She trembled and pulled my head up. “Sebastian, look, I’m feeling so much here, and it isn’t just sex. It’s—”

I got her. “You’re everything in a woman I’ve ever wanted, V. It scares me too, and I don’t know what it means—”

Fuck. I lost every thought in my head when she bit my nipple.

I cupped her ass with one hand and pulled the swing toward me with the other until I’d seated myself deep inside her. She whimpered, and I tossed my head back and wanted to howl at the damn moon.

I took her, watching my cock glide in and out.

“Harder. Yes, yes, yes,” she said as I plunged in and out of her, using the swing to mechanize my movements. To own her.

She wriggled around and locked her legs on my hips, trying to get as much of me in her as she could. Desire surged through every vein in my body as my cock pounded her. V.

But then why did I feel so damn moody and dark with desperation?

I hissed in her ear. “You’re mine, V. And I know it sounds possessive and caveman, but tonight, I don’t give a fuck. Don’t think about Geoff or anything but my cock in you. Got it?” I tempered those words by sucking on her earlobe.

She drank me in as I hovered above her. “Yes … so good, so good, so good,” she moaned at each thrust.

I repositioned my stance and lowered the swing a tad, pushing in and then out, sliding over her clit and then plunging deep inside her. I tossed my head back, trying to keep it together, but knowing I was going to go over the cliff soon. It had been too long since I’d been with a girl, and this was V.

“Touch yourself, V. I’m dying to, but my hands are full,” I muttered, gritting my teeth for control. She touched her slit, flicking her fingers. Slow. Fast.

“I don’t want to stop,” I growled out.

We were lost. My skin tingled. My head floated.

I plunged in her wetness, the sounds of our sex, my grunts, her whimpers … it all crashed and my cock swelled painfully as I came hard. My body pulsed, and I roared into the night.

Without pausing, I fell to my knees and took her in my mouth again. She screamed, her hands twisting the chain as she came hard, her pussy pulsing against my hands and mouth. After a while, she leaned up and sagged against me as we held each other for a few moments, neither of us able to speak.

I let go of the swing, swept her limp body up in my arms and took her back to the fire and the blanket and lay her down. My head was dizzy and my heart was thundering. I felt on top of the fucking world.

But …

What the hell was I going to do now?

“You never love the same way twice, but the love of a lifetime only comes once.”

—from the journal of Violet St. Lyons

HE EASED ME down on the blanket and pressed a kiss to my forehead as if I were a piece of fine china, his gentleness a sharp contrast to the fierceness of his lovemaking. He pulled the ends of the blanket around us while my eyes bored into his, searching for his soul.

Could he tell that things had been irrevocably changed between us?

I glanced up just as a brilliant light raced overhead, zipping through the heavens and leaving a glittering trail. I took it as a sign, and my mouth parted as I recognized the beautiful truth. No matter what happened after this, he and I were meant to had met. We were destined for this moment.

“A shooting star,” I breathed.

His full lips tilted up, his gaze tender as he tweaked my nose. “You’re welcome. Always knew I had the heavens in my pocket. Wanna see a comet next?”

Feeling oddly euphoric, I slapped his shoulder while he pretended to be hurt. “Hey, that’s no way to treat the master of the universe.”

I chuckled and traced my finger around the Superman tattoo on his chest. “You know, I was born the night the Violette-Sells comet went across the Manhattan skyline. My parents joked that I was lucky it wasn’t the Hyakutake-Bayshi comet or else my name might have been super weird. My dad…he loved to point out different constellations to me, especially if we were in another country where the view of the sky was different. He said we’re all made up of dust from the universe. We’re all born from stars.”

“Sounds like a good line for a song.”

I looked up at him. “Will you write a song about me? About tonight and what we did?” There was no mistaking the heaviness of my question or the hesitation in my voice.

“V, I could write a million songs about you, and none of them would have anything to do with having sex with you, but everything to do with how unbelievably mysterious you are. You’re like a rich red wine, dark and bittersweet and so damn intoxicating that I want to guzzle you down.”

A puff of air escaped my mouth. Since the moment we’d met, he’d gotten the essence of who I was.

A look of yearning crossed his face. “I wish I could have met your parents, to tell them thank you for having you and just, I don’t know, making you who you are. My parents would have adored you, by the way. Music was everything to our family. Plus, you’re hot. Dad always liked brunettes.”

“Are brunettes your favorite too?” I said as I kissed his bicep, letting my tongue drift over his arm and up his shoulder where I traced his lion tattoo. My hands drifted down to his length, stroking him. He hardened immediately.

“V, you make me crazy,” he murmured, his hands slipping through my hair to pull my lips to his for a long kiss. I moaned into his mouth.

He pulled back to stare at me with a sheepish smile. “God, I want you again, but my legs are still quivering.”

I laughed. “I don’t think many women get to have sex on a swing. Huh, I guess we’ve ruined that poor thing for the next people who come here. Maybe we should take it with us? I’ve never had sex anywhere except in a bed—”

He put his finger to my lips. “Don’t. Please. I don’t want an image of you with someone else in my head.”

“Why?” I couldn’t stop the question.

His lips tightened. “Because it makes me want to fucking beat the shit out of something—namely Geoff.” He seemed to gather himself and took a deep breath. “Do you still love him?”

“I do, but not in the way you think. At one time, I thought I’d spend the rest of my life with him, but people change. He’s part of my past—and I hope someday part of my future as a friend. There’s not a lot of people who knew my parents the way he did.”