Gray tried to swallow but couldn't.
A rustle from the blanket pulled his attention from the sky. Lori tugged her foot free and crawled toward him. Her knees straddled either side of his extended legs as they sat face-to-face.
The swirl of peach preceded her lips by a millisecond.
She cupped his face in her hands, pressing her mouth to his, firm, grounding him. Right now the sky held little allure as Lori threw herself against him like a warm barrier against painful memories.
He whispered against her lips. "I'm going to miss you so damned much. The past year—"
"Stop it." She kissed one eye. "Stop talking." Then the other eye. "We're not any good at farewells, anyway." She kissed his mouth.
Popcorn. She tasted like buttery popcorn and Lori, and he wanted more of her.
Gray bit back words, surprising words that would beg her to go with him to Washington. She'd turned him down a year ago. Why would now be different? And if she accepted? If anything, he should protect her by keeping his damned mouth shut.
Or otherwise occupied.
He tasted, drank of her, like a drug, potent and healing. Lori, the real healer, and as always he took from her. But, damn it, with his defenses in the negative numbers, he couldn't turn her away yet.
Her lips worked over him, open, tongues twining. Close. Not close enough. Gripping her hips, he drew her securely onto his lap. Her sundress caressed the top of his hands, Lori's silky skin and satiny panties tempted beneath his touch. Chest to chest, hearts thudding, he held her and stole more, everything she would give him.
Trailing up her sides, his fingers splayed, cupped and lifted her small breasts. A perfect fit, filling his hands and senses with the same incredible rightness he'd experienced the first time he'd touched her.
Impatient hands, hers and his, shoved open the vee neck of her wraparound dress and popped the front clasp on her bra. No more waiting, he closed his mouth over one nipple, already peaked and ready for him.
Humid air and need prickled beads of sweat along his brow. Lori sipped them from his skin.
He wanted her. So simple. So everything.
Always, always it had been explosive between them, and he was tired of running from it. He wanted the rockets, explosion, the damn fireworks she offered.
Thought became difficult, if not impossible when she touched him. Playfulness had always come after a combustible release. He wasn't feeling at all playful. A year without her had left him struggling to level out, when he wanted nothing more than to soar out of control.
His hand snaked under her dress again and found the smooth bare skin of her hips, waist, stomach. He explored the line of her panties with one lazy finger, two barely there scraps of satin attached with fragile straps. So very Lori, conservative and in control on the outside, seductive satin and heat underneath.
He traced the whisper-thin straps, traveled down, slipping inside. She moaned into his hair, her breath a hot caress against his scalp.
She shoved him back against the tree, determination in the firm force of her hands. He knew her moods well. Competent, resolute Lori had set her mind on a mission.
He prepped to crash and burn.
Fumbling down the buttons of his shirt, she kissed and nipped her way along his collarbone. Her hands continued their frantic path down to his shorts, unsnapping, unzipping, freeing him, robbing him of the option to stop.
Her dress swirled around them, shielding her caressing hand. Not that he could have seen anything other than the back of his eyelids as his head thudded against the tree. His fingers knotted in the thin straps along her hips. "Lori, do you know where we're headed?"
"Yes! I've known since you spread the blanket on the ground. No backing out this time."
Her moist heat pressing against him fired straight through, leaving Gray grateful for the support of the sturdy oak behind his back. This woman fascinated the hell out of him and flipped his world all at the same time. And he would lay claim to her again in seconds. If only for this night.
His fingers glided a teasing stroke along the satiny outside, before twisting in the tiny strings along her hips. He tugged the strings, needing everything that scrap of satin caressed. "If you expect these panties to live to see another day, maybe you'd better—"
"Break it. Now!" She slid her heat along his thigh.
He snapped the strings along with the last remnants of his restraint.
She guided him in with a frenzied pace that still seemed agonizingly gradual to him. She sank onto him, enveloped him with incredible moist heat, Lori's heat. His hands cradling her bottom beneath her dress, he lifted, then relaxed his grip, thrusting up as she slid down. His forehead met hers as they exchanged sighs, unmoving, savoring.
He lost himself in the satiny glide of her hair against his neck. Being surrounded by her silk and softness was better than escaping to miles of blue sky.