She sighed his name and he placed his hands on her back. He kissed her breasts, and when she squeezed her tight muscles, he had to fight to keep from coming before she did. He tried to think of something else while every cell in his body was focused on her. On the way she felt inside. On the warmth of her contracting muscles. On the sharp pain and dull ache twisting his groin.

She straightened and pressed her forehead to his. He breathed the air from her lungs as she moved up and down, touching him with a slow and steady rhythm that built a fever for more. He grabbed her behind and brought her down hard, moving her faster.

He didn’t think anything could feel as good as the inside of Hope, but with the next push, it did. It got a whole lot hotter. And wet, like her mouth, only better. Heat swept across his flesh like a raging fire. Hope moaned and squeezed him tight, pulsing, constricting around him. The strong contractions of her orgasm wrung a release from him that twisted his vital organs and left him without air in his lungs.

He came deep inside where she was hot and slick, and even as he pumped into her one last time, he knew why it suddenly felt so damn good.

The condom broke.


Hope rested her head on Dylan’s shoulder while the music from her CD player filled the silence, broken only by their gasps of breath. She hadn’t thought sex with Dylan could get better than it had been the other night. She’d been wrong about that. Perhaps it was better now because she was more relaxed. More at ease with her body and his. More comfortable acting like herself.

She waited until her breathing returned to normal before she spoke. “I think you’ve ruined me for any other man.” When he didn’t say a word, she pulled back and looked into his face. He didn’t look like a man basking in afterglow. “What’s wrong?”

“Hop up,” was all he said.

As soon as Hope rose to her knees, he grasped her hips and stood her in front of him. Without a word, he grabbed his jeans and headed to the bathroom.

Hope stared after him until he was out of sight. The bathroom door shut, and her own afterglow bubble popped like a balloon. She stood in the middle of her living room, suddenly feeling very naked and exposed. What had happened? What had gone wrong? What had she done?

She grabbed her dress and slipped it over her head. She didn’t know what had happened or what she’d done. Everything had been wonderful until afterward. Until she’d made that crack about him ruining her for other men. Maybe that was it. Maybe that had sounded like a commitment to him.

Hope tied the dress behind her neck and glanced toward the hall. That had to be it. She’d made him angry. He’d probably leave now. The thought of him walking out her front door left her cold.

The CD stopped and the toilet flushed. Dylan appeared in his black jeans, but he didn’t look any happier than when he’d left. “Are you taking birth control?” he asked.

“What?” Her gaze locked on the grim line of his mouth. She shook her head. “I mean, no.”

“Shit!”

Hope jumped. “What?”

“What?” He ran his fingers through the sides of his hair. “Didn’t you feel the condom break?”

She thought for a moment. Thought of the exact second when everything suddenly felt a whole lot better than it had. “Oh,” she said.

His hands dropped to his sides. “When are you due for your period?”

He was worried about pregnancy. Something that she hadn’t thought about for so long, it never entered her head. “Not for a long time,” she assured him.

“How long?”

“I’m not pregnant.”

“You can’t be sure of that.”

“Take my word for it.”

He moved to the couch and sat with his elbows on his knees. His bare foot landed on her balled-up panties. “Jesus, what a mess.”

“I’m not pregnant, Dylan.”

“You don’t know that, Hope. At this very minute my DNA is swimming upstream, millions of happy little tadpoles gearing up to knock at ground zero.” He scrubbed his face with his hands. “Fuck!”

Hope tried not to take it all too personally, but she didn’t succeed.

“I can’t have another illegitimate child whose mama lives in another state. I just can’t do that again.”

He shook his head and looked up at her. “I won’t do that.”

Hope tried not to let her surprise show on her face. She didn’t know if he realized what he’d just told her. “Trust me. I’m not pregnant.”

“How do you know?”

It was no big deal, she told herself. It didn’t matter, but just when she’d begun to feel comfortable with him, telling him would bring up every insecurity she had about her body. “There is no ground zero.”

His gaze lowered to her stomach, and he drummed his fingers on the back of the couch. “What do you mean?”

