I grinned up at him, suddenly realizing that Adam was here, in my arms, talking about our future together. It was a thirteen year old dream come true. “You have no idea how much I love you.”

He nodded slowly, pushing my dress up my body. “As much as I love you.”

It was the first time he’d said it at a time I could allow myself to feel it. Those three words poured out of him and pooled into my chest and as I raised my dress over my head, lying almost naked for his perusal I smiled shyly up at him. “You know, I don’t mind what we do this morning. You can do whatever you want to me.”

To my surprise this caused Adam to groan and he dropped his head on my shoulder.

“Baby?”

He turned his cheek and pressed a kiss to my bare skin, his hands coasting up my ribs to cup my breasts. I arched into his touch with a sigh as he replied, “How did I get so lucky? Smart, funny, sweet, beautiful, passionate and she tells me I can do anything I want to her.”

He chuckled now. “There has to be a catch.” I blushed deeply and Adam raised his head to witness it, laughing. “Fuck, I forgot modest.”

“Stop it.” I pushed playfully at his shoulders but really I needed him to stop or I was going to start crying.

He laughed again, the rumbling against my chest doing happy things to me down south.

Giving my shoulder another quick kiss, Adam sat up, straddling me as he pulled off his t- shirt. I drank my fill, biting my lip as my eyes took him in. I’d forgotten how beautiful he was—broad shoulders and lean muscles. Abs to die for.

His eyes never left me as his hands went to the buckle on his belt. I shivered with anticipation as he undid it and drew his jean’s zip down. “This morning I’m making love to you because our first time should be about that. Plus, no matter how great you’re feeling, and I can tell you’re feeling a lot better, your body must still be exhausted. We’re taking it nice and slow.” He pushed down his jeans and underwear and my breathing stuttered as his erection sprang free, jutting up and out, hard and throbbing. Now I knew why the bugger was so confident. He was walking around with that in his trousers.

“You’re making ‘mmm’ noises,” Adam told me with laughter in his voice as he turned to shimmy his jeans clean off.

“I am not!” I protested, blushing again, and realizing I’d been so lost in staring at him that there was a great possibility I had been making ‘mmm’ noises.

“You were. It’s fucking adorable.” He turned back to me only to reach for my underwear.

I tilted my hips to help him ease them down my legs, and as he did he stopped every now and then to kiss my bare skin. When the underwear was off, he pushed my left knee up and I watched him with growing heat coiling in the pit of my stomach as he trailed kisses up my calf, across my knee, and along my inner thigh. “Your legs go on forever,” he whispered, his eyes lifting to meet mine. “I can’t wait to have them wrapped around me while I’m inside you.”

“Adam,” I breathed completely at his mercy.

I repeated his name on an even breathier breath when his head descended between my legs and his tongue licked gently at my clit. He worked me with his mouth, kissing and licking and sucking until I came fast and hard against him.

I was still crying out to God as Adam kissed his way up my stomach and then stopped to draw my nipple into his hot mouth. He played with me a while, all the time murmuring compliments and love words, until eventually I was wound so tight I begged him to come inside me.

At the pressure of him between my legs I tensed and feeling it Adam threaded his fingers through mine and held my hands down on the bed while he stared into my eyes, anchoring me to him in every way he could. His lips parted on exhalation as he pushed inside me and sank deep. I gasped and lifted my hips in instinct causing a delicious frisson of pleasure through us both. Adam’s eyes grew lidded as he studied me, his expression tender. “I love you, Ellie Carmichael,” he whispered, his words heavy with sincerity.

I nodded and moved my hips again, panting slightly as I replied, “I love you, Adam.”

His grip on my hands became almost painful and he slid out of me nearly entirely before gliding back inside. I undulated against him, and we caught a wave, a slow rhythm that built and built until I was desperate for the finale. My legs were wrapped around him now, my thighs squeezing him tighter, begging for more.

“Adam,” I cried out, pushing against his hands, wanting to touch him, wanting to grasp him against me. “Harder, please.”

He growled low in his throat and he pulled out only to slam back into me. I started murmuring nonsense, mostly saying the word “yes” over and over again as he continued to slam into me.

“Come for me, Els,” he demanded, his eyes on my face. “Come for me, baby.”

