And as had happened only with Sean, acquiescence turned to throbbing hunger. He could make her crazy with desperate desire.

He turned with her in his arms, never releasing her lips, and opened the front door, allowing both of them to move right into her house. He closed the door behind them with a bang and pressed her against it on the inside.

Oh, boy, she remembered this trick. If there was anything as likely to weaken her as taking her to bed, it was pushing her up against the wall. Something most men didn’t have a clue about, Sean had perfected. And she clung to him. He ground against her and she gyrated her hips against him, knowing there would be no turning back now. Sean had an unfair advantage; their sex life had been incredible.

In the distance, she heard Harry whine, then growl. It wasn’t like Harry to growl…

“Franci?” he whispered against her lips. “Do you have a dog?”

“Uh-huh. Harry. Little guy. It’s okay.”

“Hm,” Sean answered, going after her lips again. His hands ran smoothly over her bottom to her thighs and he lifted her up. Her legs wrapped around his waist, and he held her there, moaning his approval, slipping his hands under her purple dress to hold her perfect ass. He loved that dress; it felt as silky under his hands as it looked on her body…and he was going to get rid of it as soon as possible.

The growling intensified. Then there was an angry bark and snap just as Harry sunk his teeth into the back of Sean’s leg.

“Arrrggghhh!” Sean rumbled, pulling back sharply, jumping in surprise and shaking one leg, interrupting and disturbing some totally perfect foreplay. “Jesus!”

“What?” she whispered, breathless.

He looked over his shoulder at the dog. “Don’t do that!” he yelled at Harry, causing him to back up and whimper a little. Then he turned back to Franci. “Where’s the bedroom?”

She tilted her head. “Down the hall, first door on the left,” she said weakly. He carried her like that, his big hands under her butt, her legs wrapped around him, down the short hall to her bedroom. He limped slightly. Just inside the bedroom, he kicked the door closed, locking the dog out. He peeled off her coat, dropping it to the floor, then he fell with her on the bed, still crushing her to him, still possessing her mouth. Without releasing her lips, his jacket joined her coat on the floor. In the back of her mind she knew she wasn’t supposed to be doing this. But in the front of her mind, this was perfect. He felt absolutely perfect. And she was so hot that if anyone tried to stop her now, she might tear them limb from limb.

It had been a long time since she’d been this person. Of course, the last time had been with Sean, which partially explained this time. As she ran her hands over his chest, shoulders, arms, back, she couldn’t get enough of him, couldn’t get him close enough, and she began pulling at his shirt. She tugged it out of his pants and pushed her hands underneath to caress his naked chest. His pecs were hard, his belly flat; there was a soft mat of hair. Her fingers teased his nipples and brought them into hard little bullets. She was panting, gasping, biting and tugging gently at his lips. She had become completely wild with absolutely no concept of how this was possible just minutes after she had suggested this was a bad idea. But it didn’t matter—she grabbed the front of his shirt and tore it open, sending the buttons flying, pinging off various surfaces around the room.

“Whoa,” Sean said against her lips. He let the shirt fall off his shoulders, then tugged her dress up. He sat back on his heels between her spread legs, pulled her to an upright position and worked that purple dress up and up, over her head and away. His hands went to her panties…

Her hands were on his belt buckle while his fingers tested the elastic of her very tiny panties. They came off faster than his belt buckle opened; she found herself kicking out of them crazily, frantically. Then she went after that belt again and it wasn’t moving. She whimpered her need to get past that belt, that zipper.

“Easy,” he whispered. “Easy.”

“If it was easy, you’d be naked,” she returned, her breath coming unevenly.

Sean chuckled. “Hang on,” he said, giving her a hand and getting out of his jeans. All their clothes were suddenly flung around the room and they were pressed together, naked, hot and panting. His lips went to her breast, his tongue teasing a nipple into life, while her hand immediately coiled around him and he shuddered, groaning. Mouths together again, bodies pressed tight, he slipped a hand lower. His fingers glided smoothly into her and she ground against his hand. “Yeah,” he groaned appreciatively. “Okay. Okay. I just need a second, honey. Hang on.”

He rolled away from her and grabbed his jeans off the floor, shaking out his wallet, sifting through it quickly, locating a condom.

In that moment that he wasn’t touching her, Franci froze. Her dark eyes were wide, her body suddenly growing cool in his absence. Temporary sanity. She noticed a picture of herself and her daughter on the bureau across the room and pinched her eyes closed, pulled her legs back together. She couldn’t go through with this, no matter how much…He never forgot the condom; he didn’t want children. Well, he forgot it that once…How can I let this happen?

But then he was back, against her, covering her with his large, warm, hard body. He grabbed her wrists, pulled her hands over her head to hold them there, gently parted her legs with a strategically placed knee and claimed her lips. Ah…she thought. That’s what she remembered—that mouth, those lips, all that feeling. Sean. Passion. Hunger. She let him kiss her, let his tongue enter. But her response had cooled; she was worried about what she was doing!

Sean left her lips and rose above her, looking into her eyes. “Uh-oh,” he said. “You’re thinking. All of a sudden, you’re thinking.”

