So yeah, he watched where his palms went as he stroked her slowly, and he kept his hips out of the way, and he trained his eyes across the room instead of on, say, her perfect pink nipples.

“I’m sorry about the crying,” she said, as if she knew he was worried.

“Is there anything I can do for you?”

She pressed her lips to his pec. “You did plenty.”

Well, if that didn’t make him go all big dog in his chest. “I’d like to do it again sometime.”

“Would you?”

“Soon.”

The smile she gave him was bright as a rainbow. “Too bad you had only the one condom.”

“Talk about tragic.”

They stayed side by side until the cold breeze coming in through the window over took the hot drift from the vent above the bed.

“You’re cold,” he said, rubbing the goose bumps on her arm.

“I’m comfortable, though.”

He reached over her and picked up her shirt off the floor. As he helped her into it, he paused to watch her breasts sway.

“You should never wear a bra. Ever.”

She laughed as she did up her buttons, and after he handed her the fleece she’d worn, he picked up her panties.

Oh, for God’s sakes…he wanted to keep them. Which made him a perv and a jerk, but that was the caveman for you: He wanted something of his woman’s with him.

Except she wasn’t his, was she. For fuck’s sake, what woman in her right mind would sign on for a guy who’d just dumped his would-be fiancée? Yeah, real stable right there.

“I believe these are yours,” he murmured, handing over the slip of black with care.

“Yes, they would be.” She took them and treated him to one hell of a show as she put the things on—not because she was being deliberately erotic, but because to him she was pretty frickin’ edible any way she came and no matter what she did.

The whole thing made him think about when he’d taken her jeans off. He’d stopped at that point and stared at her for so long because he’d wanted to go down on her right then and there: He’d been struck motionless by visions of moving her hips to the edge of the mattress and kneeling on the floor in front of her and taking his damn time with her.

In some ways, though, oral sex was more intimate than the whole penetration thing, and he’d been concerned that being with him would bring up bad memories for her. Which was exactly what had happened.

But hopefully there would be other times. Shortly. And a lot of them.