“No more waiting.” He perched on the edge of the mattress. “We need to leave. Escape with Kate.”

“No.” Her answer was cold, final. She turned away and stared at her phone.

It hadn’t passed his notice that she was the only one going downstairs for food. With Van gone, there was no need for pretense. Beneath that icy mask, she still believed he would leave her.

He drew in a breath and matched her chilly tone. “If you haven’t heard from Mr. E before the delivery, then what?” She’d said Van would send her the address for the delivery when he received it. “Are you still going to deliver that girl?”

Her body turned to stone, her voice grinding. “I’m going to do what I have to do.”

He rubbed his temples. He couldn’t ask her to choose whose lives to protect. It was an impossible decision. One that would make the strongest person lose her bearing.

Laying on her side with her back to him, she folded in on herself, arms and bedding wrapped around her belly. She needed someone to hold her on the shore of decision, to cradle her fears, to contemplate what was best for her.

He leaned in and touched her bare shoulder with his fingertips, with his lips. “If you need a place to go, Liv, I’m right here.”

A shiver twitched down her arm. Her hair swept over the pillow in ripples of mahogany. The naked curve of her spine disappeared beneath the sheet that bunched at her waist. He was conscious of her lack of clothing under there, and while her nudity was no longer a mystery, it was no less alluring. Even in her misery, he wanted her, in every way possible.

He trailed a knuckle along the dip of her waist, over the rise of her hip, taking the bedding with it. He expected her to jerk away as she’d done all day, so he decided to surprise her. He yanked the sheets to the floor, exposing her slim lines and milky skin, stripping her bare.

She rolled to her back, her lips parting in disbelief, her phone seemingly forgotten at the edge of the mattress. What a gorgeous opportunity. He pinned her chest with his and captured her mouth before she could close it, swiping his tongue, finding hers on the second pass, warm, wet, and so damned promising.

She arched into him, the heated satin of her flesh molding to his hands as he caressed her backside. He was instantly hard, his balls tightening with an achy need. He palmed her breasts, his thumbs rolling over her nipples, his tongue licking and stroking the sensual reaches of her mouth.

The most private part of her body ground against his, her calves hooked around the back of his thighs, her fingers clutching his biceps. As their mouths moved together in synchronized surrender, he wished he’d had the foresight to remove his jeans. He wanted to feel her against his skin. He wanted in her.

Her hands twisted through his hair and tugged, breaking the kiss. Her lashes lifted, carrying her gaze from his mouth to his eyes, and held him, heart and breath, in eternal suspension.

She licked her bottom lip, and he felt it pulse through his erection. She blinked and something shifted over her expression. Angling her chin to the side, the hands in his hair pulled his face to her chest, and her thighs tightened around his waist. “Please don’t give yourself to me.”

He broke the crush of her embrace and gripped her face with two hands, forcing her to look at him. “I already have. This—” he rocked his groin against hers “—is part of the deal.”

Her eyelids shuttered closed, and a breath spasmed through her chest, her lips in a flat line of rejection.

His hands fisted in the pillow. He couldn’t, wouldn’t, force her, beg her, or otherwise guilt her into it. He lowered his forehead to her shoulder, inhaling the clean scent of her skin, savoring the intimacy of her body against his.

A haunting melody strummed from her lips. He recognized it immediately. “Possession” by Sarah McLachlan was a sad but fitting choice, its tune reflecting the tragedies in Liv’s life. He shivered against the sweet breeze of her vocals, holding her tight as she expressed herself the one way she knew how.

She sang about trapped memories and solitude, but when the lyrics shifted to aching bodies, her huge brown eyes moistened, welling in the corners, staring up at him, piercing. Her conscience emerged through the words, her voice cracking, yearning. He realized she wasn’t rejecting him. She was beseeching him. Asking him to love her.

He sat back on his heels, curled her legs around him, and beheld the beauty of his world. Uncertainty misted her eyes. He drank in her fading hymns, her feminine allure. The parted seam of her mouth, gentle swells of breasts, flat expanse of belly, vulnerable spread of thighs. Her fearless heart.

His chest swelled, overcome and pounding frantically, as her love gathered before his eyes, twining her fingers around his, rolling tears down her cheeks, whispering a word he’d ached to hear in her angelic voice. “Josh.”

