He swatted her hand away, pinned both her arms above her head, and entered her with a single, deep thrust. She gasped and arched into him.

“Serves you right for torturing me,” he rasped. “Now it’s your turn.” More sweat beaded his forehead at the feel of her heat surrounding him. She was so tight and slick. It was the most exquisite thing he’d ever felt.

He stared down at her as he withdrew almost all the way, until the very tip of him was nestled inside, then rammed himself back in. This time Elisa cried out and clenched her hands into tight fists.

He stilled at the thought that she might be in pain. “I’m not hurting you, am I?”

Her eyelashes slowly swept up, revealing deep brown eyes and dilated pupils. “No,” she whispered.

Enough of this slow shit. He’d been patient long enough, and he needed to feel her muscles clamp round him in orgasm.

They developed a nice, even rhythm of him retreating and her lifting her hips to meet his pounding. Her arms remained fastened above her head, but her legs bent higher around him, and she locked her ankles on his lower back. He lowered his forehead to hers as her eyes drifted shut, and she muttered something in Portuguese.

“What’s that?” He groaned into her neck.

She gasped when he ground himself into her even harder. “Just that it feels so good.”

Her words sent him over the edge. He released her hands so he could hold onto her hips. His fingers bit into her soft flesh and held her hips steady as he pounded into her. Her hands gripped his shoulders, her fingernails biting into his skin, as her inner muscles clamped down on his dick and rippled around him. Elisa cried out her pleasure, gasping and moaning and holding onto him for dear life. Mere moments after that, he followed her, jetting out his release in an earth-shattering orgasm that took his breath away. Brody couldn’t remember the last time he came so hard and fast. Through the whole thing, Elisa held him with her limbs wrapped around him and her lips whispering his name.

Brody was pretty sure he’d entered another realm.

He pressed gentle kisses into her neck while their breathing slowed, and they both came back to reality. Elisa pulled in a deep breath and ran her hands up his back. She cradled the back of his head with one hand.

“We can’t stay here all day like this,” she murmured in a sleepy tone.

“You expect me to move while you’re touching me like this? I’m thinking about taking a quick nap.”

“It’s two fifteen,” she said as she ran her hand in hypnotic circles over the coiled muscles of his back.

“So?” he muttered into her neck.

She smacked his bare ass. “So you have to pick your son up in forty-five minutes.”

He grinned and nuzzled her hair. “Plenty of time for a nap and another round.”

“How about a shower instead? We’re both covered in sweat.”

He lifted his head and stared down at her. “Only if I get to slather soap on you with my bare hands.”

TWELVE

A FEW MINUTES LATER, THEY both stood naked and wet under the hot spray of the shower. They washed their hair at the same time, then took turns rinsing. Brody couldn’t help his eyes wandering to Elisa’s slick body and remembering the feel of her beneath him. At the moment, her skin gleamed with water, and shampoo ran down her spectacular breasts as she rinsed her hair. Brody stood directly in front of her and watched as she tilted her head back under the water and closed her eyes. The woman was a freakin’ fantasy come true.

“You’re staring,” she said after she opened her eyes and caught him gawking at her. One of her brows lifted when his penis swelled and rose until it pointed out at a ninety-degree angle.

He glanced down at the muscle, then looked back at her. “It has a mind of its own.”

She nodded and ran her fingers through her wet hair.

“Do you always slip into Portuguese like that?” he asked, remembering when she whispered the foreign language in his ear.

An adorable blush colored her high cheekbones. She giggled and grabbed the bottle of conditioner. “Only when I’m… discombobulated.”

He took a step closer to her and wrapped an arm around her smooth, slim waist. “Discombobulated?” he repeated, and brought his head down to her neck. Her skin tasted clean and fresh, like the wildflowers he always smelled on her. His tongue darted out and swirled in a circle, then licked up to her ear. Elisa’s head tilted to the side, granting him full access.

“I wonder what else I can make you say,” he whispered against her skin. He gave her ear one little nip, prompting a gasp from her.

“You don’t play fair,” she complained, but allowed him to continue to kiss her anyway.

