Infinitesimally, she moved back to lean on her hands that were situated behind her. Opening herself up. To me. Fuck. Her chest rose and fell faster as my finger hauled the gray cotton towel down to reveal what I was dying to get my hands on. I knelt down on the ground in between her legs and looked up into her emerald eyes. They darkened and she didn’t warn me off. Hell, that was a green light if I had ever seen one.

Still looking up at her, I moved forward until my mouth was a fraction of an inch from her perfectly rounded breasts. I wanted my tongue to be the first thing that touched those and then my hands could have their turn at the feel of her smooth skin.

She gazed down at me through heavy eyelids. Her breathing picked up in speed, moving her chest even closer to my mouth. My heart pounded loudly in my ears and besides her breathing, it was the only thing I could hear in this bedroom filled with late-morning light.

In one long leisurely motion, I ran the flat side of my tongue from the underside of her breast and over her nipple to the top, where I placed a lingering kiss. It almost pained me to lift my mouth away from her skin, but I did it to gauge her reaction.

A quick stream of air departed her lungs as if she had been holding her breath that whole time. She looked into my eyes as I stared into her scorching green ones. I didn’t realize she had moved her arms, but now I recognized the sweet, stinging feeling of her fingernails in my biceps.

“Please... please, do it again...” she breathlessly whispered. She moved her chest just marginally and directed her opposite, untouched breast closer to my lips.

“God, you’re beautiful,” I whispered into her skin before my tongue gave it the identical attention as its partner. My lips finished their prolonged caress on the top swell, and then my eyes peered up to see her head thrown back and her mouth opened in complete bliss. Fuck, I could get that reaction with just a little tongue-play?

A groan ripped up my throat, as her name fervently flew out of my mouth. I instantly pushed her back by her shoulders, and when she was flat against my mattress, my lips hungrily claimed her br**sts again. I couldn’t decide which one to give more attention to, so while my mouth was enjoying one, my hand grasped the heavy weight of the other.

The bulk of my body covered hers and her hands gripped my back, holding me with all of her little might. There was so much more to explore, but I had just been introduced to this area and I wanted to be well acquainted before I had to move on. My tongue flicked across her ni**les at a rapid speed and she began to whimper. Her eyes were squeezed shut and her nails scratched wildly down my shirt-covered back.

Her legs began to quiver, grinding into me in all the right places. My tongue and fingers continued their torment, and soon she lifted her arms and grabbed for the comforter above her head in a clenching grasp. The movement only abetted me by forcing her back to arch, which caused her chest to push closer to my needy mouth.

All of a sudden it had become a relentless pursuit for me, and I was not going to back down until I got what I was after. Her hands twisted and squeezed my white quilt above her head, almost as if she needed to release aggression somewhere else besides my back.

Without removing my mouth, I reached up and laced my fingers through hers and she moaned shamelessly. Her body shook underneath me and then locked up, rigid as a f**king board.

“Ohmygod... Lane...” Her words were barely audible. When I looked up at her face, her mouth was gaped open and a silent scream tore from her body.

She finally came down from the high and I growled, “Holy shit, woman. That was the hottest damn thing in the world.” My face nestled into her neck while I squeezed her fingers that were still above her head. “Oh, the things I could do to you.”

I lifted my body and looked directly down at her beautiful face. My eyes zeroed in on her swollen bottom lip; she must have bitten it while I wasn’t looking. I examined every centimeter of her soft, pink lips and imagined what they would feel like on places other than my mouth.

Just then I heard an unfamiliar noise. I lifted up a bit to focus on the sound and it trailed into my bedroom again. The high trill of laughter saturated my lust and caused me to snap back to reality—our reality. I realized that Raegan hadn't heard it because, solely focused on me, she was trying to lean in for my lips.

Kate’s sweet laugh hit me again, and I quickly comprehended where I was and what I was doing. I jumped backward off the bed and tried not to focus on Raegan spread out like a gift from God.

