His First Choice

And this from a woman who had a history of being grounded.

* * *

HE KISSED EVERY part of her that he’d seen over the past couple of weeks. Her hands. Her arms. Her calves and feet and knees. Her ears and neck. Her chin and cheeks.

He kissed her shoulders, sliding himself over her body.

“You’re going to know me all over.” He heard the words at some point and realized he’d said them aloud.

“Please, Jem.”

But he helped her bear the pain and gave himself a pleasure he’d been imagining for weeks. With two fingers he touched her nipple and rubbed gently across the tip. She cried out, moving her hips.

Lowering his head, he took her nipple into his mouth. Not for too long, though. Just long enough to keep her wanting.

He moved to the other side and played with that tight bud with his fingers and lips. Then gulped when she grabbed his penis.

“If this doesn’t happen soon, I’m not going to be responsible for...”

He kissed her before she could finish the sentence, eased her back against the edge of the bed and spread her legs. Standing in front of her, he grabbed the packet he’d dropped on the bed when they’d come in, opened it and slipped it on. Finally, he ran his finger along her moist center and positioned himself.

He looked into her eyes before he moved any further. “This is only the beginning,” he told her.

“You are my man.” The words sounded like a promise.

He gave a slow push, still holding her gaze.

“Can you feel me?”

“Oh, God, Jem. Yes.”

“I can feel you, too.” He barely got the words out. The effort it was taking not to ram himself home and find relief was more than he’d ever imagined.

But he’d made a promise—to her and to himself. Love with Lacey was going to be different than it ever had been before.

He was marking his forever.

* * *

LACEY COULD HARDLY meet her sister’s gaze when Kacey came in the door a couple of hours later. It wasn’t her reticence that gave her away, though.

Nothing as momentous as what she’d just experienced with Jem would have been missed by her identical twin. You couldn’t have a change that magnanimous and not have your counterpart feel something different about you.

“How was Levi?” she asked.

“Perfect as always. I have to tell you, if I was going to have a nephew, I couldn’t pick a better one.”

Lacey, in thin cotton pajama pants and a matching T-shirt, had been watching a rerun while waiting for Kacey and, reaching for the remote, turned the sound off as her sister dropped her purse and joined her on the couch.

Kacey felt peaceful, but somber, too.

“I didn’t talk to him about...you know...” She couldn’t bring herself to say Jem’s ex-wife’s name in her home so soon after...

“I didn’t figure you had.”

“Did he say anything to you?” Her lover had left her bed to go to his home, where he and her sister, her spectacular look-alike, would be home alone. And she hadn’t worried. Not even a little bit.

“Just asked after Levi, then told me the night was a complete success and thanked me about a million times over. He also asked if I was up for any more babysitting before I head home.”