Taking her in the shower, against the cool tiles, quickly shot to the top of his list of fantasies. He wanted to lift her, wrap her legs around his hips, and pump hard and fast into her. Then he wanted to swallow her cries of pleasure as he kissed her senseless. Instead of following through with that scenario, Brody stepped back from her. He didn’t have time to drown himself in a sexual fantasy land starring him and Elisa. Tyler was due to get out of school soon, and Brody needed to be on time.

They finished their shower, in between kisses and intimate touches. Whenever he could, he’d run his hands over her breasts, then cup her firm rear end in his hands. Now they stood on the bathroom floor, toweling off.

“Sorry about the whole condom thing. I’m not usually forgetful like that,” Brody said as he wrapped the towel around his waist.

Elisa shot him a glance as she rubbed her hair dry. “It’s fine. But it wasn’t necessary. I told you I take birth control.”

He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the countertop. “So did Kelly.” Oh, hell, had he really said that? Rule number one: Do not bring up your ex-wife after you’ve just been intimate with another woman. Something like that could kill the mood real fast.

Brody risked a glance at Elisa and found her staring at him, paused in the act of towel-drying her hair. A heavy, uncomfortable silence hung between the two of them. Kelly was a subject he rarely touched with other women, especially the circumstances surrounding Tyler. A lot of things happened during his marriage, and the earlier days, that he wasn’t proud of.

He shook his head. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m an insensitive asshole. I shouldn’t have said that.” He shifted against the hard counter and crossed his arms over his chest. “I don’t like to talk about my divorce.”

“Because it left you scarred?” she asked in that soft voice of hers.

He lifted his gaze from the floor to her deep, brown eyes. Damn that intuition of hers. He wasn’t ready for this. She may want to hear about it, but he wasn’t ready to spill his guts like a freakin’ woman about the demons he carried around.

A small smile, which didn’t quite reach her eyes, graced her lips. “I’m sorry, it’s none of my business.” She finished towel-drying her hair and grabbed her silk robe off the hook on the back of the bathroom door. “But, you know, accidental pregnancies like that are rare.”

Brody watched with regret as she pulled the robe over her shoulders and secured the sash. “Birth control failed me once before. Because of that I never have sex without a condom.”

“So you don’t want to have any more kids?”

“I don’t want to have any more unplanned kids. Big difference there.”

Elisa nodded but didn’t respond.

“Does that bother you?” he asked.

“What, the condom thing?”

He nodded.

She offered him a reassuring smile, one he wasn’t sure she meant. There was something in her eyes that said otherwise. “No. I respect your choice.”

“Come here.” When she remained rooted in her spot by the door, he crooked a finger at her.

She took a few steps until she stood directly in front of him. He framed her face with both his hands, then combed his fingers through her cool, damp hair. His fingers reached the ends of the strands, then he used his index finger to tilt her chin up.

“I think you love me,” she whispered.

“How do you figure that?” he countered while running the pad of his thumb across her lower lip. Somewhere along the way, Elisa had started to mean something to him. She’d wormed her way inside his heart and had created a nice little home for herself. No woman had accomplished that since Kelly. During the four years since his divorce, Brody had become very selective with whom he’d allowed himself to get close to.

“I just have a feeling.” She touched her lips to his in a tentative kiss, preventing him from responding. Then her tongue darted out, coaxing his lips open. He let her inside and kissed her slow and deep while tunneling one hand through the curtain of her hair.

They kissed for several moments in the silence of the bathroom. The whole time Brody tried to tell himself that she wasn’t right.

“How serious are you about leaving Trouble?” he asked out of the blue.

Elisa visibly stiffened in his arms. She lowered her gaze to the floor and toyed with belt of her robe. “Why?”

Because I don’t want you to leave. “Is it serious, like update-your-passport serious?”

She looked him in the eye and he saw the torment there, the indecision, as though she were wrestling with the important turn of events in her life. “I think so,” she said quietly.

Brody didn’t respond, because the terrible pain in his chest had damn near incapacitated him. The thought of her leaving, when he was just getting to know her… well, wasn’t that shitty timing?