“Shit, Rae,” I groaned while I ran my hands down my face. My hands that now smelled like her. “Shit, what are we doing? What am I doing? I’m so f**king sorry... I shouldn’t have done that. I’m sorry...”

Before I could see the look on her face—the disappointment toward me—I stomped into the bathroom and slammed the door behind me. My hands tightened forcefully as my fingers dug into my palms. I needed to punch something. I needed to f**king punch myself. I reared back to pound my fist into the drywall, but I immediately realized what that would sound like to those outside of the bathroom. What if I scared Kate or Braden? So I stood there in the middle of my bathroom, my whole body vibrating with aggression toward myself, breathing in and out unevenly.

What had I been thinking? Here Raegan and I were just trying to help Kate and Braden adjust to a normal life, and I was trying to take advantage of her body. Had it really been that long since I’d had sex? It sure felt like it, but that wasn’t a good excuse. I couldn’t screw up our friendly relationship, because somehow I would f**k it up and she wouldn’t be able to stay. Right now, Kate couldn’t handle having Raegan and Braden, the two most important people in her life, taken away. Hell, I couldn’t fathom them leaving either.

Turned out I needed that flaming-hot shower after all. My fingers were still tingling from the feel of her soft skin underneath me. When I headed toward the shower stall, I spotted Rae’s white cotton bra and matching panties lying on the floor. Shit. My throbbing need should have diminished, knowing that my own mother had purchased those for her, but it didn’t. It didn’t help one f**king bit.

My clothes hit the ground before the boiling spray of the shower had a chance to beat the cold tiles. When I stepped in, I had that first quick instant where my body felt like it was in a tub of ice water, but then my sensory receptors caught up with my brain and I jumped back from the intense heat. The extreme temperatures didn’t help my situation at all though so I reached down, stroked my length, and thought about a pair of eyes so green the Emerald Isle should be envious.

- ELEVEN -

RAEGAN -

I lay breathless on the bed after Lane had left me for the bathroom. I realized quickly that the kids laughing in the living room had probably been a huge mood killer for him, but I hated that he had said sorry—not once, but twice. I didn’t want to hear apologies. I just wanted more of him… more of what he had just given me. More mind-blowing tingles through every inch of my body that quickly exploded into euphoria.

Yeah, I needed more.

I wrapped the towel securely under my arms and padded on bare feet out to the living room. Kate and Braden had been so wiped out lately with going to play at the park for hours every day and all of the walks through the city Lane took us on. We’d spent a lot of time inside too, but Lane acted as if he needed to show them everything right now.

I smiled when I saw the two of them fading fast. They’d always taken early naps, and I realize at four years old I should just be thankful they still take them at all, but I was also grateful that they always seemed to take them at the same time. Kate’s eyes were drooping as she lay on the arm of the couch. Braden’s head was lying on Kate, his eyes already shut. Kate was trying to fight it as she softly giggled, but her efforts were weak.

I checked the lock on the front door for the hundredth time and made sure the alarm that Lane had installed was armed. When I felt that they would be safe in the living room on their own, I shuffled down the hallway, cracked open the bedroom door, and then entered the bathroom without knocking.

I stripped off my towel and let it float to the ground. Lane was already in the shower and steam had engulfed the room entirely in white. I could barely make out the outline of his body, but I could tell that he had his head leaning against the tile wall, while the water pounded his large back.

I tiptoed closer and then stopped, mesmerized by the movement of his hand. I knew what he was doing and I shivered at the idea that I had done that to him. Heat crept up from my toes and in between my thighs again, but this time another heat joined it. A furious heat. He had left me on the bed, sprawled out and practically begging him, so he could come pleasure himself alone in the bathroom?

I had never been one to leave a misunderstanding hanging in the air, and even though I could have just sat around and moped about the idea of him not wanting me, I didn’t intend to sit around on those feelings. I tackled them. Hard and fast.

