Ember hesitated just a second before she did as I asked. Her breathing picked up, making her breasts rise and fall at my eye level, but I didn’t break her gaze. Ignoring the stab of pain in my thigh, I lowered myself to the floor, sliding my legs under the coffee table until my face was directly between her outstretched thighs. Fuck this sling; I wanted both of my arms around her, filling my hands with every lush curve. I wrapped my good arm around her and pulled her forward until she balanced at the edge of the coffee table.

“Josh,” she whispered my name.

She’d be screaming it soon.

I might not have been able to sweep her up the stairs, but I could make her come so hard that she’d forget I was injured, that I’d been gone three months, that I was her living nightmare, because she was my wildest dream.

I held her apart with my fingers and set my mouth on her, tasting, licking, sucking, working her over with my lips and tongue until her hips bucked. The only sounds were her stuttered breaths, gasps, and full-out moans. One of her hands braced her weight against the table while the other held me against her.

She tasted even sweeter than I’d remembered.

I lost myself in her body—her every reaction—from the tightening of her thighs to the slight pitch variances in her whimpers when she threw her head back in surrender. In that moment, I forgot everything and existed for one reason: to please December.

Her breathing quickened, her muscles tensed, and her cries sounded higher and higher as she spiraled closer. With one finger I knew I could make her come. It would be easy, but I let her hover, loving the desperation of her hips rocking against my face, her pleas for more.

“Josh…” She started chanting my name, then screamed it as I pressed on her clit with my thumb, stabbing my tongue inside her. She flew apart. I pressed on her again, lightly, as she came back down, and her body jolted again. She was so fucking beautiful to watch come undone.

She stared down at me, her lips parted, cheeks flushed, and a look of wonder in her eyes that made me fall for her all over again. Then hunger replaced it, and she pushed on my shoulder. “Back.”

I shifted my weight, retreating until I leaned against the couch. She licked her lips as her eyes raked over me like I was some buffet and she hadn’t decided where to start yet. Everywhere, December. Everywhere.

She gently removed my sling, then my shirt just as carefully, pulling it over my cast. “Get rid of it,” I said as she ran her fingers over the neoprene shoulder stabilizer. I spoke before she could, knowing what she’d say. “I don’t care what it does to me, take the fucking thing off, December.”

She undid the Velcro and did as I asked, then sat back on her heels next to me and just…looked. The lust pouring out of those eyes made me so hard I was afraid I wouldn’t last. “You’re incredible,” she whispered, kissing down my chest, careful to avoid the incisions on my ribs. Her tongue left a trail of fire, dipping into the ridges of my abs as I instinctively flexed them. God, it felt amazing.

She unsnapped the sides of my wind pants and took them off. “These don’t have snaps,” she said, fingering my boxers.

“I think you can figure— Holy shit, babe.” She grasped my dick in her tiny, sexy little hands and squeezed gently. I was going to die if I didn’t push inside her soon.

I lifted my hips, gritting against the pain in my thigh, and she slid my boxers off, leaving my ass bare against our carpet. “I almost forgot how beautiful you are naked,” she whispered, her hands stroking down my sides until she reached my thighs, stopping just before midway, where the white bandage stood out against my skin.

She locked eyes with me and lowered her head. She was going to— No, I’d lose it. I’d be done in two seconds flat. “Up,” I begged, far beyond caring that I sounded like I was fifteen. “Please, baby, up. I need to be inside you.”

She glanced at my thigh, my chest, my shoulder, and then she shook her head. “No, Josh, I’ll hurt you. Let me—”

“Do you trust me?” I asked, my breath choppy. Hell, I was amazed I could still hold a thought.

“With my life,” she answered.

“Then trust me with mine,” I pled and guided her to straddle me. “Because I don’t think I’ll survive if I can’t bury myself inside you right now.”

With a knee on either side of my hips, she kissed me, careful not to press against my chest. I reached between us, reveling in how wet she was, how ready. Then I lined us up and moved my hand to the curve of her ass. We had inches to spare; if we weren’t careful, she’d hit the wound on my thigh, but damn, it would be worth it.

“Birth control?” I asked, mentally high-fiving myself.

“Never stopped,” she promised and lowered herself inch by flawless inch, taking me inside the perfection of her body until I was completely enveloped by her. “Welcome home,” she whispered.

She was everything and everywhere, surrounding me, her soft skin in my hands, her taste still lingering on my tongue. She started to move, gently at first, testing our limits, and it was all I could do not to come, to surrender to the overwhelming need for release that screamed through my body, because I needed this to last.

“I love you,” she whispered against my mouth, kissing me deeply. “God, I missed this. I missed you.”

“I love you,” I promised, then angled for a deeper kiss, needing every part of me tangled in her. Her soul bathed me in love, her kiss intoxicated every sense, and the movement of her hips, the glide of me deep within her began to bury my demons.