“Burke.” She rolled over to face him, frustrated. “I’m a grown-ass woman. The last thing I need is some man telling me what I shouldn’t want to do.” She slid her hand down between them, found his cock. “Anyway, it seems like I’m the one taking advantage here. Though it doesn’t exactly feel like you mind all that much.”

Burke closed his eyes at her touch, and she could see that he did want this, as much as she did or maybe more.

But she needed to hear him say it.

She drew her hand back, waited until he’d opened his eyes. Until he’d reached for her, almost shyly, and she’d held his hand still.

“Are you okay with this?” she asked.

“It’s been a long while,” he told her. “Hell, I can’t even remember the last time…”

He trailed off. She waited. His hand brushed her bare hip and she could see how his breathing quickened, and when he reached for her again, she let him pull her closer.

“I want this,” he said, breathing rough. “I just don’t want to disappoint you—”

She shut him up with her lips, pressed them hard to his. Slid her hand down beneath his shorts and took him in her hand fully and felt his body respond to her touch.

“Shut up,” she said, and she kissed him again. “It’s like riding a bicycle, Burke. Just relax.”

*  *  *

It didn’t last long.

Jess shucked her shirt and pulled Mason’s over his shoulders, and then her mouth was on his again, and her tongue, and Mason closed his eyes and kissed her back, hungrily, felt her body move on top of his and his body respond, and Jess was right, mostly—he hadn’t forgotten how, though it had been nearly half of his life since he’d done this.

He’d spent fifteen years waiting, and it was over too soon. Mason held out as long as he could, and then he couldn’t anymore, and when it was over and she was climbing down from on top of him, he reached for her, not wanting to deny her the same as she’d given him, but she took his hands instead, stilled them, and nudged them gently away.

“I’m sorry,” he said, and Jess groaned and rolled her eyes.

“Never apologize to a woman after sex,” she told him. “Nobody wants to hear ‘sorry’ after they just hooked up.”

“But you didn’t—”

“I didn’t want to, Burke,” she said. “That’s not what this is about.”

She lay back beside him and stared up at the ceiling, and he edged over to make room and looked out at the lagoon and the island beyond.

“Why?” he asked after a while.

Jess let it sit there a moment. “Use it in a sentence?”

“Why us?” he asked. “Why right now?”