to ride horses and herd goats. Who threw punches better than the guys on the football team and never backed down from a fight.”
“Everyone grows up,” she said, her mouth dry, her palms sweaty.
“Not like you, they don’t. I told myself I’d never…” He stopped and she held her breath.
“Never what?” she asked.
His smile was so male and sexy. “Never ask for more than you were willing to give,” he murmured.
He had no idea how much she was willing to give.
Kiss me, she thought, waiting for him to come closer, to press those perfect lips to hers. But he didn’t. He watched her until she thought she might die from the tension. From the painful desire spilling through her body.
It hurt to want him like this and have nowhere to take it.
And she realized, she could continue to wait for Jack McKibbon. Or she could start doing things her way.
She leaned forward and kissed him.
He started and she expected him to push her away, to tell her that he didn’t feel that way about her. But he didn’t.
His fingertips touched her wrist, curled around her hand, keeping her close.
Oh, she thought. Oh, he wants me, too.
It was careful. Soft. Two old friends testing the waters.
His lips were firm, chapped slightly and tasted of yogurt and mint. He smelled like everything good and warm in the world. Sun-baked pine needles and clothes fresh from the laundry.
She held her breath, keeping the moment close, memorizing every detail of this kiss. The electric distance between them. The way his nose bumped her cheek, how his lips parted and his tongue tasted the corner of her mouth.
A sigh slipped from her and she let him in.
He pushed the plate of food onto the ground and she tossed the skewer of meat over her shoulder so she could get her arms around him.
Jack McKibbon in her arms.
Solid and heavy. Real.
She held him hard, her fingers finding the curves of these new muscles of his. The jacket got in the way and she pushed her hands under it, feeling the heat of his skin through his white shirt. He was so hot. So alive.
This was better than every fantasy she ever had about him. Even the ones she tried to forget.
His tongue stroked her mouth, her teeth and lips. He shifted, rearranged himself, so he could hold her tighter, kiss her deeper.
“Mia,” he breathed, his fingers toying with the hem of her dress and the painfully sensitive skin of her leg just under it.
She felt every brush of his hand on that inch of skin as if he were stroking her naked body. Just how long it had been since someone touched her came hammering home and her body practically levitated with lust.
It had been a long, long time.
Mia was thirty years old. A wife who’d never been a wife, with only one terrible night of lovemaking she wished she could forget.
All of that was about to change. Right now.
She kissed him hard, pushing him back against the cushions. Yanking at the buttons of his shirt until some thing gave and she could finally—oh, yes, yes!—get her hands on the smooth skin of his chest. The muscles of his stomach. He groaned, deep and low in his throat as if the animal in him were coming alive, and that’s what she wanted. His hands, not gentle now, slid up under her dress, cupped her ass and squeezed.
She moaned, wanting more. Wanting rough. Wanting everything.
But he leaned back, breaking the kiss, leaving her panting above him.
“I don’t want you to think that I am in any way reluctant to do this,” he said, arching slightly against her so she knew how not reluctant he was. “But…” His eyes searched hers in the moonlight, liquid and knowing. “Are you sure?”
She nearly laughed. She was wet and hot and dying.
So, sure just about covered it.
“We never had a wedding night,” she whispered, watching his mouth and wanting it on her breasts, between her legs.
“No,” he said, with a slow grin that made her body clench and shiver. “We never did.”
His eyes froze her. Locked her in place, aching against him.
He slid his hands out from under her dress to find the small zipper under her arm and pulled it down. The rasp was loud in the electric silence between them. The dress bagged, and he put a finger under a sleeve, lowering it oh so slowly until the dress caught on her breasts.
He blinked, the heat banked for a second. “Mia,” he whispered as if asking permission and her breath clogged in her throat.
She hated her breasts. Heavy and full. Painful at the end of the day and they always, always attracted too much attention.
But right now, Jack’s hand trembling against her shoulder, she saw the upside.
She pushed herself away from him and when he moved to sit up, as if the night were over, she pushed him back down.
“Get comfortable,” she said and that smile slid back on his lips. Confident and sexy, he lay on his back, tucking his hands behind his head. Waiting for her to make the next move.
Lifting her skirt up nearly to her waist, she straddled his hips, notched herself against the ridge under his fly and they both groaned, twitching hard against the other.
He lifted his hands to her waist, dragging her slowly up and down his erection. Oh, it was so good. So perfect and delicious. The tension in her belly got hotter, harder.
Not yet, she thought. She wanted this to last all night. All night for the rest of her life. She pushed away his hands and shook back her hair, feeling powerful and womanly. Alive in all the very best ways.
And Jack, sweet Jack, just like when they were kids, kept his eyes glued to her face as if looking at her body would be disrespectful. She lifted her hands to her dress and eased the straps off her shoulders.
Jack swallowed, the smile gone now, his lips parting, his eyes wide in wonder.
She reached back and undid her bra, very aware of the revealing moonlight. Of the fact that this was Jack between her legs. Her husband. The man who’d married her and then walked away as if she and everything she loved were nothing. He’d spent the last five years being pursued by deans’ wives and probably gorgeous African women and foreign professors with giant brains and reasonable chests.
Self-consciousness crept in where she didn’t want it.
“You’re beautiful,” Jack said, snapping her attention away from her own head games. His eyes were serious. His face—the face of her best friend—earnest. “Whatever
