Oh, she’d known how the night would end because they had made love over the years plenty of times. But that night had been special because it was his twenty-fifth birthday, and she had been determined to make it one he would never forget. She wondered now if he remembered that night. It had been the last night they’d slept together before their split.

“You okay?”

His question made her quickly open her eyes. Had she said something or made a sound? She glanced up at him, saw the look in his eyes. That look. Her breath nearly caught in her throat. They stopped dancing when he reached out and cradled her face in his hands and lowered his mouth down to hers.

* * *

KAEGAN HAD TO kiss her. Whether she’d been aware of it or not, she’d given the code, a secret language they had developed between them years ago. The tip of her fingernail had written it in the crevice of his back. Even with clothes on he’d known what she’d engraved. I W Y. I want you.

He wanted her, too, in every cell in his body. He wanted her with a need he’d denied himself for ten long years. A need that only she could take care of. He wanted her to know his response, to feel it in the way his tongue was taking her mouth. Boldly, hungrily, ravenously, while clamoring at the last of his control. But then, he’d never had any control where Bryce was concerned. She had been his from the first, on the day in elementary school when he’d sat beside her in class and she’d shared her box of crayons with him. That had been the beginning. Over the years she’d shared her mother’s blueberry muffins when he’d missed breakfast, and had shared one of her father’s sandwiches after discovering on some days he didn’t have lunch of his own. And she’d shared her brothers’ clothes those days when his had been too dirty to wear to school. Even as a kid she’d shared her parents’ underground passageway by leaving the door unlocked for him to get in for shelter when things had been difficult for him at home. And she’d shared her heart with him, and her body at seventeen.

Now he fully understood what Ray had meant that day. Home for him was not Catalina Cove or the bayou. Home for him was here in Bryce’s arms. Home was kissing her, tasting her, knowing she was kissing him in return. He loved her. He’d always loved her and would always love her. He had loved her through all the hate he thought he’d felt. Loved her when she would glare at him with a gaze that all but told him to shove it and where. Then there were the times there had been fire in her eyes when he knew he’d risked pushing her to the limit and he could very well end up with a pot of coffee thrown in his face. But he had needed that fire to stay his distance. But now he wanted to close the distance, and reclaim everything that he’d walked away from ten years ago.