She was burning from the inside out. His big, athletic hands lifted her off the floor. Braced her against the wall as if she weighed nothing at all. Their kiss turned into a wild thing all its own. Her hands were under his T-shirt, her fingers sinking into the hard flesh of his back.

He pulled away abruptly. Grabbed her by the shoulder and directed her ahead of him down the stairs. They emerged into the light of the hallway. She spun toward him. Opened her mouth to speak.

“Shut up,” he said before she could utter a word. “I don’t like this any better than you.”

It was the best thing he could have said. They were no longer Piper and Coop. They were simply two bodies in need of release. Depersonalized. Sex at its most primitive.

They were in his bedroom. He made a dash for his duffel. Fumbled around inside it. She could have sworn his hands were shaking, but she was pulling her Bears T-shirt over her head, and that blocked her view. She stood, bare-breasted, in only her pajama bottoms, as he peeled out of his clothes, and, oh, but he was a glorious sight to behold. Fierce muscle and supple tendons, tanned skin and pale scars. She wanted to bite every one of them, but she needed to feel anonymous, and she flipped off the overhead light, sealing them in the darkness.

She heard the last of his clothes disappear, and the next thing she knew she was flat on the bed, still in her pajama bottoms, pressed underneath his body. His legs trapped her own as he turned his single-minded focus on her breasts.

She thrashed beneath the pull of his fingers, the lash of his tongue. She shoved him in the chest hard enough to push him off balance and wedge out from under him so she could climb on top. His washboard abs gave him more than enough muscle to angle up his torso, bring his mouth to her breasts, and continue his black magic. She threw back her head and rode him. He groaned, and she was on her back again, with those big hands yanking off her pajama bottoms.

Once again, his mouth crushed hers, and she arched to meet him. In the thick darkness, he couldn’t see, but he could feel, and he did.

It hurt a little as he opened her with his fingers, but only for a moment, and then it didn’t hurt at all... and she was moving against his hand, mind shut down, crazed, only a body—swimming, surging, no breath—falling apart.

He gave her a moment. Reached for her again. Tortured her. She still hadn’t touched him. Not the way she wanted to.

She hated the dark. Needed to see. He twisted. Reached for something. The condom.

She had to touch him. Muscle and skin. She closed her hand around him.