“It’s okay,” she insisted, arching against him.
He regarded her doubtfully. They’d never taken chances before. “You’re sure?”
She shoved his clothes aside and feathered kisses across his belly, then lower. “I’m sure,” she insisted, then touched her tongue to the tip of his arousal. “I’m sure.”
Mike never questioned her sincerity after that. This was the first woman he’d ever loved, the woman whose body and responses were as familiar to him as his own. Urgency wiped out all rational thought as he stripped away his clothes and then the last scraps of hers. Her skin was hot and damp when he finally poised above her. Slowly, savoring every sweet sensation, he sank into her, sheathing himself in slick velvet heat.
For a moment that was enough, just being inside her again, just feeling the stirring of his body, the pounding of his heart. Then he wanted more, so much more. Jane’s cries echoed in his head as each thrust went deeper and deeper, joining them in a frenzy that went beyond lust.
It had never been like this before. They’d never made love with such uninhibited abandon, as if each sensation were wild and reckless and new. No dare he’d taken since leaving her had been this exciting, this thrilling. Maybe he’d always held back something, knowing that one day the right job would come along and he would leave. Maybe she’d always held back, knowing she would stand aside and watch him go.
Now, though, it was as if they had reached that hurdle and pushed past it. Whatever happened to them, the chemistry between them would triumph. This was the proof of that. The past, the future, neither mattered. It was now, this moment they were living in.
Thinking of it, Mike smiled. Jane caught him. Entwined in his arms, their bodies slick with sweat, she tilted her head and assessed him curiously.
“Something about this amuses you?”
“It’s you,” he said at once. “You amuse and delight and thrill me.”
“Prove it,” she dared, wriggling her hips provocatively.
“You just wait,” he taunted, rolling until he was on his back and she was astride him. “I’m going to let you have your way with me.”
He linked his hands behind his head and leaned back against a pile of pillows. “I’m all yours, Janie.”
Her eyes widened. “But—”
“Just use your imagination. Anything goes.”
A grin spread slowly across her face. “Big mistake, Mike. I have a very inventive imagination and months alone to let it run wild.”
To his astonishment and delight, she pretty much exhausted him proving it.
When they’d finally collapsed and were nestled in each other’s arms again, Mike listened to the soft sound of her even breathing, then sighed. “Oh, Janie,” he murmured. “How am I ever going to let you go a second time?”
He would have to, too. There wasn’t a doubt in his mind about that. He loved San Francisco and his job, the life he’d built for himself, the sense of security that had been such a long time coming. And as much as he wanted to, he couldn’t deny that Jane belonged in the town where they’d grown up. Her roots ran deep, her feelings for the place and her friends ran even deeper. In a few short days she would go back and he’d be left to make do with these new memories and a cold, lonely bed.
* * *
Waking up to find Mike still beside her, his breath on her shoulder warm, his arm across her middle heavy, Jane smiled contentedly. It wasn’t over between them, not with such powerful chemistry exploding at the slightest touch. They had six more days to figure out a solution that would keep them together. She felt more hopeful than she had since the night he’d told her he was leaving.
“You look awfully smug,” Mike murmured, his voice gravelly with sleep.
“Do I? Maybe that’s because I actually managed to distract you not only from opening your third present last night, but from your birthday cake and champagne.”
“And you consider that a coup?”
“I consider it a miracle.”
“Where is that present?”
She shrugged. “On the floor somewhere, I suppose.”
“I hope to heaven it wasn’t breakable.”
She grinned as she thought of what the box contained—glow in the dark condoms. They’d been meant as a joke… and as a last resort if the picture of his old car hadn’t gotten him into bed. Mike was a healthy, virile male, unlikely to resist such a blatant message. And, as he’d said the night before, they’d never taken chances. She hadn’t deliberately set out to take one last night. The condoms, she reassured herself, were proof of that.
Even so, she couldn’t help whispering a little prayer that she had gotten pregnant. Not to trap him, never that, but to give herself the child she wanted so desperately. Mike’s baby.
“Jane?”
“Hmm?”
“The present. It’s not breakable, is it?”
“That’s definitely something you don’t need to worry about,” she assured him. “These are guaranteed not to break.”
“These?”
She scrambled off the bed and found the box, then tossed it to him. He shook it, obviously intrigued by the light weight. When he ripped off the paper and saw what was inside, he chuckled.
“Insurance?”
“There are twelve of them. As I recall, there was a time you would have considered that a dare.”
He winked at her. “Still do. Order up a huge breakfast so I’ll have the strength for it and we’ll try to make a dent in the supply.”
They saw very little of San Francisco that day or the next, but Jane couldn’t have been happier. She had come to see Mike, not the city. This was the honeymoon they’d never had, the one she’d been envisioning since she first knew what the word meant. It didn’t seem to matter that the wedding she’d also envisioned had never happened. If anything, their appetites for each other were more insatiable than ever. They talked, made love, ate, made love, slept and made love again. It couldn’t have been more