“This shouldn’t be happening now,” she whispered weakly.

“Oh, it’s happening,” he said. “Believe me, it’s happening.”

“This will make sorting everything out even harder,” she said.

“Fuck the problems for a little while. Stop thinking. Go back to that other place, where you were just wanting.”

“I’m not sure I can,” she said, giving her head a little shake.

He touched her lips softly, then harder. He traced them with his tongue. “Sure you can,” he whispered. “Nobody wants like you do, Franci. Work with me here.” He possessed her mouth, then his fingers found her most vulnerable spot between her legs and a delicious moan escaped her as she lunged her hips toward him. Amazing, she thought, how Sean’s skillful mouth, his talented hand, could completely numb her mind and quiet the chatter. He let go of her wrists; his lips found her breast and, with precision, he entered her in one long, deep thrust that made her gasp and push back against him to bring him home.

“God,” she said in a breath. “Oh, God, oh, God.” Her hands were on his back, holding him tightly against her, running up and down in slow, rough caresses. She grabbed the hard muscles of his butt and pulled him against her, into her, hearing him groan. Every nerve ending was on fire; there was a longing inside her that needed to be taken care of right away. She did exactly what she thought she couldn’t—she stopped thinking and let her body take over, bucking beneath him, moaning, whimpering, clinging to him, riding with him in a powerful, stormy, wild pumping that teased the deepest part of her into a hunger so strong, it robbed her of breath. She gasped, wanting and craving and needing. She wrapped her legs around him, scraped her nails down his back and felt the tension shatter inside her, bathing her in a blinding, pulsing heat that flowed from her core to every extremity.

“Ahhhh,” he sighed. “Oh, honey,” he whispered so softly she barely heard. “Oh, baby, that’s the way…” And then he took his—thrusting into her hard, letting it go, throbbing with his own pleasure.

Then she fell limp, satisfied, a pile of stress and yearning that had gone all soft and weak beneath him. A small laugh escaped her. Something about a fabulous orgasm always made her laugh a little.

Really, she hadn’t had one like that in a good four years.

“Funny?” he asked.

“Not even,” she said. Then she laughed again, softly, lightly. “I suddenly feel so good.”

“No kidding,” he said, and he rolled off her carefully, lying beside her, spent.

He dashed off to the bathroom to dispose of the condom, then was back, holding her again. They were quiet for a few moments. Then Franci turned onto her side, raised up on an elbow, looked down into his handsome green eyes and said, “Now, we can’t do that again. We have to sort out our issues.”

“Oh, Jesus,” he said. “Why me?”

“Why you, what?”

“This isn’t the best time to become completely irrational,” Sean said.

“Well, I don’t think I’m irrational at all, but why do you say that?” she asked.

“We’re naked,” he answered. “We’re naked after the best sex either one of us has had in a long time, and we should be cuddly. You used to want to be cuddly. What’s wrong with you?”

She frowned at him. “How do you know that’s the best sex I’ve had in a long time?”

“You tore my clothes off. You left scars on my back.” He smiled at her. “Just an observation, hardly a complaint.”

“Well…actually…Oh, never mind, it’s really not your business.”

“Your dog bit me,” he said. “I think he severed my Achilles tendon.”

“I told you,” she went on, “I didn’t stop living when you told me to hit the road,” she said, ignoring his accusation about her cocker spaniel.

“Franci, Franci, that isn’t what I did. You said you were leaving—I said fine, if that’s the way you feel. Come on, not now. Not tonight. And it doesn’t matter if you had sex with someone. Or with a hundred—Forget I said that. I don’t want to think about this.”

“I don’t sleep around like you do,” she said, curling against him. “We can’t do this again,” she said, but she made no attempt to cover herself and neither did he. They lay there, snuggled, nude, in post-coital rapture.

“I think we can do it again before morning,” he said.

“No, this isn’t going to work. We’re not lovers, Sean. We’re ex-lovers. That’s why that went so well. That’s all it is.”

“I doubt that’s all,” he replied.

“Oh, that’s all. You and I had pretty much perfected it by the time we split up.”

“Wanna bet?” he asked, covering her body with his. “We had it perfected the first time. I remember, and so do you.”

Damned if he wasn’t right. She couldn’t see her way out of this mess.

“We do have one little problem. I had that one condom, just for safekeeping. I don’t have another one.”

She sighed in resignation that came too easily. “I might have a couple.”

“That’s my girl.”

“Don’t get your hopes up.”

“Baby, everything is up.”

Great sex not only made Franci feel good, it made her very sleepy. They made love twice more. Softer and sweeter and slower, but just as mind-bending. They spent hours making love. Then she pushed herself up against Sean in a way that was at once brand-new and very familiar. She used to sleep with him this way—her back up against his front, her head on his arm while his lips bothered her neck. He used to pull her long hair aside to kiss, lick and suck on her neck, but there was no hair to get in his way now. His arm was draped over her waist, his hand capturing her breast. She felt, for the first time in such a long time, like she was in the right place at the right time. But probably with the wrong man.