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  “Of course I do.”

  “But you could have had it removed, or covered it, or changed it into something else.”

  “I’ve never even considered it.”

  I swallowed hard, guilt oozing between the layers of desire. I’d transformed my wedding day tattoo into something that symbolized my freedom, rather than be stuck with a permanent reminder of him, of what we’d done. “Why not?”

  “Because I like it.” His voice was soft but gruff. “It reminds me of you.”

  I had no idea what to say. Damn you, Nick. I just want sex. Don’t make me feel things.

  As if he could read my mind, his lips curved into a sexy grin. “Bet you never thought you’d see it again.”

  That made me laugh a little. “You’re right about that.” I trailed my fingertips down his muscular abdomen, anxious to stay in the moment. “But I’m glad I did.”

  He slid his hands up the insides of my thighs and brushed his thumbs against my pussy, still wet from his mouth. “Me too.”

  My breath hitched at his touch, and I reached down to unbuckle his belt, unzip his jeans, and slide my hand inside them.

  Yes. This.

  I wrapped my fingers around his hot, hard cock, adoring the way his body shuddered as I began working my hand up and down its solid length. This is what I want. This is safe. His mouth reclaimed mine, his hands returning to my head, holding it steady as his tongue stroked between my lips. The tip of his cock grew wet, intensifying the hollow ache inside me.

  Widening my knees, I shoved his jeans down at the sides and placed him between my legs, moving the smooth head over my clit.

  He pulled back to look at me, a question in his eyes.

  I knew what he was asking. “I want this, Nick. I don’t care what I said. I want this. I want you. Now.” I slid both arms around his bare torso and pulled him close, his erection sliding up between my slick folds, pressing against me. “Now,” I whispered against his mouth. “I want you inside me right now.” His cock twitched.

  “Fuck.” Suddenly he reached behind me and swept an arm across the island. Everything clattered to the floor—measuring spoons, cups, mixing bowls, our glasses of scotch, sugar and flour spilling across the dark wood floor. Nick didn’t even look down.

  Laying me back onto the cool granite, he spread my knees with his hands. My entire body trembled as he licked his way up one inner thigh and down the other. His hands slid under my calves and lifted them to rest on his bare shoulders, and I crossed my ankles behind his neck. Picking up my head, I saw my red shoes behind his dark hair and nearly lost control at the sight of it. He looked me in the eye before lowering his mouth to my pussy, his tongue gliding up the silky seam at my center and tracing soft circles on my clit.

  My head fell back against the hard stone, but I barely felt it.

  “Mmm, I missed this. You taste just the way I remember.” His words, his breath on my skin, sent a shiver through my body, and I moaned with pleasure as he devoured me.

  “I do?” I panted, my lower body tightening and my hands seeking to grab on to something. Finding nothing on the island, I reached for his head, weaving my fingers into his hair. My legs slipped off his shoulders and dangled over his arms.

  “Yes. Like fucking perfection.” His hands reached under my legs to pull me closer to him, and I gasped when his tongue slid inside me before returning to the small, humming bundle of nerves and flicking it lightly, electrifying my entire body.

  I closed my eyes, letting the rapturous pressure build. “Oh my God, it feels like the first time. In your truck. Remember?”

  “Are you kidding?” He slid a finger into my slick, swollen wetness. “I jerk off to that memory all the time.” When I moaned, a second finger joined the first, twisting so they pushed moved against some secret place in my body only Nick had ever been able to find. What miraculous relief to be with someone who knew the terrain of my body inside and out, who remembered all its hidden pleasure spots. He sucked my clit greedily as his fingers worked me into a frenzy, and I rocked my hips against his mouth, panting loudly. Jesus, it had been so long…it really did feel like my first time, and oh, my, God—“Yes!” I flattened my palms on the counter. My insides were seizing up, clenching his fingers, and my head dropped to one side, my face contorting with pleasure so intense it was almost painful. Oh my God oh my God oh my God, he’s so fucking good, and I haven’t felt this way in forfuckingever, and my body is on fire, and I’m going to come so hard right here on his goddamn island, and then he’s going to fuck me on it…

  Knowing it would be just moments until Nick was inside me again finally sent me over the edge, and

  I cried out as the orgasm tore through my body with powerful, rhythmic surges that throbbed around his fingers and pulsed against his tongue. I savored every lingering aftershock, open-mouthed and gasping.

