But of course, now she knew that all those years he had been holding himself back. Because he wanted her.

And last night he’d had her. To his heart’s content. And hers.

It had been incredible, and so had he. So had she, for that matter.

She had never, ever, had a guy lose it with her like that, and she had loved it. She would have said that she wouldn’t have. She would have said that things like that—desperation and roadside sex—were for other people. People who were more into it from a physical, sweaty standpoint, rather than the spiritual connection she had always claimed.

But it turned out that pleasure and sweat did not preclude spiritual connections. Because she felt transformed. Turned inside out.

She tried to breathe around the heavy pressure in her chest and found that she couldn’t. She also couldn’t find some of her clothes.

They were somewhere. She knew that. She had dressed before coming into the house, and then he had proceeded to strip her as soon as they’d gotten behind the door of his bedroom, after which he had done things to her body that she would have said she wouldn’t have any interest in.

But he made her insane. He made her beg for what she had thought she might actively ask a man to not do.

His tongue was wicked. And it was wonderful.

And she had known him all this time and hadn’t realized he was capable of such things.

She had called him steady. She had called him boring. She hadn’t had any idea he knew places to touch inside a woman that could give her the kind of orgasm that made her scream.

She curled her toes inside her sandals and proceeded to hunt around the room. Giving up, she went over to his dresser and grabbed a T-shirt and a pair of sweats out of there. They were way too big. She had to cinch the sweatpants up ferociously to make them stay up. But it was fine.

Then she tramped downstairs, barefoot, and started to hunt around for their breakfast. He would follow soon enough, and she would take the moment to engage in a little bit of self-examination.

Or maybe, just think about what had happened the night before.

Maybe this was part of the key.

This exploration with him.

Because yeah, she was a control freak, and she had a feeling that it was that control freak part of her nature that had made it impossible for her to orgasm with a man until this moment. Only with Ryder had she been able to let go of that control. And only because she knew him so well. And he knew her.

He knew how to get her there. How to put her mind at ease. Didn’t they say that a woman’s most important sexual organ was her mind?

Of course, it felt like somewhere a whole lot lower. Felt like every inch of her skin.