With an exhaled laugh, he angled his head back to meet her eyes. “Did you do a little googling while I was gone?”

“Maybe a little,” she said, burying her face farther into his neck. “Are you sure you want to kiss me with my eyes all red and puffy?”

He fisted her hair gently, tugging until they were nose to nose. “I especially want to kiss you with your eyes all red and puffy.”

The moment their mouths collided, Brendan knew he’d made a mistake. He should have waited to kiss her until they were home in his bed, because the uncertainty of the last eleven days reared back and punched him. It did the same to Piper—he could feel it.

She gave a broken moan and opened her sweet mouth for him, her breath coming in short pants almost immediately, just like his. He’d barely slid his tongue between her lips when she gripped his shoulders, drew herself high against his chest, and slung her legs around his waist. And Jesus, he’d already been halfway to hard, but his cock surged against his fly now, swelling like a motherfucker when she settled the warm give of her sex on top of him, the drag of friction making him curse. Making him wish they were anywhere but a hospital hallway, half an hour from his house.

Still, he couldn’t keep from kissing her like he’d been dreaming of doing every night since he’d left, roughly, hungrily, using his hold on her hair to guide her left, right, meeting her lips with wide slants of his own, swallowing down her little whimpers like they were his last meal. God. God, she tasted so fucking good. Better than any port after a storm.

Home. He’d made it.

“Piper,” he growled, taking two steps and flattening her against the closest wall, his mouth raking down her delicious neck, his left hand sliding up to cup her tits. “I can’t fuck you here, baby. But that’s exactly what I’m going to do if we keep at it like this.”

Dazed blue eyes met his, her mouth wet from kissing. “I need you now,” she said hoarsely, tugging on the collar of his shirt. “Now, now, Brendan. Please, I can’t wait.”

He learned something about himself in that moment. If this woman tacked the word “please” onto any request, he would find a way to fulfill it.

Build me a palace, please.

How many floors, baby?

Brendan was already carrying her to the darker end of the hospital corridor before she finished phrasing her demand. Thank Christ the floor was mostly empty, because nothing was going to stop him from getting inside her now. Not when she was scoring his neck with her teeth, her thighs clinging to his hips like ivy. He stopped in front of the farthest door from the mild action in Sanders’s room, looked through the glass to make sure there was nobody occupying it, then brought her inside, capturing her mouth in a kiss as he walked them to the far side of the room. She rode her pussy up and down the rigid length of him, mewling into his mouth and pulling at his shirt, and Jesus, he was so turned on, their surroundings were inconsequential in comparison. Still, he wouldn’t have someone walking in and seeing Piper in a private moment—that was for his eyes only—so he forced himself to focus. Just long enough to make it right.

He set Piper down on her feet and called on his willpower to tear himself away from her mouth. “Don’t move,” he said, propping her against the wall—yes, propped. Her legs didn’t appear to be working, and hell if he wasn’t gratified to know he wasn’t so far out of practice that he couldn’t get Piper hot and bothered. Thank God.

Wanting to get his hands back on her as soon as possible, he charged to the door and shoved a chair under the handle. On his return to the far side of the room, he yanked the curtain that would block them from view, in case anyone walked past. Then he was in front of Piper, framing her face in his hands, marveling over the feverish urgency in her eyes. For him. Less than twelve hours ago, he’d been sure his luck had run out, but he’d been wrong. It overflowed.

She ran her hands up under his sweatshirt, her fingernails dragging through his chest hair. “Will you take your shirt off for me?” she whispered, scrubbing the ridges of his abdomen with the heels of her hands. “Please? I love your body.”

“That’s my line,” he said unevenly, rocked by her confession. Yeah, he took care of himself and the work kept his body strong and able, but he was a damn long way from perfect. Not like her. But as he’d already discovered, if Piper said please, he would comply, and he did so now, tugging off the sweatshirt in one quick move, finding her mouth as soon as his head was free of the collar.

Lips seeking and wet, their kiss escalated to the point of no return again. They both wrestled with the waistband of her yoga pants, shoving them down past her hips, lower until she could kick them away. And then she was back to climbing him, her lithe thighs skimming up to his waist, his hips punching forward to get his cock up against her softness, pinning her to the wall in the process.

“Noticed we didn’t have to get any panties off,” he said in between kisses, finding her incredible ass with both hands and kneading her buns almost angrily, because Jesus, this thing drove him fucking crazy. “You drive here in my truck with a bare pussy, Piper?”

She bit his bottom lip, tugged. “Slept in your bed with it, too.”

“Christ.” A rumble started in his chest, didn’t stop until he’d drawn off the borrowed shirt she wore, dropping it to the ground, leaving her completely, blessedly naked. Naked and wrapped around him, all messy morning hair and eyes puffy from crying over him. If his cock wasn’t throbbing with pain, he might have gotten down on his knees and worshiped her. All those moments on the boat, begging to see her one more time, had been well founded. If anything, he should have begged harder, because she was a siren, an angel of mercy, and a horny woman all rolled into one. A fucking dream.

And she was trying like hell to get the fly of his jeans open.

Brendan aided her, undoing the top snap, wincing as he lowered the zipper and his cock surged, filling with even more pressure now that it had room to breathe. It crowded into the notch between her legs, and she whimpered, digging her heels into his ass to bring him closer—and he came, grinding against her slippery flesh. One thrust and he’d be home.

That’s when the worst possible thing occurred to him.

“Goddammit, Piper.” His life flashed before his eyes. “I don’t have a condom.”

She paused in the act of laying kisses on his neck, her breath hitching. “You’re lying. Please tell me you’re lying.”

“I’m not. I don’t carry them.” Her head fell back on a sob, and he couldn’t stop himself from licking the sexy line of her throat, catching his teeth on her earlobe. “I didn’t think I’d see you . . .”

Their heads turned at the same time, another kiss pulling them deep deep deep, and his hips pumped involuntarily, moving in the act of fucking, his shaft sliding up and back through the smooth lips of her sex without breaching her entrance.

“Brendan,” she panted.

“Yes, baby.”

“I had a physical. Right before I left.” They breathed hard against each other’s mouths. “I’m all clear and I’m on the shot and I just need you so bad. So bad.”

He dropped his face into her neck and growled, reached between them to fist his erection. “I’m all clear, too. Piper, Jesus, are you going to let me fuck you bare?”