And like I’d been prone to doing for years, I gave him what he wanted. The rhythm hit its crescendo and I broke apart on a scream as Adam pressed his cheek to mine and tensed. I floated up around in post-orgasmic space and he shuddered hard against me as he came.

We were both panting heavily, both clammy with sweat, and I imagined we were both a little jellified. I grinned at the ceiling. That was what happened when you had the most amazing sex of your life. “Wow,” I whispered, sliding my arms around his back now that he’d let my hands go.

Adam lifted his cheek from mine, his features relaxed with satisfaction. His dark eyes, however, were glittering intensely. “Wow doesn’t even cover it,” he replied. “Been waiting my whole life for that.”

I bit my lip because that was so nice I wanted to cry.

Sensing that, he smiled and gave me a soft kiss. When he pulled back he frowned. “That was a bit of both.”

“What?” I frowned back at him in confusion.

“I started out making love to you but it’s your fault I ended up fucking you.”

“My fault?”

“Adam,” his voice went amusingly breathy as he imitated me, “Harder, please.” He shook his head as I laughed. “I’m a man of great self-control but that…”

I squeezed my thighs around him again in delight. “Are you admitting I have power over you, Adam Gerard Sutherland?”

His eyebrows puckered together as he shook his head in denial, a shake that quickly turned to a nod as I giggled beneath him. He closed his eyes in what appeared to be pleasured pain and suddenly he captured me around the waist and flipped us so he was on his back and I was lying on top of him. He held me close and I relaxed against him, understanding dawning. He just needed to hold me for a moment and remember I was okay.

Once again I was overwhelmed by the realization that he was in love with me. I smiled against his skin and snuggled closer.

After a while he murmured, “You’re on the pill, right?”

I snorted at the unexpected question and lifted my head with a raised eyebrow. “Shouldn’t you have asked that before you took me oh so wildly?”

He grinned up at me. “I wasn’t really thinking about anything but the need to take you oh so wildly.”

“Well, not to worry. I’m on the pill,” I assured him and settled back on his chest.

“Wouldn’t have mattered anyway,” he murmured, stroking my hair.

I tensed. “Meaning?”

“Meaning if an accident happened it wouldn’t matter. An accident with you is a kid with you.”

Shock held me completely frozen as I processed this. How many times had I heard Braden joking with Adam about how terrified he was of getting a girl pregnant? It was one of the reasons Braden suspected Adam never slept with the same girl twice. In his twisted male logic he thought it meant it lessened the chance of an accident, or at least it lessened the chance of a girl liking him so much she’d force an accident.

“You want a baby with me?” My throat croaked on the question.

I felt his knuckles brush down my spine in a caress that made me shiver to the tips of my toes. “Ellie, I want everything with you.”

Tears glimmering in my eyes I lifted my head and replied softly, gratefully, “I never knew you could be so romantic.”

Adam’s lips twitched in response and he shook his head against the pillow. “I’m not, but I reckon I’d do anything for you and since that has included sitting through more romantic comedies any man should have to endure, I know you’re a romantic… and I just want you happy. I’ve got a lot to make up for.” He brushed my hair back from my face. “And you make it easy.” He pulled lightly on a strand of hair, his expression suddenly serious. “But if you breathe one word of it to your brother, or anybody for that matter, there will be consequences.”

I smiled and shook my head. “I won’t tell, I promise. I like knowing something about you no one else does.”

“Then we’re even.”

“How do you mean?”

He flipped me again and I squealed with laughter as he wrestled me back on the bed. Once he had me captured with my legs wrapped around his waist, he kissed me and drew back to murmur, “I’m the only one who knows sweet ‘butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth’ Ellie Carmichael likes it when I talk dirty.”

Once again I felt my skin flush with embarrassment but I didn’t contradict him. I couldn’t because he was so damn right.

Last First Chapter “Okay, I’ve decided you can’t give these to Joss.” Adam slammed the diary closed. “In fact, you may have to burn them.”

I took it off of him and added it to the pile. “Why?”

“Because you go into a lot of detail, Els. Not just about sex but also about what I say to you before, during, and after sex.”

I tried not to laugh and failed miserably. “You mean the romantic stuff?”

He gave me an unimpressed look. “You are not giving that to Joss. She’ll tell Braden and I’ll never hear the end of it.”

“You know Joss tries to be considerate since Braden’s my brother but sometimes things slip and what slips is that he can be a romantic too.”