Family For Beginners

“It should have been a five-star hotel.” His mouth was on her hair, his voice was rough and low. “You should have had champagne and silk sheets.”

She smiled against his skin. “I didn’t need that. I needed you. This. Us.”

“I love you. I love you so much.” His hold on her tightened, and hers on him. She couldn’t bring herself to let him go. Her heart, bruised for so long, felt healed and whole. Strong, for the first time. That hollow emptiness had gone. Intimacy, she thought. The cure for that loneliness hadn’t been more friends or more activities, a busier day, a busier life. It had been intimacy. Trust.

Their breathing slowed, but still he held her.

“I should have taken more time.”

It made her laugh that he’d thought he was the one in control of it. “I didn’t give you that choice.”

“True.” He eased away so he could look at her. “I thought I knew you, but I didn’t know you could be so demanding.”

“I have a ruthless, killer streak didn’t you know?”

“I didn’t know, but I do now. I just saw a new side of you. You ravished me in the forest.”

“Am I expected to apologize for that?” It wasn’t clear who had ravished who, but she was enjoying the conversation too much to end it.

“Definitely not. Just as I’m not going to apologize for what happens next.”

“What—” She didn’t get to ask her question because he swept her up and carried her through the trees. “Jack! You can’t—”

“I can. I am. Hold on.”

“You’re going to drop me in a patch of poison ivy.” She was breathless. Laughing. “Someone will see us. Someone will—”

“Losing your nerve now? What happened to the assertive woman who just had tree sex?”

“That was spontaneous.” Although it hadn’t been, not really. It had been building for weeks, months. The sexual tension between them had reached incendiary levels.

“This is spontaneous, too, only I want the version that doesn’t include clothes and gymnastics against a tree.”

She was about to ask where they were going when she saw the sleek lines of the boathouse. “How did we end up here?”

“I took the shortest possible route. I may have to explain away a rip in my trousers.”

Before she could answer they were inside. He nudged the door closed behind them, swore as he struggled to turn the key without putting her down, and then carried her to the bedroom.

“I had no idea you were so good at multitasking.”

“I’m about to show you how good.” He set her down but he didn’t let her go.

Dimly she wondered what would happen if someone else decided to use the boathouse, but then he touched her, kissed her, and she stopped thinking about anything but him.

This time they took it slower, savoring, drawing out the pleasure until she rose over him, taking him deep, making him hers in every way.

Finally, after a long shower that was made longer by his determination to explore every part of her, they collapsed on the bed.

He’d opened the doors to the balcony and she could hear birdsong and the soft lap of water against the dock. She wished she could freeze this moment, stay like this wrapped in his arms and warmed by the sunshine pouring through the glass.

The intimacy, the closeness, was something she hadn’t experienced before.

She’d never shared herself with anyone the way she had with Jack. Their relationship was deeper than anything she’d experienced before.

She felt exhilarated, content, lucky, loved.

And Jack had shared, too. She ignored the tiny voice in her head that reminded her he still hadn’t really talked about Becca.