Hope moved to the fireplace and stared at the cold stone mantel. She stood with her back to Dylan, her toes curling in the bearskin covering Hiram’s bloodstain. She didn’t know exactly how to tell him. It shouldn’t matter, but for some men, it did. “Remember when I told you that the scar on my abdomen was from a tummy tuck? Well, I lied about that. When I was younger, I had a condition that was so bad, I missed a lot of school. Doctors were afraid it might spread to my other organs, so when drug therapy didn’t work, I had to have surgery that left me unable to have children.”

“Cancer?”

She looked over her shoulder at him. “No, endometriosis.”

“Jesus.” He sighed. “Why didn’t you just say that? You made it sound like you were one breath away from death.”

“Have you heard of endometriosis?”

“Sure. My mother had it and had to have a hysterectomy when I was about sixteen.”

“I was twenty-one.”

He rose and went toward her. “That must have been rough.”

She shrugged and looked down at the bobcat on the hearth. “I felt so much better afterward, it was worth it to me. I had so much more freedom. I didn’t have to spend half a month dreading the other half. I thought that if I ever wanted children, I would adopt. Having my own biological child was never an issue for me. Maybe because I thought it wouldn’t matter to a man who loved me.”

“It shouldn’t.”

She knew better. “But it does.” She felt him move behind her.

“I gather it mattered to your ex-husband,” he said, crowding her personal space with his big, solid body and intimate questions.

She’d never talked to anyone about what had happened in her marriage. She really didn’t want to talk about it now, but he rested his hands on her shoulders and turned her to face him. She looked up at him and he was looking back through patient green eyes, like he was prepared to wait all day for her answer. “He thought it wouldn’t matter, but it did,” she said.

His thumbs brushed her bare skin. “Then he’s an ass.”

“Yes, for a lot of reasons, but not for that.” Again Hope found herself in the position of defending her ex-husband to Dylan, but if he was to hear the truth, he had to hear everything. “When we were first married, I really do believe that it didn’t matter to him. He was busy with his practice and we traveled a lot. We told each other that our lives were full and our marriage was wonderful because we could just pick up and go and spend the weekend in Carmel if we wanted. We told ourselves our life was better than the lives of our friends who were tied down with children, and that we could make love in every room of our house if we wanted. We could hop on a jet and fly to Scottsdale or Palm Springs to play golf. And we did do all those things, but it wasn’t enough. At least not for him.”

“He left you for a nurse, right?”

“No. I lied about that, too.”

His thumbs stopped and his brows rose up his forehead.

“I certainly didn’t know you well enough to tell you my husband had an affair with my good friend. It was too embarrassing.” She looked away, but he placed his hand on the side of her face and brought her gaze back to his.

“He’s an ass,” Dylan repeated.

“He said the affair was an accident, but I don’t think so. He said her pregnancy was an accident, too. I didn’t believe that, either. He might not have even known it until it happened, but I think he wanted what I couldn’t give him. He wanted his own child.” She lowered her gaze to his bare chest. “I think it’s biology. I think men want their own children.”

“Maybe it’s just more important to some men.”

“That’s easy for you to say. You have Adam.”

“Yeah, I do, but that doesn’t mean I was always sure he was mine.” He slid his palm down her arm and took her hand in his. “Julie and I weren’t even living together at the time Adam was conceived, and I wasn’t so sure she didn’t have other boyfriends.”

“But Adam has your eyes.”

“He does now. When he was born, they were dark blue and all swollen. He kind of looked like Winston Churchill, to tell you the truth. He had a hard time and was an ugly little spud. But the second I looked into his tiny face, and the second he looked at me, we were buddies. And biology didn’t mean squat. He was mine. He was my son.”

Hope looked in Dylan’s eyes, and her silly heart swelled. She was proud of him and didn’t really know why. Maybe for being a real man. Maybe just for being him. She leaned forward a little and laid her head on his bare shoulder. “You’re a good man, Dylan Taber.”

“Why, because I do what I’m supposed to do? Most men are like me. You just happened to marry a guy who was hung up on the wrong things.”

“I think somewhere in our marriage he changed. He looked at me different, I think. At first he thought I was enough for him, but I wasn’t.” Everything inside Hope stilled. She hadn’t meant to say that. Hadn’t meant to confess her soul. Dylan made her feel too comfortable.

“You’re kidding me. You’re about the most perfect woman I’ve ever had the pleasure to touch.”