Shielded In The Shadows

And he didn’t want it to end. Didn’t want to finish. Stilling himself inside her, he kissed her. Softly. Mating their tongues in a quiet conversation that was no less passionate. He touched her breasts, exploring their fullness in a hello that would stay with him. While she held him.

When his lips left hers, she was watching him. Smiling at him.

He smiled back and started to move. Slowly. Drawing out the seconds into minutes until they both moved, coming together so hard he could hear the touch of their bodies.

Her gaze narrowed and her breathing changed. She was close. They were both so close. And...

As soon as she started to pulse around him, he let go. And kept letting go. So much, it was almost embarrassing.

What an experience.

The most incredible sex ever.

He wanted to tell her how special she was. How glad that she’d come into his life. To ask her to spend the night.

Their agreement didn’t leave room for those kinds of words. They weren’t in love. Or starting a relationship.

Scooting to his side on the lounger, he helped her turn to hers, spooning her just while they caught their breath.

Holding on.

Chapter 12

She almost fell asleep. Catching herself just as she was dozing off, with her naked butt nestling against Jayden on his backyard lounger, Emma told herself to get her ass in gear. Her darker side suggested that she just go ahead and doze. See where the night would lead them. Maybe wait to see if there’d be more sex.

Or an invitation to spend the night sleeping in the man’s arms.

She listened for a second. Until she started imagining how that might feel, snuggled up in Jayden Powell’s embrace between the sheets. Then she sat up.

“I have to go,” she said right out loud. She’d tried for her court voice. Managed a weak rendition.

Still, it worked. Jayden was off the lounger, handing over her panties by the time she was on her feet, smoothing her skirt back down her thighs. Stuffing the underwear in the satchel she’d left by the table, she was embarrassed as hell to realize she still had her pumps on. And her blouse was missing a button.

Without another word, she grabbed her keys out of her satchel, flung the bag over her shoulder and walked to the door that would lead through his house to the front door and her car just beyond.

“Thanks for dinner,” she called over her shoulder, briefly aware that he’d followed her, and let herself out.

“Thanks for dinner?” During the entire three miles from his neighborhood to hers, through the gate into her community and then to her house, she stumbled around that last line. Replaying it, out loud, in all kinds of ways.

Not a single version sounded anything but inane.

Thanks for dinner. They’d had mind-blowing sex and that’s what she came up with? Thanks for dinner.

What could he be thinking? That she had sex as nonchalantly as some people ate dinner? You could eat with those you cared about, or just as easily do it alone? Or with strangers? That you were satiated and went home?

That she’d just experienced a life-changing event and was scared out of her wits?

No. Not that. He couldn’t think that. It just wasn’t true. Was it?

She pulled into her garage, pushed the remote on her visor to close the door behind her and got out of the car.

In any event, it didn’t matter what he thought. They weren’t starting anything.

No, they were finishing off whatever waywardness was between them in a practical and emotionally healthy manner—

Ms. Shadow’s hogwash was cut off midstream as she came through the garage door into the kitchen and saw something written on the sliding-glass door leading to her pool. In her private, walled-in backyard. With a locked-gate access in a gated community.

Leave it alone.