Her mouth was on mine and she shifted slowly to straddle my lap, careful to avoid my sore crotch. I kept my hands on her hips while hers moved across my chest. Her mouth slid across mine, opening, her tongue entering my mouth. I almost lost it then. Despite my previous injury, I wasn’t so maimed that I wasn’t hard as a rock in seconds and ready to do all sorts of naughty things to her. Every single one of them flicked through my mind like a slideshow and each successive image made me more and more eager to take her. Pulling her on top of me, pushing her against a wall, cinching her hands behind her back while I fucked her, biting her, tasting the insides of her thighs, riding her until I was exhausted and spent. A hot surge of lust threatened to rise up and drown me. But I struggled against it. I slammed the dam valves shut tight on that raging force of sexual need. I couldn’t control her or the course of this, but I could control myself.

Her arms locked around my neck and I concentrated on keeping my hands where they were instead of roaming up her shirt, like I wanted to do. She was kissing me with a wild abandon, making those delicious noises in the back of her throat, those noises that made me want to listen to her while I made her come, all night, over and over again.

When her mouth left mine, it was to make a frenzied rush to kiss her way down my throat while her fingers fumbled with my buttons. “Heath’s spending the night with Connor,” she breathed and I almost lost all control at the implication. She wanted me to stay. She wanted us to sleep together. And God, I wanted it too. I’d never needed to have a woman as badly as I did at that moment. To bury myself inside her, move against her and listen to her moan in ecstasy.

I let her unbutton my shirt, run her hands across my chest—they were white-hot against my skin. It felt so incredibly fucking good to have her in my arms again. “Emilia,” I whispered into her hair. “I want you—I need you to come back—”

“Shh,” she said, pressing her thin fingers to my lips while she continued to drag her mouth across my neck, sending bolts of pleasure across my skin.

My hands went from her hips to her back. I had a choice, here. Sit back, enjoy this, have a nice, pleasant fuck and walk away. Use her for my own needs and let her use me for hers. Make this nothing more than our own little game of Call of Booty.

Or make this a meaningful moment. A turning point. A chance for us to turn this whole goddamn mess around. “Emilia,” I repeated and she brought her head up and sealed her mouth over mine in a hot, voracious kiss. Her lips enveloping mine, the blade of her tongue outlining my lips. Her warm breath against my mouth. Her breasts pressed into my chest.

I put a hand on either side of her head and pulled her back from me. When we separated, our breath came fast. Lust was burning a hole right through me and I felt empty with it, incomplete.

“I’ll go there with you.”

She froze for a moment. “What?”

“To Maryland. I’ll move there. We can be together…”

She leaned forward and kissed me again, her tongue plunging into my mouth, her hands slipping through my hair. Then she was kissing my neck again.

“I need you to fuck me,” she breathed against my ear.

“Emilia…”

But she wasn’t listening. Her mouth was on my chest, her tongue and lips searing my skin. My hands slid up her back. I wanted nothing more than to sit back and follow where she was leading us. But would this just screw up things between us even more? Make it more confused? That organized part of my brain, where the programmer’s mind lived, wanted this sorted out now. I’d make up for the lack of sex later—and I’d make sure we both enjoyed it, a lot.

“I want you back,” I hissed. My crotch was sore and aching with the tension of unreleased desire. Oh God, I wanted her.

“I want your cock inside me,” she replied.

“What about the rest of me?”

She shushed me again, returning her mouth to mine, but I put my hands on her shoulders and pulled her away.

“Emilia. Say you’re mine. Say we’ll be together. I’ll go with you.”

She hesitated, staring at me with wide eyes, almost as if she was afraid.

“Let’s—” she cleared her throat and looked away. “Let’s not talk about that.” She backed off and stood up, reaching out for my hand. “Come on,” she said.

I wasn’t an idiot. No way was I going to pass up this opportunity. I followed her into her dark bedroom. She had a twin bed, for God’s sake. I couldn’t sleep with her here, but I could fuck her just about anywhere. But here, I couldn’t lie beside her, sleep next to her in someone else’s bed under someone else’s goddamn roof. I wanted her where she belonged, under mine. She turned and pulled me down to her again, hooking her arms around my neck.