as Zev pounded into her. Afternoon sunlight flooded the kitchen, and the devilish grin on his face made her want him even more desperately. She should have shut the kitchen door to the shop, but when his mouth hit hers, she hadn’t thought of anything but wanting more. Thank goodness Birdie was busy with customers. He thrust harder, faster, and she fisted her hands in his hair, guiding his mouth to her neck. His teeth grazed her as he sucked her flesh. She gritted her teeth to keep from moaning as pleasure stacked up inside. Zev hauled her just over the edge of the counter, holding her ass with both hands, his hips jackhammering, burying himself so deep she could feel him in her throat. Every stroke of his cock sent her closer to the edge. The bells over the front door chimed, and panic gripped her. She tore her mouth away. “Hurry!” Zev crushed his mouth to hers just as Cutter’s voice rang out. “Carly?”
Shit! Her eyes slammed shut, and Cutter called her name again, his voice closing in on them just as the orgasm crashed over her, and she screamed, “I’m coming!”
She bolted upright, gasping for air. Her heart thundered as she looked frantically around her bedroom. Holy shit. Her nightshirt was sweaty, her sex pulsing and wet. She pressed her hand to her heart and closed her eyes, trying to process the fact that she’d just orgasmed from a dream. Where the hell had that come from? Her traitorous brain needed to calm the hell down.
She climbed out of bed on shaky legs and padded into the kitchen for a glass of water. Last night’s talk with Zev had been as difficult as it was cathartic, and it had made her feel freer than she’d felt in years. She’d held on to the hurt and anger from his leaving, and the guilt for sneaking away in Mexico, for so long that she felt like a different person without it, but this was ridiculous and a little scary.
It hadn’t been easy to bare their souls and move past the hurt, but once they’d cleared the air, it hadn’t been all that difficult to feel like Carls and Zevy again.
She looked at the glass in her hand. Water wasn’t the kind of drink she needed to calm her nerves. She used the bathroom and went back to bed, reliving and picking apart every word they’d said. Her mind kept circling back to one thought. If one night of clearing the air had this effect on her, what would six days do to her?
She lay there for a while longer, her pulse sprinting, her mind running in circles. Was she being silly? Six days was still only six days. The dream had just been a dream. A fantasy. That didn’t quite fit, because fantasies didn’t often come true, and she had no doubt that if she and Zev were alone, he’d end up buried eight inches deep. “Oh God…” Even her fantasies were reckless with him.
Zev’s devilish grin sailed into her mind, and she threw her covers off. If she stayed in bed, she’d probably end up having three more orgasms. As much as she needed them, she was not going to feed those fantasies. She needed to remember to protect her heart, which had spent most of her life either loving him or pretending not to. She forced herself out of bed, got ready for the day, and headed into the shop.
After an hour of checking emails, bookkeeping, and organizing specials for the next several days, Carly’s mind was still toying with her, drawing her into the world of what ifs, the world of her and Zev that she’d denied for so long. She dragged her chair into the closet in her office and climbed up so she could see the top shelf. Reaching behind the boxes of holiday decorations and office supplies, she retrieved a large box she’d cleverly marked RECEIPTS. She blew the dust off the top of the box and climbed off the chair. She pulled the chair back to her desk and sat down with the box in her lap. Her nerves prickled just thinking about the memories of her and Zev it held. All of their remember-when pictures: pictures they’d taken to commemorate their adventures and times with friends. She remembered all of their remember whens. When she’d first moved to Colorado, she couldn’t bear the thought of leaving them behind. But it was