  The second my body relaxed, Nick straightened up. “Don’t move.”

  Before I could protest, he raced out of the kitchen and up the stairs. Propping myself up on my elbows, I nearly called out to him to forget the condom, I was on the pill, but I bit my lip instead. It was smarter to use the condom. Even when we were a couple we’d used them, terrified of my getting pregnant.

  We’d only done it three times without one, all on the same night.

  Our wedding night.

  My stomach flipped as I heard Nick bounding down the stairs. Half a second later he appeared in the kitchen, shirtless and messy-haired and unbelievably gorgeous, condom in hand.

  “Let me.” Sitting all the way up, I took it from him, tore it open and slid it over his swollen cock within five seconds.

  It was like no time had passed.

  Yet it was like we’d never done this before.

  Spreading my knees wide, I inhaled sharply when he grabbed me by the hips and slid in, deep and slow. “Yes,” I whispered, grabbing his shoulders as he began to move, his hips undulating lazily between my legs. “Yes, like that.”

  “Tell me you’ve thought about this.” Nick’s voice was deep and gravelly.

  “Oh God, I have. I do. All the time.”

  “Yeah?” His fingers dug into my flesh as he rocked into me, his movements unhurried but steady. “About my cock inside you?”

  “Yes.” I squeezed my eyes shut, appreciating every thick, hard inch of him gliding in and out of my body. “All the time.”

  “You miss the way I fuck you. My mouth on you. My hands on you. All the ways I make you come.”

  “Yes,” I whimpered, the tempest swirling inside me again.

  “Tell me.” He began to move faster, driving into me harder and deeper. “I want to hear you say it.”

  “I miss the way you fuck me.” My toes pointed. “Your mouth on me. Your hands.” My nails dug into his shoulders. “Your cock. I miss it inside me.” Barely able to speak, I gasped when his hands slid beneath my ass and he lifted me off the island. “All the ways you make me come,” I panted. I wrapped my legs around his waist, tilting my hips to take him deeper. “All the ways…you make me come.” Nick cursed and held me tight to his body, grinding me against him so the base of his cock rubbed my clit. “Oh, God, do it, Nick. Don’t stop. Don’t stop. Don’t stop!”

  Clutching him to me, I buried my face in the curve of his neck, sighing long and hard as the shimmering waves of my second orgasm paralyzed me with pleasure. He groaned as I grew even wetter, stumbling through everything he’d thrown on the floor, and slamming my back into the refrigerator door. Pounding into me hard and fast, he cursed and grit his teeth, fucking me against the heavy stainless steel appliance so violently the entire thing shook. Reaching over my head, I hooked my fingers over the top of the fridge and held on for dear life—my back would be bruised to hell tomorrow. We both cried out as his orgasm peaked, his cock swelling and throbbing deep inside me. I clenched my core muscles around him, desperate to feel every twitch and tremor in his body.

  Desperate to cling to the physical intensity between us rather than the e
motional.

  Desperate to think of some way to convince myself that what we were doing was OK.

  Desperate to suppress the wellspring of romantic hope beginning to bubble up inside me.

  I can’t love him again.

  I can’t.

  And I won’t.

  I just had to keep telling myself that.

  When his body had stilled, Nick picked up his head from my shoulder. “Oops.”

  I smiled, still grasping the top of the fridge. “Oops.”

  “It’s hotter than fuck in here. Is the oven on?”

  “Yes. We were supposed to bake a cake, remember?” I let go and held on to his shoulders as he swung around and set me on the island again, the mixing bowl banging into a cupboard when he accidentally kicked it.

  “Oh yeah.” He kissed me on the temple. “This was a better idea. Good thinking.”

  “It wasn’t my idea, Mr. Let’s Be Friends.”

  He pulled back slightly to look at me. “You didn’t want to be friends either, Coco. Admit it.

