She wished she could have a lifetime of that with him.

Upstairs, they went to her room, not the guest room, but then he doubled back to go to the loo by himself. After she changed into PJs, he came back in and took the side of the bed closest to the door, plumping up the pillows and testing the mattress with his big palms. Leaving him to sort things of the bedding variety to his liking, she did her normal nightly routine down the hall at the sink—and when she returned to the room, she noticed that he’d moved his saddlebags in and put them right beside where he’d stretched out in the sheets.

That’s where his gun is, she thought as she pulled the covers back on the far side and slid in with him.

It was the most natural thing in the world to move through the cool sheets and find his warm body. Relaxing in against his chest, he stretched his long arm out and clicked off the lamp.

Lydia stared out the open doorway. She’d left the bathroom light on, so the banister’s supports cast shadows on the bare wood floor of the hallway.

I could do this forever, she thought.

Just regular stuff, like dinner, and laundry, and dental care. She supposed it was pathetic to have such simple life goals. Aspirations should be all about cars and fancy vacations—and this made her think about Peter Wynne.

How much of those renovations on that barn had been paid for by donations to the Wolf Study Project? Had he been buying that information about those horrific experiments? Or selling it?

And what the hell was she going to do with what she knew?

“Try to get some sleep,” Daniel murmured. “Morning is coming.”

Just like a freight train.

And she supposed it was a testament to Daniel that, with the long list of things weighing on her, he was the only part of it all that mattered. How else could their relationship have ended, though. Seriously. What other end could they have?

Besides, if he was gone?

She knew that he was safe.

There was peace to be had in that.

LYDIA WOKE UP to the sounds of spring bird-songs and the warmth of a patch of sunlight on her face. As her eyes blinked open, she found herself looking across at the window seat with its cozy pillows and its throw blanket and its never-had-a-cat-but-really-should-have cushions.

With an ache behind her sternum, she edited her alcove fantasy. Instead of the solo flight with the book and the tea and that cat, she imagined two people propped against opposite ends, their legs intertwined in the middle under the blanket. As they traded newspaper sections, and tossed those that had been jointly read on the floor, a TV table in between them held a pair of mugs of coffee and a shared plate dotted with muffin crumbs.

Rolling over, she looked at the empty place where Daniel had slept. He’d made sure she was tucked in after he’d gotten up, and the head print on the pillows was proof of the hours they had passed, side by side, in her bed.

Down the hall, the shower was running.

Glancing at the clock, she saw that it was a little after seven a.m. Time was running out.

With a sense of urgency, she threw the covers off herself and rushed for the closed bathroom door. But as she came up to it, she paused at the panels. Then she knocked.

“Lydia?” came the muffled answer.

Opening the way in, she was hit with a rolling, warm mist. Across the narrow space, Daniel had opened the glass enclosure and was looking around it, his broad chest glistening from the water, a bar of soap in his hand, suds drifting down his abs and onto his thighs.

As she stared at his sex, she watched it thicken. Harden. Become erect.

Lydia stepped in and closed the door behind herself. Ditching her PJs, she joined him under the warm spray, and with hands that trembled with anticipation, she ran her fingertips down his pecs and onto his six-pack.

Sinking onto her knees, she touched the sweeping wings of his pelvis and zeroed in on his arousal. Just as he groaned and fell back into the corner of the tub stall, she wrapped her hand around his thick shaft and stroked—

“Oh, fuck,” he groaned.

Opening her mouth, she teased his head with her tongue, licking at him before sucking him in deep. She wasn’t sure exactly what she was doing, but with the way his hips jerked and he threw out both arms to hold himself up, she figured her efforts were good enough. And she loved it. He was so big that he stretched her lips, and the feel of taking his full length made her sex run hot for him.

As she fell into a rhythm, one of his hands went down to her head, and he urged her along. With every surge forward, she opened her throat to accept as much of his length as she could. And with every retreat, she stroked him with her palm—

Looking up, she got an erotic show of his undulating abs, and his straining pecs and shoulders, and the underside of his chin as he thrashed his head back.

Just as she was sure he was about to find his release, she pulled back and opened her mouth—

Daniel moved so fast, she couldn’t track him. One second she was on her knees with the warm spray on her back and her head, and his sex in her mouth, and her breasts swaying back and forth as she sucked him—the next, she was up and spun around, her hands planted on the edge of the tub as he bent her over.

The probing at her core was quick—and then he sank into her deep, her head and shoulders pushing forward into the shower door. Shoving the glass out of her way, she held on to the lip of the tub as he began to move inside of her.

Faster. Faster still.

As she felt his big hands hook on to her hips, she looked up. Next to the sink, there was a full-length mirror on the wall, and the sight of him bowing over her, his magnificent torso rippling with muscle as he pumped into her sex, his eyes closed, his teeth bared—

It was more than she could handle.

Lydia came hard—and as his name left her lips, she knew she was praying for him to stay. Some way, somehow.

She just didn’t want to lose him.

 

As Lydia began to orgasm, Daniel couldn’t hold on any longer. Letting himself go, his erection kicked inside of her, his ejaculations filling her up, the pleasure making his head swim and his balance get fucked up.

God, he’d never had a problem with so-called stamina before. With Lydia? He was a sixteen-year-old kid, all hormones and no control—

The sound that came out of his throat was a growl and he switched his hold on her, running his arm up between her breasts and locking on to her collarbone and shoulder. Then he braced his legs and kept going, as if his body knew this was his last shot to be with her.

His final chance to feel this way.

He had no sense of time as they kept going, riding the pleasure, skimming the eternal with their bodies … but as all things started, so, too, they had to end, and when he finally slowed to a stop and threw out a hand to the tub edge to hold his torso up, he felt like a folding table with loose joints.

Total collapse was not far.

Daniel was gentle as he helped her straighten, and then he was holding her body against his own under the warm spray, the softness of her breasts on his hard chest, the sweetness of her mouth still tempting even though it was going to be a little while before he could do anything about the lust that never seemed to leave him.

Or never left him when she was around, that was.

As the shower’s rain fell on them, he swept his hands down her soaked hair and then rested his palms on her narrow shoulders.

The knowing look in her eyes made him want to stay, made him want to find a solution that allowed that which was, to use her term, irreconcilable, somehow fit together. He was desperate to negotiate, but come on. Like destiny was ever inclined to take a seat at the bargaining table?