hers to hold her there and to stop the movement.
“If you do that,” he said, “it’ll be over far too soon.”
“Well, I highly doubt it’ll be the end anyway. I suspect you’re good for more than one round,” she teased.
He gave her a wicked smile. “Why don’t we find out?”
Before she realized what he intended, he picked her up and tossed her on the daybed, where she let out a startled squeak. She clapped her hand over her mouth as she realized her daughter slept just one door away. She’d never made love to a man with her daughter in the house before outside of Charlie.
He grinned. “Now you don’t have to be as quiet,” he said.
With two quick snaps, her tiny panties were gone. He stopped, his eyes going hot as he studied every inch of her nude body. “You are so tiny,” he marveled, his hands spreading across her sunken belly.
“I’m hardly tiny.”
“You are,” he said. “Long, lean and beautiful.”
She could hear the fervor in his voice and the passion coating his tones, and she loved it. She stretched out in front of him, her arms over her head. “I don’t know how much peace and quiet we’ll have—”
“So get on with it, is that it?” he teased in a whisper as he came down on the bed beside her. He knelt between her legs, staring at her. “You’re so beautiful.”
She laughed, completely natural and comfortable in this state. “It seems almost disrespectful to make love,” she said, “with all the horrible events earlier.”
“No,” he said. “It has nothing to do with it. That was death. This is rebirth.” He bent down, wrapped his arms under her and gently kissed her. Then he worked his way down her neck, her collarbone, her arm and right to her fingertips, kissing and caressing every inch of her.
She twisted and sighed, moaning with joy and passion, and, when he finally worked his way back up the other side of her, she was already mindless jelly. “I don’t care how long you do this, and we can go all night, but I really, really, really want you inside me right now.”
Before she had a chance to say anything else, he was seated right at the heart of her. Her body arched naturally, her muscles tense and struggling to relax and to accept this new force within her. He stilled and waited, his hands gently massaging her hips and her thighs. He murmured against her neck, “Are you okay?”
She took a deep breath, shifted her position and then nodded. “It’s been a long time.”
He leaned over her, smiled and whispered, “Good, but it won’t be very long after this.” And he kissed her, his tongue sliding deep within and mimicking the same motion as his hips as he started to move. She shuddered beneath him, her temperature already escalating back to where it had been before his entry. She kissed him tenderly at first, but soon there was no tenderness, just heat. It was passion; it was tumultuous emotions and pulsating nerves.
When he finally held her at the precipice, she whispered, “Now, please, dear God, now!”
He slid his fingers down between them to find the little nub and sent her flying off the cliff. As she floated free of her body, consumed by that kaleidoscope of emotions and nerve endings, she heard him groan above her, before collapsing beside her. He held her close and wrapped up in his arms as she lay against him.
“This was not quite what I expected when I came to Alaska,” he whispered. “I had wished …”
She chuckled. “Then it’s a good thing you came up here. I always knew it was important that you did. I just didn’t know why.”
“Well, it’s important,” he said, “and what’s most important is what we do with it now.”
She looked up at him. “Everything that’s happened since you arrived here has been so crazy. It doesn’t seem real.”
He leaned over and kissed her hard. “Does that seem real?”
“Yes,” she said, gently rubbing her nose against his. “This is very real.”
“And Sari’s real,” he said,