  Friends don’t grab each other’s business the way you did.”

  “Can we please not have an argument right now? You’re still inside me, for fuck’s sake.”

  One side of his mouth hooked up. “Sorry. Want to call it a draw?”

  “I guess we could. Just this once.”

  Amazingly enough, somehow getting the whole will-we-or-won’t-we question out of the way made me much more relaxed than I’d been when I’d knocked on his door earlier tonight. Even though I had no idea what this would do to our “friendship,” it felt unbelievably good to quit pretending we weren’t still attracted to each other. It was a relief, really. And as long as we didn’t break rules one and two, I felt certain that I could keep my emotions in check even if I let my sex drive run a bit wild. This weekend was like a little vacation from reality—a trip to the past, that’s all. I could handle it.

  Fucking time travel.

  How cool was that?

  Nick showed me where the downstairs bathroom was, and I cleaned up and washed my hands, observing my red cheeks and mussed hair in the mirror over the vessel sink and waterfall faucet. But I felt no guilt, none at all. After all, we were single, friendly, and familiar with each other. It was like watching my favorite movie again or rereading my favorite book. Pure pleasure—nothing more.

  When I was done, I looked for my suitcase by the door, but it was gone. Had Nick taken it upstairs? I went up to the loft, reaching the top of the stairs just as Nick was about to come down.

  “Hey.” He’d wet and combed his hair, the vainglorious ass, but he was still bare-chested and flushed in the face.

  “Hey.” Now that I wasn’t so distracted, I could better admire all the new ink he’d gotten. His entire right shoulder and arm were covered; the other arm had tattoos on the bicep and forearm; he had my name on the left side of his chest and something on the right side of his rib cage. Most of it was plain black ink except for a few spots of color on the right arm. My heartbeat quickened. “I like all the new tattoos.”

  “Thanks. I carried your suitcase up. You can sleep up here tonight. The sheets are clean. I’ll sleep on the bean bag downstairs.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Nick, please. Now that we’ve broken the sex rule, I think it’s OK to sleep in the same bed.”

  His eyes lit up. “Does that mean we can break it again?”

  I eyeballed him through half-mast lids. “I haven’t decided yet. Don’t push your luck. Unzip me please?” Turning around, I lifted my hair off my neck.

  “Sure.” He pulled the zipper down slowly, all the way to my tailbone. Then he traced a line with one finger from the base of my neck to my bra strap, sending gooseflesh up my arms. When he stopped there without taking his hand off me, I smiled.

  “You can undo it.”

  With a deft one-handed motion, he unhooked the strap and I inhaled deeply, my chest expanding. “Thanks.”

  His hands slid inside my dress, spreading it open to reveal my shoulder blades. “You covered it.”

  “What?”

  “My name. Our wedding date.”

  “Oh.” Dropping my hair, I turned around to see him looking sadder than he had a right to be. I swallowed. “Yes.”

  “Can I see?”

  I hesitated. “I guess so. Sure.” Turning around, I gathered my hair over one shoulder and stood still. He opened the back of the dress again, gently pushing the sleeves and the bra straps down my arms. I felt naked, which was silly, since he’d seen me naked for real probably hundreds of times, maybe a thousand. Actually, it wasn’t that I felt naked. I felt judged—and the verdict was guilty.

  Nick’s fingers brushed over the two matching swallows, one on each shoulder blade. “They’re beautiful.”

  “Thanks.”

  He was silent, and for some reason I felt like apologizing. I’m sorry was on the tip of my tongue, as though I owed him permanent real estate on my body. I don’t, I thought, biting my lip. I didn’t then and I don’t now and this moment needs to be over.

  “Mind if I slip into something more comfortable?” I shot him a coy look over my shoulder, dismayed to find him looking pensive and a little heartbroken.

  “Huh? Oh, no, of course not.” He replaced his forlorn expression with an impish smile. “You can walk around naked if you want to.”

  “I was thinking more along the lines of pajamas.”

  “Pajamas?” He looked pained. “That is definitely a distant second to naked, but make yourself at home. I’m gonna start cleaning up the kitchen so we can get that cake made while Noni still has a pulse.”

