“I love you, Chrissie,” I whisper. I lean down and lightly kiss her, then tease her lower lip with mine. I inhale deeply the scent of her. My cock hardens more. “I don’t want to fuck. I want to make love. But I’m on fire. I need to do this slowly.”

She studies me, her eyes enormous on her face. Then she laughs. “God, we’re ridiculous, Alan. We’ve gone to bed together hundreds of times. Why are we both nervous?”

Both nervous?

Oh fuck, she’s right—

I am nervous.

Her eyes have an expression of understanding and her cheeks just a wash of rose color. She’s entrancing. Intoxicating. She loves me and I love her and I am being ridiculous.

This woman makes me crazy.

The only woman ever to knock me off my feet, run roughshod over my body, and have me want it as she does it. I am fully lit and ready to fuck her. She’s fully lit and ready for me. The signals emanating from both of us are familiar and crystal fucking clear.

But I’m stalled.

I don’t know why.

Then I shift my eyes to hers. Instant comprehension. There are times when who she is, what she’s feeling, and what she needs move through my body like Morse code.

She really is nervous and it doesn’t take an expert in women to know why. This is not a Chrissie cuteness moment or flash of emotional illogical. Fuck, she just had a baby—my baby. This is new for her, for me, and for the both of us.

I take a moment to cool my body. I’m not sure how to do this, make love to a new mother, but fuck, tossing her on the bed and taking her from behind I’m pretty sure wouldn’t be a winner. Bucking hard between her thighs probably not much better. A blow job—don’t be absurd, this is Chrissie. My dick pulses at the thought of her mouth on my cock even though he knows we’re not going to get it.

I trail my thumb along her cheek, touching light kisses behind it, and her breathing changes—quick spirts in and near-noiseless gasps out. I lightly tease her lip and she kisses my thumb. I take her mouth firmly, holding her lips to mine, and her response is soft and sweet and urgent.

Maintaining the kiss, I take her hands and walk backward to the bed, moving her with me. I sit, my legs apart, and ease her into me, her thighs against my groin and my cheek against her stomach. My arms go around her, my palms filled with her ass, and I press her up against me, against my erection. She moans. My lips roam across her middle in light kisses and hot breaths pushed through her shirt. Her arms slide down my back. Her lips move in my hair.

This is good. This is working for the both of us. I have to make allowances for her body and my own novice status in this experience. She is panting. Wanting. Moving and melting into my touch.

We’ve fucked this way before.

In agonizing slowness.

Tender.

Giving.

Nothing new.

Only this moment is new—the first time I make love to the mother of my child—then it won’t be. It will be us.

I close my eyes and a shudder moves through me. For some reason that makes my desire to be buried in her even more bludgeoning, my arousal more intense, and my disarray more complete.

Her hands move up and down my spine. “Why aren’t you making love to me, Alan?”

I look at her. “I’ve missed you so much. It’s a lot to absorb. Being here. With you. Everything.” My voice is husky with want, but laced with other things I didn’t want her to hear.

I need to get a grip.

“It’s a lot for me, too, but I love you, I want this, and I want you, Alan.”

She starts kissing me, caressing my cheek and stroking my hair. I close my eyes, savoring her. The smell of her. The taste of her. The touch of her. It makes me desperate for her.

My hands caress her back beneath her shirt and then I pull it over her head. I can’t take my eyes off her. Every part of her is lush and perfect.

I want to taste, touch, and explore every inch of her. It’s the body that haunts me, even down to the infinity symbol burned into her hip.

I ease forward and touch my lips there. She takes my wrist and lightly runs her tongue along the tattoo I had made the exact shape and size of her infinity bracelet. Everything below my waist tightens.

I study her in awed appreciation. Her breasts are larger, fuller, the shape and color of her nipples different, but oh, they are no less gorgeous than they’ve always been.

I run my palms up the side of her hips, past the smallness of her waist, up to her breasts. Gently I cup them, feeling their weight in my palms, before I brush over the nipples with my thumbs, their shape swelling under my steady gaze. I do it again, a little rougher. She groans. I run my tongue around one rose edge, watching in agony as it hardens and extends.

Christ, I’ve barely touched them, and Chrissie is panting, lips parted, and I know if I put my fingers inside her panties she is wet and ready there. I start rolling the rosy tips in my thumbs and forefingers, alternating with blows and licks.

“God, you’re beautiful,” I whisper, increasing the intensity of my touch before taking one of her nipples wholly in my mouth. She gasps, grasping my hair tightly as I suck hard. Her body bows, her pelvis moving against me, and she starts to make little whimpers.

Oh fuck, she’s going to come and I haven’t even fully undressed her.

“Oh no, you have to stop,” she begs.

She’s shaking.

It’s working.

She’s almost there.

Hell no, I’m not stopping.

I plant a hand on her ass, guiding her body into my forward-thrusting hips as she grinds against me. The fullness of her breasts turns rock hard, but she doesn’t stop, she is too far gone, and then sweet fluid from her tits is running down my throat and my shirt is dripping. The quivering of her body increases and she lets go, driving me to distraction.

I struggle to hold my own body back. I never expected having a woman’s breasts run would be a turn-on. But, oh fuck, watching her get off this way is one nerve-jolting show. Even the taste of her milk makes me pulse harder.

I lie back on the bed, taking her with me, and quickly kiss her, capturing the breathless pants from her mouth. Lord, I want her now, and he sure as fuck wants out of these pants.

I turn her beneath me. Between kisses and touches I pull off her shorts and tiny thong. I kiss her navel. Her pelvis. My hands roam anxiously, travel downward to her vulva. I do a slow circle around her with the tips of my fingers. I groan…she’s fucking beyond wet.

I shed my clothes and cover her with my body. “I’ve never seen you come so hard, so fast. It’s a fucking miracle my cock didn’t explode just watching you.” I thrust a finger inside her as I devour her mouth. She is hot and tight and wet…and fuck, she’s thrusting again into my palm. I press the heel of my hand to her clitoris, pushing, and she cries out, writhing beneath me, on the edge of orgasm again.

I angle my body between her legs, pushing them farther apart, touching her cunt with the tip of my cock, shimmying side to side, teasing her, but not plunging.

She tenses and her eyes fly wide. Her expression changes.

What?

Panic?

Oh fuck, don’t tell me to stop now.

She pulls her body from underneath me, then completely away to the far side of the bed, and I fall on my pillow, groaning. How did I blow this? My cock does a painful jolt in protest and my body shudders.

“Chrissie—”

She silences me with a scorching kiss and moves until she’s straddling me. I open my eyes. Her face is above me, passion flushed, tense and ready to go. Oh shit—she’s trying to rip open a foil square.

Really, Chrissie?

Fucking rubbers?

Then all the things I’ve done in the last year flash through my head. I regretted them when I did them. But never as much as I do now, coming face-to-face with the only woman I’ve ever loved and shared full intimacy with, trusted enough to give her all of me after the nightmare of Molly’s mother, grabbing for a rubber before she lets me inside her.