Like either of them cared.

He laid her down on the top, her body thumping against the wood. “I need you,” he said. “I have to …”

Her answer was a scramble with her hands at her pants as she released the button, yanked at the zipper. When she kicked off her boots, they banged against the side of the desk, and bumped as they hit the floor, and then the jeans were gone—

He tore her panties. Just ripped the cotton right off of her.

He wanted to keep going, get her all naked, take his time.

But that wasn’t happening in her damned office.

Daniel did a yanking of his own, and his cock exploded out of his fly. Planting his palm by her shoulder, he leaned over her, grabbed the back of her thigh, and pulled her to the edge of the desk. As her naked ass squeaked on the wood, she cried out and her legs fell open.

He backed off a little and looked down. When he saw her glistening sex, bared to him, hungry for him, he felt his balls tighten.

Oh, no you don’t, he told himself. We’re not going that route again.

Taking hold of himself, he growled, “You’re mine.”

Gritting his teeth, he stroked the head of his erection up and down her core, and in response, she jerked up, her spine arching, her mouth falling open. With her hair spilled out around her, loose and shining, and the flush on her face, and her gasping and straining for breath, she was life to his numb heart, warmth to his cold soul.

In another time, in another destiny, she would have been the path he walked, the way through his mortal landscape.

But they had met out of sequence—

Daniel thrust inside her and she grabbed on to his shoulders while she called out his name. Dropping his head, he started pumping. He meant to go slowly. He couldn’t stop. He was not in control. His body was working independently, slapping into her, clapping against her. As he bent over and fucked her, he was grunting like an animal, totally unhinged, and underneath him, she was taking everything that he had to give her.

He’d gotten it wrong.

She wasn’t his. It was the other way around.

She owned him.

 

Underneath her lover, Lydia’s body absorbed the powerful thrusting, Daniel’s hips swinging at the base of his spine, his erection penetrating her deep and then retreating, penetrating her and ripping back out. It was hard—it was rough. It was raw.

And she wanted the sex to last forever.

That was her thought as a release shattered through her, torqueing her body, making her feel a rush of sensation she had never known before. And just as she flew, Daniel locked against her, his arousal kicking inside of her, making the pleasure crest again—

His mouth found hers, and they were kissing as the orgasms kept going.

And then it was over, as fast as it had begun.

Yet the sex was so intense, she felt like she had been gone for a hundred years as they fell still. In the aftermath, they were both breathing hard, and Daniel collapsed on her, his weight pressing her into the desk. Which could have been a down mattress for all she knew. Or cared.

“Fuck,” he muttered against her ear. “I’m sorry. This is not what …”

Running her hands through his hair, she wrapped her legs around his hips and crossed her ankles. “What are you apologizing for? I wanted it, too. And don’t worry … I can’t have children. I’m not—there will never be any pregnancy.”

He blinked, as if she’d shocked him. “I, ah … I should have thought about that.”

“As I said, you don’t have to.” When he pulled up a little and looked awkward, she shook her head. “It’s not something to be emotional about. To use a phrase of yours, it is what it is.”

“I’m sorry.”

She stroked his face, marveling that he was inside her. “Let’s not ruin the moment. Come on, let’s just … be here, where we are.”

“Lydia … I wish so much was different.”

With her forefinger, she smoothed his brows. “At least we have right now. Or … had it.” As her sadness returned, she cradled his face in her hands. “Let’s lock up, and go home?”

“All right.”

He kissed her again. And again.

And after that, she tilted her head one way and he tilted his another, and then they were moving in a wave, softer, slower, but no less intensely. This time, the pleasure was like a flame, instead of a bomb burst, but it burned with just as much heat even though there was no urgency.

Holding on to him, she looked at the ceiling above her desk. With every thrust, her head moved back, and with every withdrawal, it righted itself, her visual point shifting to the same rhythm that he made love to her.

Oh, God, was she really doing this in her office? she wondered. Was this actually happening … or was it some erotic dream where she’d wake up with her thighs clenched and her breath tight as she pushed her face into her pillow on a groan of frustration—

“Daniel … ,” she moaned.

Her orgasm was more gentle now, but longer in duration, and his mouth was on hers again as she rode it out.

Squeezing her eyes shut, she felt like crying. Instead, she just held him tighter.

As if he were liable to disappear at any moment. Like a dream.

DANIEL PUT THE plate down in front of Lydia and stepped back. “My cooking isn’t as good as yours.”

When she looked up at him, her sad smile broke his heart. “Come on now, this is a gourmet meal to me.”

Not even close, he thought. Goddamn, he wished he could make her some BBQ on a grill, out in the fading August sun, with tinfoil-wrapped corn, and a big-ass salad from a garden he took care of. Then homemade strawberry ice cream with hot chocolate sauce he cooked up in the old-school way with corn syrup and semisweet morsels. Oh, and he wanted to do all this in a kitchen they shared, and eat it on the porch they enjoyed their lazy Sundays on.

“Spaghetti out of a box,” he said, “sauce from a jar.”

But made with lov—

No, he stopped himself.

“Aren’t you eating?” She looked to the sink and the strainer. “I’ll wait while you get your plate.”

“I had a big lunch out on the trail.”

“A picnic?”

He sat down across from her with one of his Cokes from the vending machine in the WSP’s break room. With the amount he was drinking at work, he was going to empty the thing of all its red cans.

“Yup, a picnic. Made up of picnic things.” He sat back and stretched. “Anyway, the last of the bridges is fixed. Equipment shed roof is solid. That doctored toilet is good for a little longer. ATV is fixed.”

“Your checklist.” Lydia twirled her fork around. “Everything done.”

As she let the sentence drift, he wondered if she hadn’t guessed he was leaving.

Fucking Eastwind. But that sheriff wasn’t the reason behind the departure. Bottom line, the most important thing he could do for Lydia was get the fuck out of her life. In the short term, he might be able to keep her safe-ish, but he would have to go sooner rather than later—and he had his own enemies.

“Where is the rest of your family,” he asked. “Cousins, uncles, aunts?”

Anybody.

Lydia shrugged. “It was just my grandfather and I. Only children of only children kind of narrow the family tree.”