I pushed the bedroom door open and jolted to a stop when I saw Raegan sitting on the edge of the bed… completely topless. Possibly completely naked but my gray towel was wrapped around her little waist. She stared out the window as she brushed her dripping wet hair, the teasing drops sliding down her freshly bathed body. I knew I should have looked away. Every ounce of propriety my mother had taught me was reprimanding me for not being a gentleman and averting my gaze.

Screw the shower, my body was already heating up on its own. The curves of her figure and the porcelain glow of her skin was the stuff angels were made of. My index finger twitched to glide down the line of her back and over the tips of her perfect breasts. This girl was all fucking woman.

I heard a small gasp and then she said, “Lane, I’m so sorry.” I silently groaned when she pulled the towel up to cover herself.

Her words finally permeated my stupefied brain and a small smile cracked my lips. “You’re apologizing to me?” Wasn’t I the one who was intruding on her?

“This is your bedroom. I should have gotten ready in the guest bath. I’m sorry.”

I smiled at the blush on her cheeks. I seemed my little temptress hadn’t woken up yet. The girl who had been seducing me with her eyes for the past two weeks was feeling shy about me seeing her breasts?

My prying gaze still hadn’t left her chest, even though it was now covered, much to my regret. I wondered what my face looked like right then. All I wanted to do was place my finger in the space between her tits and gently tug down that oppressive towel.

I forced my feet to begin their reluctant trek toward the bathroom. Luckily, I had to walk right past her on my way, which allowed my eyes a few more moments to try and recreate what I’d witnessed when I first walked in.

“Lane...” she breathed out harshly. I immediately looked at her face and spotted the flush creeping up her cheeks again. “Don’t act like you haven’t seen hundreds of these before.” She gestured with a sweeping motion across her chest. My feet immediately halted their forward motion, and I stood towering over her small frame seated on the bed.

“Hundreds? Give me a little more credit than that. I haven’t been with hundreds of women, babe.” I smirked when her breath caught at my endearment. “Let’s go ahead and make this real fucking clear right now. No matter how many I have seen, I have never seen these.” I couldn’t stop my finger when it touched the dip in her throat and trailed lazily down her heated skin. Seriously, it had a mind of its own. “And these are phenomenal.”

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 breasts 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 nipples 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 fucking 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 fucking 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 fucking 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 fuck 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 fucking 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.