When I came apart, his name ripped from my throat and reverberated around the room. In that moment, my whole world was this man, a diamond in the rough who taught me how to bowl and . . . how to live life.

“Good, baby?”

He sat me up and kissed me, his mouth tasting like me down there. I’d thought I would mind the first time it happened, but there was something strangely erotic and intimate about it. He pulled away to rip his shirt off, exposing his broad chest, mostly smooth and hard with a small smattering of hair.

“Suck me a little before I get inside you.”

It wasn’t a question but more of a gentle demand. His tone was rough, but his blue eyes were full of something more passionate—warmth, caring, a touch of tenderness. It was such a weird dichotomy. To be aggressive in bed—or on the couch—but the motivation behind it all sensitive or something touchy-feely. I couldn’t exactly make sense of it, but I liked it.

Getting on my knees, I undid his jeans and quickly pulled them off. He turned to the couch and sat down, his erection reaching for me. Straining for me. I stayed on my knees and dipped my mouth to his length. I licked him from tip to base and back up, stopping to suck on the tip and taste his pre-come before taking the same path again.

“Suck it, Aly.”

I brought my mouth around the top and took in as much as I could. He bunched my hair in his hand and guided my head. The pace was slow at first, and I dragged my tongue along with my mouth up and down.

“Scrape me with your teeth. Lightly,” he said, his voice almost hurting with want.

I allowed my teeth to softly graze him, and a loud rumble made its way from his chest. We stayed like that for a while, me teasing him with a delicate lick or nip, and softly sucking his dick, until he nabbed my hair a touch harder.

“Suck me harder. Hard.” He led the faster pace and knew exactly where to halt me before I gagged. “Jesus, fuck, does this feel good. I don’t want to blow, though.”

I rested my mouth at his tip, swirling my tongue at the hole, a tiny bit of salty substance seeping out.

“Come here.” He guided me to his lap, holding me above him as desire coursed through my body. When I hesitated, he whispered, “I’m clean.”

“I’m on the pill . . . to regulate—”

I didn’t have time to finish. Jake brought me down on him quickly, filling me up and making me whole in a way I’d never dreamed about. Even when I’d sat daydreaming in the corner while my mom cleaned the mansions, or when I stayed up late studying in graduate school, I never dreamed of needing a man in the way I’d come to need Jake.

With him, I wanted to live.

He guided my hips faster, lifting my pelvis and pulling me back down on him, his quads doing all the work as his mouth sucked on my breasts, one after the other. A second orgasm built inside me and I panted as I tried to move with him. When he circled his hips, hitting me in the G-spot he’d found so easily, I shouted. I didn’t even know what came out of my mouth, but it didn’t matter. I was floating, soaring, flying . . .

Living.

We fell into a tangled heap together on the couch until Maverick whimpered. Jake got up to let him pee and said, “Stay there. Don’t move. I’m going to clean you up as soon as I get back.”

I must have dozed off because the next thing I remember was being half-asleep when Jake got out of bed early the next morning to go work out.

Sadly, I didn’t get a chance to see Jake for the next few days. I even missed bowling night. My mom had taken a turn for the worse and between running to check on her and keeping up with work, I was spent. Jake was so sweet, texting every few hours to check in on me, sending Mom a matching hydrangea to the one he’d sent me, even offering to visit her with me.

I didn’t want him to see my mom like she was or my face when I was visiting. Most of the time, it was tearstained from staring at my mom with a feeding tube. The thin piece of plastic tubing now wound over her face and disappeared into her nose, tan-colored liquid pumping through it to keep her body alive. Over the past weekend when I’d been busy falling for the guy, she’d given up eating.

Guilt took up residence in my heart and lungs. Right next to love—or lust?—whatever it was that I felt for Jake.

Barry kept giving me weird glances at work, as if he was worried about me. I’d kept the whole thing about my mom to myself. I couldn’t afford to have him think I’d dropped the ball on the case, so I plowed forward.

Like now, I sat in my mom’s dreary room studying my case notes as she rested, her eyes closed. I was going over holes in the case when Jake texted.

JAKE : I’m outside, let’s go! Time to eat and relax.

I didn’t answer. Instead, I tossed all my crap in my bag and ran out the front doors, reveling in the fresh air and fading sunlight of late afternoon. And Jake.

Seeing him in his usual ragged jeans with a white dress shirt made my blood pulse and my heart beat harder. The sleeves were rolled up, revealing his corded forearms and tanned skin. His hair was slicked back, still wet from the shower, and I knew it would fall all around his face when it dried, and I’d want to push it away from his blue eyes. He was stunning, handsome, rugged, tough, and oh so sweet.

“Hey! You didn’t have to do this,” I said, feeling totally out of place in my black leggings and oversized sweater next to this Greek god.

“Yeah, I did.”

He opened the truck door for me and helped me up, his hand riding up my leg and pulling away my sweater, then pinching my rear. I smiled to myself.

“Hungry?” he asked.

I didn’t get why he saw himself as so evil. He’d been a young kid, and I wasn’t sure who had convinced him of his guilt. The babysitter? Although I could never imagine someone doing that to a kid. Jake had explained when we’d talked over the weekend that Shirley had been an alcoholic back then and drinking heavily. Still, it didn’t make sense.

“Yeah, I’m starving,” I said, turning toward him as he pulled out of his illegal parking spot.

“Where to?”

“Can we do something easy, casual? The diner?”

“Sounds perfect.” When he directed his smile toward me, my heart thawed and started to beat normally again, something it couldn’t seem to do when I was in the nursing home. Then something struck me hard.

“Wait!”

Startled, he braked and turned to me, leaving the Hummer stopped in the road.

“Don’t be mad,” I said quickly, “but I just need to say that even though my mom is lying in there dying, when I see her face, I see peace. Somehow over the years, she learned to forgive herself and my dad, and I guess the guys involved with his death. I know it’s messed up, but I think she figured she needed to live her life and move on.”

Jake frowned at me and said, “Aly,” in that warning tone of his, the one he used when I pushed him too far.

“No, listen. I didn’t think I wanted to live my life until I met you, and now I do. I want you to want to live too, Jake.”

He pressed his lips together as he tightened his grip on the steering wheel, his knuckles whitening as he stared at them. “I’m trying, Al. But this is no quick-fix thing. I’ve been carrying this for a long time, and sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever be able to get past it. You got to understand that.”

I love you. Do it for me. You can let go. Those words were all there ready to roll off my tongue, but they didn’t. Jake was still hurting, and I didn’t want him to do anything out of guilt.

After all, he’d already found me a new apartment and given me a dog. It was enough. I couldn’t beg him to love me.

Still concerned, I decided to drop it for the night. Time would make it easier to share my true feelings.