She stole his breath. He bent forward and collected a tear on his fingertip. His pulse beat in his throat as he lowered his finger and traced the slit between her legs with the teardrop, sliding deeper and deeper with each pass. His lungs panted. His finger breached her opening, and warm, slick flesh sucked him in.

Just thinking about putting his penis there sent a shock wave to his groin. He sank to the knuckle, her channel flexing and gripping. A moan tumbled out with his exhale, and he fell forward, catching his weight with his free arm beside her, laughing at himself, overwhelmed with desire.

He pressed in and out, and added a second finger. Her eyelids dipped to half-mast. Her lips freed a smile, her body glowing with life. He cherished every breathy gasp, marveled at how wet she was, and couldn’t let go. He wanted in, and given how violently his muscles shook, it would happen quickly and with a great amount of energy.

The naked light bared her arousal in all its curves and glistening flesh. His hand braced his larger frame over hers, his other exploring her sex with fumbling urgency. “Wish I had ten hands. I want to touch you everywhere while I’m doing this.”

“Just keep doing exactly what you’re doing.” She reached down, found the button on his jeans, released it, and lowered the zipper. “You’ll have me coming in no time.”

Oh, those words stroked him, made him harder. He concentrated on the depth of his touch, the velvet heat of her folds drenching his palm, and the sound of her exhales. When she pulled him from his pants and glided a fist up and down his length, he quickened the thrust of his fingers, wheezed on his laboring breaths, and felt his release barreling down.

He bucked out of her grip, pulling his fingers from her, squeezing the base of his erection and halting the orgasm. “I…uh…” A ragged laugh shook from him. “Wow. I’d like to get at least one thrust in before I embarrass myself.”

Stretching her arms above her head, legs spread in offering, she grinned. “I’ll keep my hands here.” She sucked on her bottom lip, her gaze sobering. “I’m all yours, Josh.”

Ahhh, his name on her lips. The arousal straining her face and the sultry caress of her voice accelerated the gallop of his heart and the throb between his legs. He lowered his face to her mound, slid his hands under her butt, and kissed a path down the line of her sex.

The sweet scent of her moisture infused his inhales. His mouth watered as he spread his lips over her, licking, sucking, imbibing the salty, sugary essence of her. He kissed her like he would her mouth. Deep, hungry pulls with his lips, burying his face, his tongue circling and lapping. The more he explored, the hotter her flesh grew, her entrance swelling, widening, wanting. He was doing that, tweaking her body, giving her pleasure.

Her legs flexed around his shoulders, her inner muscles pulsing against his tongue. Fingernails scraped the wall above her head. “Ohhh, fuck, fuck. Don’t stop.”

No way. He ground his hips against the mattress, working his jeans off with one hand, kicking them away. His heart raced toward implosion, his hard-on so hot and painful, he was consumed with the primal need to fill her, to make her his. He curled his fingers around her thighs, spreading her further, deepening his kiss.

Her curvaceous backside went tight in his hands and loosened with her full body sigh. “Ah, ahhh, I’m coming. Oh fuck, Josh, I’m coming.”

He devoured her through the twitches and pulses, the muscles inside of her beating against his tongue. Soon, she melted into the mattress, her breaths falling like lingering tears. She gazed down the length of her torso, eyes heavy-lidded and clinging to his.

One more tongue-delving kiss, and he crawled up her body, taking his time, dragging his mouth over her quivering belly, capturing every bead of sweat, following the dips of her ribs. He got sidetracked when he reached her nipples, flicking and biting until she pulled his hair and covered his mouth with swollen lips.

She drew in his tongue, humming, hands sweeping down his back. Her fingers burrowed into his butt crack and pressed against his rectum. Fire sparked in her eyes. “Take me.”

He shivered, his voice strangled. “Yes, ma’am.” He rolled his hips forward, cock in hand, and lined it up to her opening. They’d tied her tubes, but… “Condom?”

A smile shook the corner of her mouth. “Van doesn’t sleep around and has blood tests to prove it. I trust him on that.” Her eyes asked, Do you trust me?

He nodded, his heart hammered. This was it. He found her eyes, smoothed the hair from her face. She touched his lips then his chest, over his heart.