Standing by the side of the bed, he held up the covers and Emma got in ahead of him, immediately chilled by the loss of his warmth. He was right behind her, reaching for her and drawing her into his embrace, their legs intertwining and their lips meeting in another hungry kiss.

Every single thing about him appealed to her, from the way he kissed her, to his scent, to the roughness of his leg hair, to the flex of his muscles, to the tender way he held and touched her. Grasping her leg, he drew it over his hip and entered her again, the position intensely intimate with his gaze locked on hers as they faced each other. She’d never done anything remotely like this. In her distant past, sex had been fast and mostly meaningless. But this, with him… It defied description.

“Good?” he asked.

“So good.” She held on to his arm while his hand lay flat on her bottom, holding her tight against him.

“Emma…” His eyes were closed, his lips parted. He was so damned sexy when he lost himself in her this way. “God, Emma… Tell me you’re close.”

“So close.”

Rolling them so she was under him, he gave it to her hard and fast, driving deep until they came together in a moment of utter magic. There was, simply, no other word for it.

Emma clung to him in the aftermath, needing his solid weight on top of her. She’d had sex before him. Not much, but some. In the romance novels she devoured late at night when Simone was in bed, she’d read about it far more than she’d done it. She knew enough to realize the difference between sex and lovemaking. This, right here, had been all about love. Not that she could say that to him, not now anyway.

He lay with his head on her chest and his arms around her.

Emma combed her fingers through his hair, enjoying the peaceful interlude after the storm of passion that had been unlike anything she’d ever imagined for herself. He was far more than she’d ever imagined. And she had to leave him in less than twelve hours.

“Why did you just get all tense?”

Sighing, she said, “Because I have to go home tomorrow.”

“I wish you could stay.”

“So do I. I’m trying to picture going back to my normal routine after this week.”

“I’m having trouble picturing my normal routine without you and Simone as part of it.”

Her heart ached with the desire to be part of his normal routine—and to make him part of hers. But how would they do that? The obstacles seemed insurmountable from her point of view.

“Something happened today.”

“I know. I was there.”