“Wait. Wait.” His fingers stopped hers.

“What?”

“Rubber.”

Her mind went blank, then, “Oh. Protection.”

He cracked a laugh. “In my wallet, bought them last night.”

She bent down and kissed his mouth, swiping her tongue along his lips. When he opened his mouth she rubbed her tongue against his as she rubbed her lower body against his and stopped only when her mind was sinking into the world of blazing lust. She dug the word she’d wanted to say from her brain. “Optimist.”

Another laugh. He lifted his head for a very brief kiss. “After last night, I knew we’d wind up in bed together. Realist.”

“Bed? This is the couch.”

“Great couch, you’re gonna take it with you, aren’t you?”

“Hadn’t planned on that, but yes. And you’re lying on your wallet.”

He arched again, stroking her with his body in just the right place. While she gasped with pleasure, he tipped her in toward the back and shucked his pants and boxers, then took care of protection.

She’d wiggled out of her dress and underwear, only glancing at the front door before he rolled her back over and kissed her, hot open mouth to hot open mouth. When they broke for a ragged breath, he said, “You coulda kept the dress on.”

She couldn’t even answer as she poised over him, rubbed her sex back and forth along his. So extremely, sensually good. Again. Again. Pleasuring herself, glorying in feeling how he thickened under her, became more rigid.

His hands cupped under her bottom and his hands against her skin broke the minor trance of escalating passion . . . and added a new element all at once. Her eyes had closed and she’d breathed in the thick air and the scent of them . . . him and her, mingling. Now her gaze went to his strained face, his own pupils so dilated she could see only an edge of green.

“Clare. You’re. Killing. Me,” he panted.

More sweat beaded on his forehead, appeared as if it might run down his temple. She had to taste that, the essential Zach. So she leaned forward, nearly stopped as the tip of him touched exactly where she needed. She sucked in a breath and trailed her tongue across his forehead. Salt and Zach . . . the taste of plains instead of city . . . sage, something like piñon pine.

And he angled her and thrust up into her and she moaned as he fit so well.

Paused. Cloth on his chest instead of skin that she wanted to feel. She unbuttoned his shirt. Muscles, little hair. Nice.

“Sexy woman,” he said.

TWENTY-FOUR

WHY WAS HE still talking? She began to move . . . rise until only the tip of him was in her, slowly, slowly slide back down. His jaw bunched, more color coming to his face, accenting the hue of his eyes. Beautiful man.

“Slow is good,” he slurred.

Still talking. So she started a rhythm, watching his face, feeling him flex and throb and fill her.

They moved together, spiraling up to the pinnacle of teasing ecstasy with each surge of their bodies. Zach’s eyes blurred . . . because of her own vision or his, she didn’t know, but her palms on his chest got a little slippery and she dug into his chest hair and he grunted and his hips moved faster.

“Cla-are.” Her name came broken on a jerky breath, like nothing she’d heard before, ever, and her body clenched tight and hot around him and he thrust and rapture shattered her into sparkling diamonds turning into rain, into mist, her spirit free and flying before coalescing back into her pulsating body and she felt him arch. His fingers clenched into her butt and she peaked again, quick and hard, and fell forward gasping.

“Clare,” he murmured, his hands falling from her.

She found the fast pulse of his heartbeat in a thick vein in his neck and licked it and he shuddered. “Clare!”

Subsiding on his chest, stroking his muscles instead of digging into them, Clare sighed out, “Zach.”

They lay there together, their hearts pounding and their breathing steadying into unison, taking long minutes for themselves. Clare’s mind seemed to turn on first and she said, “Wow.” Very hot, very sticky between them, and she didn’t mind.

Zach grunted a laugh, rubbed her back, ran his fingers through her hair, lifting it away from her damp nape, and the quiet whoosh of the fan overhead impinged on her hearing as her body cooled.

Her lover lifted her chin so their gazes could meet; his eyes were sensual and a lazy smile curved his lips. He looked satisfied, knowing that he’d pleased her and had reached climax, too.

After a quick kiss on her lips, he rolled her to the back of the couch, and the change in angle told her she wasn’t nearly as recovered from the fabulous sex as she’d thought, since her stare stayed fixed as she moved. She blinked and refocused just in time to see a taut backside turning into the small hallway that held her bathroom.

“I’m starving,” Zach called. “Can you order something in? Something that will be ready after shower sex?”

Clare scrambled to her knees, shoving her hair out of the way, her brain flipping through cuisines. She so rarely ordered delivery, she had to think about it. “Pizza or Chinese?” she asked.

“Surprise me,” Zach called as he turned on the shower.

She didn’t have that big a water heater. Grabbing her phone from the table, she ordered Happy Family from the Chinese restaurant; it would arrive in half an hour.

Running to the bathroom, she stepped into the tub shower, her toes curling. Steam rose around her and even in the heat, the humidity felt blissful.

Zach was simply gorgeous. All right, he looked as if he’d lost some weight, but he still had excellent definition. Better than she. She bet she’d have to up her exercise program if she wanted to keep him as a lover, and she did.

In the damp, his hair appeared to wave more than she’d noticed; her fingers itched to touch it. It was longer, shaggier than she usually preferred. She liked his hair, and the looks of him, his slow smile that melted her.

She was very glad she’d added nonslip strips to the bottom of the tub.

 • • •

What with another round in the shower, the arrival of good Chinese food that they both ate with chopsticks, and easy conversation, any problematic after-sex tension just evaporated. There had been only a couple of hitches in their postcoital glow—one when Clare asked Zach to move the puzzle box from the coffee table to the top of her one knickknack cabinet, and one when Enzo made a clever comment about how good they were together.

She and Zach had played footsie under the dining room table, so he seemed to hear, and occasionally respond, to the dog. He didn’t seem to want to analyze the psychic stuff or talk it out. No doubt a man thing to just accept it without dealing with it, so she went along with him.

After dinner, he helped her tidy up, finish packing the living room and start on her small home office. As the sun set, they were rolling around in her bed, learning each other’s bodies, though through distraction or Zach’s avoidance, she didn’t get a good look at his injury. Not that she cared much; the man was an attentive lover and there were other parts of him that proved more interesting and demanded more of her attention.

They finished up the last of the Chinese when dark fell, and he rose to go. She hadn’t asked him to stay overnight, and he hadn’t pressed to sleep with her. He had called Mrs. Flinton and Mrs. Magee earlier to let them know he wouldn’t be back until after dark. He and Clare had spoken about their respective moves. His voice held affection for the ladies, and she thought it was a good fit for him and them, for the time being.