I swung the glass shower door open and his eyes snapped to mine in shock. I felt a tremble rock me when his eyes licked my exposed body from head to toe. His hand hadn’t left his erection, but he wasn’t moving it anymore.

“Rae…” His voice sounded as if he were in true pain.

“I’m mad at you.”

“I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have started that.” He looked at me again with shame for what he had done, and then I was pissed.

“If you apologize for touching me one more time, I will scream.”

“I shouldn’t have started that with you,” he repeated. “We have so much going on…” His words trailed off as I stepped into the shower. I knew the water would be scalding. I could feel the heat from here so I stayed near the edge, out of the spray. He was so surprised by my forward movement that it took him a second to realize he needed to turn down the heat.

“You just left me… alone… on a bed,” I whispered.

When I was happy with the temperature of the water, I stepped underneath the calming flow. My body brushed his—just barely—and he moaned audibly.

“Rae…” he started, but I held my hand up to stop him.

“What I don’t want is to hear you make excuses for this attraction between us. What I do want is to feel you,” I stated firmly.

“I’m trying real hard to control myself, babe. You can’t keep saying stuff like that to me.” I heard the tension in his voice and noticed his hand squeeze a bit tighter around himself.

“What are you so afraid of?” I asked. When I extended my hands out to touch him, he quickly stepped out of my reach. I wanted to feel insecure at yet another rejection, but at the same time I knew how attracted he was to me—even if it was only a fraction of what I felt.

“Sex complicates things when it’s between two people who have to maintain a civil relationship. I can’t have things get weird between us, Rae. God… I want you. I want you so bad, but…” His hands moved through the air, mimicking how he would like to run them across my body and a thrill darted through me. I almost moved closer, but I wasn’t that desperate. Not yet.

“No. It’s just sex and I want it with you. It’s been a long, long, long time for me, Lane. You have no idea how this feels… how much I want.” I inched closer and was happy to see that he didn’t back away.

“You’re fooling yourself if you think this won’t obscure lines and confuse feelings,” he whispered into the spray of the shower.

“I realize that. But let me handle it. This is just sex… right here… right now.” With one hand I reached out and replaced his on his strong erection.

“Damn it, Raegan,” he groaned, and I watched as all the fight left his body. I was breaking down the big, tough boxer, one word and touch at a time.

His hand stretched out and pulled the back of my head toward him, our lips colliding in the middle. When he sucked my lower lip into his mouth, I melted. He pushed my back until I was firmly pressed against the glass, and I looked up at his face while his hands ran over my water-slicked breasts.

His eyes were focused past me, almost as if he were looking outside of the shower, and I loved the heat that began to glow in his eyes. I turned to see what had him so turned on. Over my shoulder, I noticed that he could see my body pressed into the glass through the mirror facing us. It was all fogged up from the steam, but he could still easily make out the lines of my body in the glass.

Since he seemed to enjoy that, I twirled in his hands and pressed my front against the glass. At that point, even I was mesmerized by our reflection. My br**sts weren’t small; I could thank a year of breastfeeding Braden for those. They just never went back to my pre-pregnancy size.

But what had my mouth watering was the towering figure behind me. His large frame practically engulfed my much smaller one, and I could feel his giant arms wrapping around my front. The idea that he held back so much of his strength so he could touch me tenderly had me primed and ready to go instantly. Slowly, he let his hands glide past my naval and into the area I was begging for him to stay.

Through the mirror our eyes met and I said, “You like watching.” It wasn’t a question because his obvious arousal persistently pressing into my back was my answer.

One of his large fingers dipped into me and my head fell back against his chest. Everything about him was a turn-on to me. The rasping breath in my ear alone could get me off at this point.

“You know damn well that I like it,” he said directly into my ear. His lips glided across it lightly and when he gently bit my earlobe, my hands flew back and I grabbed his rock-hard thighs for support. My fingers clenched into his muscles but he didn’t protest.

“I need to hear you tell me,” I pleaded.