He grinned. “I live to serve.” In a flash, he was bare to me. I watched in fascination as he rolled the condom over himself. I’d always thought that action to be clumsy, awkward, but Crosby somehow made it sexy. The movement was smooth, self-assured, and my lower belly clenched with want.

He stepped forward, letting his fingers trail up my inner thighs, lighting nerve endings that all seemed to culminate at my core. A single finger trailed up my center.

“Crosby.” It was part reprimand, part plea.

“You want something, Brown Eyes?” He kept stroking, teasing. He seemed to be in no hurry. Yet no touch glanced over that bundle of nerves that would take me where I wanted to go.

“Stop messing around.”

Crosby chuckled. “I could do this all night. The feel of you, so smooth on my fingers. I like playing with you.”

I let out what almost sounded like a growl and circled my legs around his waist, trying to urge him forward. He grinned, leaning over me, his lips a breath away from mine, his tip bumping against my entrance. “Are you ready to feel?”

“Yes.” The word came out before I could even think about the wisdom of it. In one long stroke, he entered me.

My eyes watered at the feeling of fullness, of experiencing something other than the numbness that seemed to have invaded every cell of my being since Harriet’s funeral. “More.” This time, my word was a plea, a demand.

Crosby began moving, slowly at first and then picking up speed. Each glide drove me just a little bit higher, had me reaching for more—the pleasure, the bite of pain, anything that told me I was alive.

My hips rose to meet his, an instinctive dance that would only be ours. A rhythm unique to our bodies and our pleasure. With the smallest shift in our angles, Crosby was suddenly deeper. I felt him everywhere. Each time he hit that spot, sparks ricocheted throughout my body.

“Get there with me, Kenna.”

My name emerged in a growl from his mouth and drove me even higher. My muscles tightened and bunched as Crosby thrust. I strained and searched, calling for the thing I wanted most. A rough thumb stroked across the bundle of nerves at the apex of my thighs. One single motion, scant millimeters of movement, and my world broke apart.

Nothing but sensation surrounded me. I wanted to live in this place forever and never leave. To always know how alive I could be.

Crosby arched, letting out a guttural sound as he came. He collapsed on the bed, rolling us so that I was on top of him. Our breathing matched as we gulped in air. My body still buzzed and tingled as if it were just regaining feeling after being frozen for hours. I kept my eyes closed, not wanting to lose the moment.