“Was just... Good God, Reece.” She closed her eyes and smiled.
“You’re not mad?”
She looked up at him. “Not about Sky, not about what we just did. I’m only mad my kid can’t stay in bed and my lover didn’t get to finish with me.”
“Oh.” He raked his hand though his hair. “Oh. Hah.” He liked that.
“Are you finished with me?”
“Not tonight. Not ever.”
“I want you inside me.” She held out her arm. “I want to be inside you.”
He crooked his head, only one of those messages making sense. She swept by him and closed the door. He turned his head to follow her. She ditched the robe, dropped it on the floor and walked over it. She wore just the bra, beautifully obscene, prowling back towards him. He held out his hand, but she avoided him.
“Tell me your secrets because you know every one of mine. What makes you lose control, Reece? What makes you fall apart? You can put me there so easily. How do I learn to do that to you?”
He dropped his arm, let her trail her fingers across his stomach and his gut tightened, his erection came roaring back to punish him. She circled around him, dragging her hand over his skin, leaving a trail of feeling he wanted to lean into. He turned his head to follow her.
“You do it. You already do it. In your work clothes, in that underwear, in that fucking ugly dressing gown.” She stood in front of him again. “I don’t care what you wear, it’s you.”
He went to his knees. She smelled of sex and he was ravenously hungry for her. She put her hand to his hair and pulled so his chin came up.
“That can’t be true.” Her expression faltered, doubt replacing that near aggression. “You’re so careful, always. You never raise your voice, you never lose it with Mia, even when it’s unclear if she’s possessed by evil. Only that once, with the whiskey, were you on the edge and still you think of me first.”
He had no idea what she wanted from him. There was nothing left of him she didn’t already own. He pulled out of her grip and sat back on his heels. “I think of you first always. There isn’t anything else I’d rather do.”
“Dear God.” She stood a foot either side of his knees and gripped his chin in her hands. “I never even dreamed the idea of you.”
He palmed her behind the knees and she collapsed forward into his lap. He kissed her hard, holding her head in place. He’d never dreamed her either but he wouldn’t be satisfied until she was more reality than vision. He’d never asked, but now he needed to know like he needed exercise to be himself, because he didn’t know everything about her and it wasn’t enough.
“Mia’s father, Barrett. What is he to you?”
Audrey draped her arms over his shoulders. “He was a friend, a brilliant, irritating, friend. We met a uni. He was destined to be amazing.”
He had no right to be jealous, but resentment flamed in his chest like a petrol fire, dangerous, unquenchable. “You slept with him?”
She brushed her nose against his. Her breath was on his mouth. “We were friends. He’s not the marriage and forever type. He likes men and women and we didn’t want each other. We have the same colouring. He’s a good-looking man. He’s crazy intelligent. I asked if he’d father a child. He said, yes, then no, then he agreed to a no strings contract, then nearly backed out at the last moment. It was a big deal for him because he didn’t want the responsibility and he had trouble accepting I wouldn’t change my mind and want him involved.”
“You never did.”
“I never will.”
She didn’t answer the question. . “You slept together.”
She smoothed his brows. “No. We used a clinic. He’s never seen me naked.”
He had no right to know. “He’s never been inside you.”
“Look at me, Reece. There’ve been other men, but only you got inside me.”
He picked her up with an incoherent roar that was the blanket over jealous licks of heat. He’d love her hard enough to extinguish any memory, any new desire for anyone but him.
He had no more patience, it was all burned through. He barely got her on the bed, his pants down, a rubber on, before he was inside her, before his rhythm went ragged and he lost his air in the wonder of her clenching, sliding warmth. He was rough, he was gentle, he was fast, he was aching and straining and losing the idea of anything but the sensation of her, the sound of her, the knowledge she was his as surely as he was hers.
He slept like the world had ended, woke like he had a new life. Audrey complained of being sore, but she did it without being able to keep the smile off her face, the amusement out of her voice. He’d done something right.
He got Mia’s breakfast, got her ready for a swimming lesson. Later Audrey was taking her for a haircut. She waved them off, wearing that dressing gown. Under it she was showered, he figured naked.