  “I’ll be down in a minute to help.”

  Nick headed down the stairs and I opened up my suitcase, dropping onto the bed to pull off my sandals. I had the first one off and the second one dangling from my hand when I heard Johnny Cash and June Carter’s “Jackson” start to blare from speakers somewhere downstairs. We got married in a fever, hotter than a pepper sprout…

  Laughing at Nick’s sense of humor, I changed into my pajamas, fitted boy shorts and a tank in blush pink trimmed with black lace. I debated putting a bra back on, since the material of the top was pretty thin, but it felt so good to breathe without underwire I left it off. In Nick’s walk-through closet I found a spare hanger and hung up my dress, ignoring the impulse to rifle through his clothes and sniff his collars, or snoop in the upstairs bathroom beyond it for girly items. I didn’t need to care if he entertained girls here, right? I was no longer his girlfriend and had no plans to be.

  Pulling an elastic from my makeup bag, I wandered into the bathroom to put my hair in a pony tail. The walls were brick, the sink and subway tiles white, and the fixtures chrome. I checked my reflection in the mirror, my insides tightening a little at the thought of Nick wet and naked in the shower behind me. Is that where he jerked off thinking about me?

  For fuck’s sake, Coco. Knock it off and get out of here, you pervert.

  At the last second, I couldn’t resist a quick peak in the vanity drawers, which made me laugh. No pink razors or girly deodorant, but he had enough hair and grooming products to sink a ship. They were all manly, though, as manly as ginger and citrus hair wax can be, anyway.

  Nick was cleaning the island countertop, but he looked up as I came into the kitchen. He’d put his white tank and blue plaid shirt back on, which was probably a good thing. His bare chest was way too tempting.

  “Oh, good. I like a girl who bakes in lingerie.”

  I wrinkled my nose. “I’m not much of a baker. Maybe I’ll just watch.”

  “No way. You’re here in my kitchen, I’m putting you to work.”

  “Slave driver,” I teased. “Got a broom? Or a vacuum?” Nick had picked up the things he’d swiped onto the floor, but the wood felt gritty with spilled sugar and looked dusty with flour. “Did we break the glasses of scotch?”

  “No, actually. The broom’s in the pantry over there.” Nick glanced at my bare feet. “I wiped up the scotch
but the floor might be sticky.”

  “I can handle it.” I found the broom and dustpan and swept the floor while Nick scrubbed and dried the bowls and measuring utensils. “That was some good scotch sacrificed here.”

  “Totally fucking worth it.”

  I smiled. “I think so too.” When I’d emptied the dustpan into the garbage, I wet a paper towel, got down on my knees, and began wiping the floor.

  “Now there’s something I never thought I’d see. Coco Thomas on her hands and knees washing the kitchen floor.”

  I stopped working and looked up at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  He shrugged as he cracked an egg into the bowl. “Just that you’ve probably had a maid to do that stuff your whole life.”

  Sitting back on my heels, I scowled at him. Yes, my parents had always had a housekeeper, something I’d never thought twice about until I met Nick. Everybody I knew had one. Later I learned that Nick’s mom had cleaned houses to supplement the money their family restaurant made when times were tough. But even then, I’d never understood why that should make him uncomfortable around my family. “Really, Nick? Right now you’re going to start that shit again?”

  “Start what shit?”

  “You know what shit. The whole I’m just a poor boy nobody loves me routine.”

  “I never said you didn’t love me.”

  “You know what I mean. Implying that I think I’m too good for you, or that you’re not good enough for me because I grew up…” I struggled with how to put it. “Advantaged.”

  Nick laughed and cracked a second egg. “You grew up rich. And you were too good for me.”

  “Whatever, Nick. It was you that had the money hang-up when it came to us, not me. I never even thought about it.”

  “Because you never had to.” He didn’t sound angry or bitter, but this whole tired conversation bothered me. Irritated that he’d spoil our fun with it, I got to my feet. Why the hell would he even bring it up? I tossed the paper towel in the garbage and tried to slam the cabinet door shut, but it had one of those slow-close mechanisms that prevented it from making any noise. How fucking annoying.