“Past tense,” she observed ruefully.
“No,” he swore, leaving his chair to gather her into his arms. She held herself so stiffly, refusing to yield to a comfort too easily offered.
“Present tense,” he told her. “I want you now every bit as much as I did when we were a couple of kids discovering our hormones for the first time. Couldn’t you tell that last night on the beach, or the night before that and the night before that?”
Apparently he had found the right words—or the right combination of words and touch, after all. He could see the relief slowly washing through her. The words, though, would never be enough. He had to show her how much he needed her, how beautiful he still found her.
“Come with me,” he coaxed, brushing her hair back from her face. All thoughts of other issues, other problems faded in his need to convince her of this much at least. “Let me put this crazy notion of yours to rest forever.”
Lacey was slow to accept, and he thought for a moment that she might not, using who-knew-what this time as an excuse. In that brief instant of hesitation, he weighed the future without her against the past and realized that nothing would ever be the same if he lost her.
Kevin slid his fingers through her hair until the silky curls tumbled free. The pad of his thumb traced her mouth, the full bottom lip that trembled beneath his touch.
“Please,” he whispered, unable to hide the faint note of desperation. “I need you, Lacey. I need you now.”
Her fingers came up and linked with his, and the shadows slid away from her eyes, revealing the sheen of tears. “I need you, too,” she said.
He would have swept her into his arms in a romantic gesture if he hadn’t caught the forbidding look on her face when she realized his intentions. He grinned ruefully. “It’s only a few feet,” he reminded her.
“Then surely my knees aren’t so weak with longing that I can’t walk there on my own,” she said, surprising him with the dry humor.
His low chuckle slipped out and then they were both laughing. He slanted a kiss across her mouth, capturing the much too infrequent musical sound of her laughter and the taste of milky tea.
“You could always make me laugh,” he said.
“I know,” she said with a devilish twinkle in her eyes.
But then her hands were at work on the snap of his jeans and he no longer felt the least bit like laughing. He sucked in his breath when her fingers skimmed across denim seeking the already hard shaft beneath.
“Wait,” Kevin said urgently, pulling her down to the bed with him and pinning her hands away from him. He touched his mouth to hers, savoring again the taste, the texture, the heat. Her lips, her tongue had always fascinated him. He could have spent hours absorbed in no more than the nuances of her kisses. But all the while, he worked to rid her of her blouse, her bra, her jeans and panties, just so he could skim fingertips over velvet flesh and tight golden curls.
Soft whispers turned to anxious moans as he came closer and closer to the moist warmth at the apex of her thighs. She struggled to free her hands and when he released her at long last, she used her hands to torment him, to stroke and caress, to soothe and inflame. She slid her hands under his sweater, tangling her fingers in the hairs on his chest, seeking masculine nipples, her gaze locked with his.
She shifted then, and he couldn’t take his eyes off the pale softness of her hands as they curved around him, stroking until he thought he would explode from the intensity.
Each of them battled to give, to shower the other with all the love, all the satisfaction that had been withheld for so long. And when the giving pulled them higher and higher, they had to release that last thread of control and learn to accept the unselfish offering.
Lacey came apart first, her body arching, her skin slick with sweat, her eyes filled with so much joy that Kevin was drawn along with her.
When both of them had caught their breath, when the caresses had slowed, he looked into her eyes and promised more. This time, joined together, they traveled even farther, soared even higher.
He couldn’t recall a time when they had asked more of each other or given so much. It was proof, beyond all doubt, that what they had was strong enough to last a lifetime.
They slept then, close together, their breath mingling as morning turned to afternoon.
It was only later, in the aftermath of that extraordinary lovemaking, that Kevin said, “This was never, ever the problem between us, Lace.”
He swept his hand over the curve of her hip, lingered on the fullness of her breast to prove his point. He knew at once when her body tensed, knew instinctively that his meaning had registered in a way that went beyond the reassuring simplicity of the words. He had unwittingly opened a new door, rather than closing an old one.
“Then what was it?” she demanded softly. “You can’t deny that for a time we never touched, not in any way that mattered. Were you just too busy? Too tired? What?”
Kevin tried to find the answers she needed to hear. He searched his heart for things he had never before been willing to put into words. Maybe even thoughts he’d never dared to acknowledge, even to himself.
“Too distracted is probably closer to the truth. I lost sight of what was important,” he admitted slowly, as he carefully sorted through explanations.
“After all those years of rebelling, of making my own way, I got caught up in my father’s dreams after all. Halloran Industries became important to me. I wanted to make it work. I wanted to have a legacy for our son.”
Lacey sat up then, dragging
