It was building again, impossibly strong. She could have wept. He feasted on her breasts, teeth and tongue hungry for the flavor of her, that fragile and floral taste he’d come to crave. He took her hands, wrapping them around the posts again, keeping his clamped over hers.

The thought ran through her reeling head that they were both trapped, both locked in, both prisoners of this.

Accepting, she lifted her mouth to his, linking there as well, and met his fast, desperate thrust.

Then it was only blind speed, blazing heat, gasps and the animal’s song of flesh against flesh. Harder, deeper, until he was buried in her. Until, still linked, hands, mouths, sex, they plunged.

Later, when blood had cooled and the air was quiet again, she shifted. His arm curled around her, held.

“I thought you were asleep,” she murmured.

“Was.”

“I have to go. I can’t sneak in the house at dawn every morning carrying my shoes.”

“Little while more.” He was still half asleep, and his voice was thick with it. “I wanna hold you.”

Her heart melted. Gently, she brushed the hair back from his face. Wild, untamed hair, she thought. Devil’s hair, dark and seductive. “Only a little while.”

She rested her head on his shoulder, her hand on his heart. But he was already asleep again. So she lay there, for a little while, feeling his heart beat.

Mrs. Williamson slid a stack of pancakes under Michael’s nose. It seemed the least he could do was eat them. She watched him take the first bite, her arms folded over her breasts.

“The best,” he said. “When I get my place back together, I’m going to miss sneaking over here and having you feed me. Sure you don’t want to marry me and come along?”

“You keep asking, you might get surprised.” She topped off his coffee. The boy had always had a raging appetite, she reflected. For all manner of things. “Did you finish up that casserole I sent down?”

“I ate it, bowl and all.” Absently, he reached down to scratch the kitten that wound hopefully through his legs. “And the pie, and those cookies.” He grabbed her hand, nibbling on it while she clucked at him. “If you were to see your way to making one of those chocolate cakes. The one with the cream and the cherries?”

“Black Forest. Miss Laura’s favorite.”

“It is?” Apparently they shared the same taste out of bed as well. “She probably wouldn’t miss a piece, or two, of it.”

“We’ll see about it.” She skimmed her hand through his hair, tugged on the ponytail. “You need a decent haircut. Man your age wearing your hair like a hippie.”

“The last hippie emigrated to Greenland in 1979. There’s a small commune there where they still make love beads.”