“Would it though?” He brought his hands up her sides, down again. “Would it really?”

“Or we could just go upstairs now, save time.”

“Time management’s underrated. I vote for that.”

She took his hand, took a breath. They walked out of the kitchen together.

“I wasn’t expecting the evening to end this way,” she began.

“Another me either. But I’ve thought about it.”

She paused at the base of the stairs. “Really?”

“Let’s keep moving. Less risk you’ll change your mind.”

The flutter low in her belly moved up to her chest. “Not gonna happen.”

“Here’s the thing. I haven’t been with anyone since Lorilee, so I’m rusty.”

“I’ve been in a long dry spell myself. We’ll refresh each other’s memory.”

She turned into her bedroom where, as always, she’d left the pretty lamp by the window on low.

Then she turned into him.

She wanted that warmth, that jumpy, nervous thrill.

“I remember this part.” He murmured against her mouth as his hands began to glide.

When he started pulling the pins from her hair, she instinctively reached up. “Oh, it’s going to be—”

“Amazing. There’s so much of it.” Combing his fingers through it, he circled her toward the bed. “It’s all coming back to me now.”

In one smooth move that tripped her heart, he scooped her up, back, and had them on the bed.

“Nice one. High score.”

“Thanks.” He took a moment, studying her face, watching the light and shadows play over it. He’d drawn it countless times, knew every angle of it. And still … “Who’d have thought we’d end up here?”

And when he brought his mouth to hers, the time for thinking ended.

He’d closed off needs, so long, and rediscovered the wonder of having them spread and heat through him. Wanting again, being wanted felt miraculous, and gloriously normal. She reached for him. He didn’t know if he’d ever be able to explain what it meant to have someone reach for him again.

What it meant to have a woman stir those needs awake, and offer to meet them.

He drew her overshirt off her shoulders, let his hands run over those tough muscles, and the contrast of balletically long arms and satin-smooth skin.

When he peeled her tank up and off, she arched to help him. Then he skimmed his hands over her breasts, lightly, lightly, before he simply laid his head there with her heart drumming under him.

She felt so … prized. His hands against her skin, nearly reverent, his lips lingering as if the taste of her was vital as breath. She wondered how it could be they fit so well together, so effortlessly together after all the years of knowing, then taking paths away, taking paths back again.

His mouth brought fresh thrills, nearly forgotten thrills that made her body shimmer and her heart swoon. His hands stoked heat, little fires in the blood.

More of him, all she knew was she wanted more.

She tugged his sweater off, then with humming approval ran her hands over his chest, around his shoulders. When their eyes met in the shadows, she smiled.

“Don’t look so smug.”

“You did the work,” she pointed out. “I just gave you an outline.”

“Some days I hated you, and cursed your name. Inventively.”

“Which means we both did a good job.”

His eyes, she thought, brushing fingers over his cheek. She’d always been half in love with his eyes.

“Raylan,” she murmured, and drew his mouth back to hers.

He felt the shift, a turn into urgency. The way her body vibrated under his, the way her hands gripped and stroked and kneaded. And still he struggled to spin it out, slow the pace.

Magic wasn’t meant to be consumed in a gulp.

While they undressed each other, he stopped the rush with a long, sumptuous kiss. When she pressed against him, offering, opening, demanding, he used his hands—and she so hot, so wet, so soft—to give her that first, gasping release.

When her body, a wonder of female strength, went weak, he felt like a god.

So he took his due, tasting her skin, nipping at pulses that thrummed and drummed, letting his hands roam everywhere, take everything until he could no longer breathe through the wanting.

And when he slipped inside her, slow, slow, slow, it was like the last key in a lock. For a moment, he lowered his forehead to hers, trying to center himself again.

But she framed his face with her hands, looked in his eyes so he lost himself in hers.

In her.

He let himself go, taking now, riding now while she moved with him, while she wrapped around him. When he crossed that peak, finally, finally, he buried his face in her hair to breathe her in.

She lay quiet a long time, winded and dazed as if she’d run a marathon in desert heat and crossed the finish line into a moonlit oasis. And now she sank into the warm, quiet pool where her body might have wept with gratitude had it the energy.

Then, with a sigh, she ran a hand down his back.

“We definitely remembered.”

“I’m trying to figure out whether to say thank you, or wow. So, wow, thanks.”

He rolled so they lay hip to hip. She smiled to herself because she could swear she could all but hear the wheels turning in his head.

“Couple of things,” he said. “I want to say I’m not really a one-and-done sort of guy.”

Her smile widened. “Really?”

“No, I …” He heard himself, let out a quick laugh. “I don’t mean like this now. Although … I mean one night and done. I’m going to want to see you again.”

Now she rolled so she could look down at him. “I’m good with that, and with the although.”

“That’s excellent news. We should probably go out, like a date.”

“Dating’s overrated.”

Those fascinating green eyes narrowed. “Now you’re trying to vamp me.”

“Now, that’s a term you don’t hear every day, and I’m not. Although …”

She lowered her head for a casual kiss.

“Anyway, sure, catching a movie, grabbing a meal, and all those traditional social concepts are fine. It’s the obligatory we need to go out somewhere on Saturday night that’s overrated. If two very busy people want a night out, that’s all good. If two very busy people want to stay in and have lots of sex, that’s all good.”

“You don’t even have to try to vamp. I think it’s a natural talent.”

“Which I will now be compelled to hone to perfection. You said a couple of things.”

“Yeah, I guess I did. The other occurred to me after we proved our memories are plenty sharp. I’d said who’d have thought we’d end up here, but after, it struck me that maybe, to be honest, I’d noticed you in something approaching that kind of way a couple of times.”

“Is that so?” She tossed her hair out of her eyes and propped herself up on his chest. “Be more precise, and spare no detail.”

“Not much detail, just … The first summer you stayed in the Creek and you and Maya got tight. That was just noticing, not approaching. You were Maya’s friend, so beneath notice. Until you talked about my sketches. You knew Iron Man, and Spider-Man. So you immediately became more interesting. For a minute, then I had to ignore you because, as Collin can attest, girls are dopey.”