Lyssa laughed and swiped her eyes on her sleeve. “Just go get him, huh?”

“Yeah, but if he wants to do more than kiss you-”

“Turn him into a toad?”

“Yes. An ugly one, with warts.”

Lyssa laughed again, and that felt good, hearing her, seeing her smile, knowing she’d helped, she’d really helped.

They watched the night for a few more minutes before Lyssa said, “So where’s your prince? Is he out there also?”

“According to my own rules, he has to be.”

“Have you met him yet?”

“I’m hoping.” She watched a star fall. “I’m hoping a lot.” She gave in to temptation and hugged Lyssa, then stood up. “I’ve got to see Sarah.”

“What about?”

She took a deep breath. “I’ll tell you after it’s done.”

Lyssa blinked. “Okay.” She waited until Kenna had reached the front door. “You going to work here?”

“Are you this smart in school?”

“What, like I couldn’t figure it out?”

“All right, I want to work here.” She didn’t just want to make her father donate the price of a Ferrari and visit once in a while. She wanted to take the additional college courses she needed to counsel the kids. That combined with her life experiences, and she figured she’d be great.

Passionate.

The hours would be long and the pay short, but what was new about that? In the meantime, she’d volunteer. Just like this, giving her time and help in any way that she could. “Would you like if it I did work here?”

Lyssa lifted a noncommittal shoulder. “Sure.”

Not exactly a resounding endorsement, but Lyssa was a teen and didn’t do resounding.

But then Lyssa rolled her eyes. “Duh, Kenna.” She smiled widely. “You’d be great.”

Yeah. She’d be great.

18

AFTER TALKING to an excited Sarah, Kenna practically danced out to her car. She was so happy, so excited, she could hardly contain herself.

Her life was actually, genuinely, on the right track. There was a sticky note on her windshield-with a smiley face on it.

Taking it off the window, she hugged it close to her chest, feeling a ridiculous grin burst onto her face.

Mindless sex, here she came. A perfect way to top off the night.

She drove to his house and took a moment to admire the full moon.

Then she laughed at herself. There was a tall, dark and sexy man just inside, and she was standing here looking at the moon. She had to laugh at herself.

“What’s so funny?” came a husky voice from the top step.

Wes.

“I was just thinking, I’m standing out here sighing over the moon, when I could be inside…” She met his gaze. “Sighing over you.”

“It is a beautiful night. I was sitting here thinking about a long walk with you.”

Her laugh was breathless. “And here I was wishing we were doing something fast and reckless and exciting.”

“We?”

A loaded question, one she wasn’t sure she had an answer to.

He came close and smiled, a sexy one that made her heart stutter. “That one little word we scare you, Kenna?”

“Only slightly more than hell, yes.”

“You missed me.”

“Maybe. Wes…my father released me from my contract. The job is all yours.”

“What?”

“I’m going to go back to school. I’m going to work at the Teen Zone. It’s what I really want to do, it’s what put this smile on my face.”

“And I thought that was me.”

She laughed. “You turned the smile into a grin.”

“Okay, then.” He sobered, touched her face. “I thought you liked your job.”

“I do. I like it. I like it a lot, actually. But I realized I don’t love it, not like you do. It doesn’t drive me, Wes, and I want something that does. I want that so badly.”

“You know I’ll miss you at work.”

“That’ll pass.”

He put his hands on her arms. “I doubt it,” he said so seriously, she felt a lump in her throat.

“But I won’t miss you outside of work.” His eyes heated. “Or I’m hoping I won’t.”

“You won’t,” she whispered.

“Let’s go.”

Her heart leaped. “To do something fast and reckless and exciting?”

“I was thinking of long and slow and sweet.” The blatant look of desire behind his glasses made her hormones rev. “Or at least something halfway between. Up for a compromise, Kenna?”

Were they still talking mindless sex?

Still holding her hand, he brought it to his mouth, let his lips linger as he gazed at her over their entangled fingers.

“Yes,” she said, her bones liquefying. “A compromise.”


HE TOOK HER INSIDE the house he’d bought with his first bonus from Mallory Enterprises seven years before. It had been a dump back then, but he’d slowly renovated the place, made it his.

