firm. I heard it, though it came from the other side of the apartment. I went completely still, my ears and eyes straining, my heart thumping with something it hadn’t had in a long time. Hope.
I heard a long creak. The hinge on that door needed oiling. Could it be her? I stared at the doorway to my bedroom, hearing hesitant soft footsteps. Then she appeared.
Lotus. She’d come.
My eyes burned. Just looking at her, I groaned. In a white halter nightgown that skimmed her shapely upper thighs, she shifted on her bare feet. An arrow of light from my lone lamp pointed directly at her. She seemed almost mystical, standing there like my desire had conjured her.
“Journey,” she said softly, her eyes wide and shining, and I found I didn’t hate that name so much anymore. Not when she said it like that. “I . . . do you . . . I mean, is it okay?”
She licked her lips, and my gaze dipped to them. So full. So lush. As I recalled how her mouth felt connected to mine, my cock hardened within the confines of my boxer briefs.
“I know you invited me here to hook up again. But could you . . . I just feel, with all the stuff going on with Cork, I’m scared, and I’d like you to, I need you to hold me.”
Her eyes filled, and I shot off the bed to fulfill that need.
“Babe, it’s okay.” I wrapped my arms around her and kissed the top of her head. “It’ll be okay.”
Her hair was silky, a richer, higher-gloss mahogany than my new coffee table. And her body was sexy, the perfect combo of curves and slender elegance. My cock pounded to the beat of my pulse as her citrus and salt scent filled my lungs.
“I don’t know for sure. You don’t either. I just know like we discussed that I have to support him.” She snuggled closer, her arms sliding around my waist as her cheek pressed against my chest. “It’s the right thing to do. But doing the right thing frightens me.”
Holding her, I felt a little frightened too. My heart beat rapidly as her humid breaths puffed one after another over my bare skin. She was so incredible, and I was . . . not. But I cared for her. I had to.
I stroked the long length of her hair with one hand and clasped her firmly to me with the other. Comforting her soothed me too. Nothing I’d done since I’d left her all those years ago felt as right.
“Do you want to talk about it some more?” I asked softly, running my fingers through the silken waterfall of her hair.
“No. We talked about it already. I felt better then. But then I came home, and my mind started racing.” An approving hum spilling from her sexy lips, she sighed with contentment. “Now I just need this.”
“Then this you’ll have.” Anything she needed, I wanted to give her. Me. I wanted to give it to her, no one else. Desire pounded hard in my veins, but something more, something even stronger, pounded inside my heart.
“Thank you.” Lotus nestled closer, smoothing her palms along the hard contours of my back.
Longing made my body hot and my blood thick. I knew she could feel my cock. It was a hard presence with her sexy body plastered to mine, impossible to ignore.
Her tits were hard to ignore too, soft and round, her nipples tight. She shifted on her feet, the movement subtle but effective. I felt it and knew she did too, the dynamic changing between us. Comfort was stripped away, revealing a mutual underlying and undeniable need.
“I came because I wanted you to hold me, but now I want more.” Tilting her head back, she peered up at me. The fire in her darkened eyes was unmistakable. Appealing, irresistibly so, like she was.
“I want more too. Every time I look at you, I want more.” I moved my hands to her face, framing it. “You’re irresistible.”
Gently, I swept my thumbs over her skin as I stared deeply into her eyes, mesmerized by the desire for me within them. Lowering my head, I placed the pad of my thumb on her lush lower lip and tugged. I needed to taste her.
But her pretty pink tongue darted out and she tasted me first. The wet swipe on my skin unleashed a primal hunger.
“So be it.” I growled out the words, both to her and