Now, when he could have bought nearly any other house he wanted, he wouldn’t have traded it for the world. In the years since, he’d purchased places for his parents and his brother, but he’d stuck with this one for himself. It meant something to him that he’d come from nothing. That he’d rebuilt this house from nothing.

That he’d made himself a home.

He opened the front door, watching Kenna take in the airy, open space that was his living room.

“This is great,” she said. “Are we going to-”

“Make love.” He pulled her to him, slipped his arms around her. “We’ve had sex, fast and hot and reckless. But we haven’t made love, Kenna, long and slow and sweet.”

She laughed a little, and backed up. “But I didn’t have anything against the fast and reckless sex.”

“Are you nervous because I used the love word now?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Nothing makes me nervous.”

“I think I’m making you nervous.”

“Wes…”

“We’re still different, you know. Nothing’s changed there.”

“Not that different, I’ve come to realize.”

“Different enough.”

“Let me show you we’re not, let me prove it.”

She looked so excited and nervous and terrified all at the same time, poor baby.

He knew just how she felt. He pulled her close again, trailed his mouth along her jaw, loving the feel of her body against his as they swayed together in the middle of his living room. “I should tell you…I work hard and play hard. I thought women were just a part of the play. They’re not. You’re not.”

“I know.”

“You work hard and play hard, too,” he said, and let that sink in.

They weren’t that different.

“Come see the rest of the house with me.” He showed her the kitchen, the deck…his bedroom.

She laughed at his unmade bed, then squealed when he scooped her up and tossed her onto it. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes slumberous. Her long hair tumbled over her shoulders.

She looked so good in his bed, he planned on keeping her there a while.

A long while.

She came up to her knees in the middle of the mattress, looking right at home there. Kneeling on the bed with her, he cupped her face, kissed her jaw, her throat, nibbling at the corners of her mouth before he finally settled his lips over hers, scooping her closer, loving the feel of her warm curves against his body.

As he undressed her, he felt her pulse hammer beneath his fingertips. He intended to go slow, give as much pleasure as possible, but as he peeled off her clothes, exposing her body to his gaze, his own pulse hammered in his head.

So hot, so…his. Her body curled into him, her breasts and hips flush to his, moving, arching as the need built to unbearable heights.

Tugging his shirt free, she tossed it aside, then ran her hands over his chest and arms with a look of wonder on her face. “You’re so beautiful.” Then she shoved him to his back on the bed and pulled off his pants.

He’d barely taken a breath before she straddled him, wrapping her fingers around his erection, bringing him to her hot, wet-

“No,” he managed to say through his clenched jaw, and rolling, tucked her beneath him. “Not yet.”

Her hands, caught in his, flexed as she stared up at him. Not yet? What did he mean not yet? “Why not?”

“I told you. Long and slow and sweet. Or at least at a speed somewhere below wild and crazy. We’re going to make love, Kenna. Haven’t you ever made love before?”

Panic wove around her heart. “Wes-”

His tongue circled her nipple.

She nearly jerked out of her skin. “I don’t think-”

“Perfect,” he murmured. “Go with that.” Lifting up a fraction, he blew on her wet skin. She watched him watch her intently as the tip beaded tightly under his administrations. Then he drew her into his mouth, and she writhed against him, helpless, mindless against the onslaught of emotions.

“Easy,” he whispered, trailing his mouth over her quivering belly. “We have a long way to go.” His tongue dipped into her navel, then lower, until she felt his warm breath on the inside of her thigh.

“Wes-”

He kissed her, there. “Yum,” he said, and used his tongue.

She nearly shot off the bed, but he held her still beneath him, slowly, surely, purposely driving her out of her mind. Because he knew her, because she’d let him know her, he was able to torment her, for one long, humming moment holding her quivering and shuddering on the very edge.

“When…I can…breathe,” she panted. “I’m going to…so torture you back.”

He treated her to one perfect stroke of his tongue and sent her skittering into an earth-shattering climax. Surely such intensity, such unbelievable reverence and desperation had never existed before now. Her entire body shuddered and clutched, and finally, she felt his weight shift, felt him reach for a condom.

“Oh, no,” she managed, and flinging her hair from her damp face, sat up. “My turn.” She shoved him to his back, looking over his body, from his broad shoulders to his tough chest and flat belly…