Page 221 of One Wild Wish

“I squeezed it. And I plan to see it shortly.”

She clasped me closer. “That just happened.”

I rubbed my nose up her ear. “It did. And it better happen again.”

“Don’t pull out yet.”

Her heart raced, a rapid percussion against my chest. Pounding with anxiety? “I’m not going anywhere, Possum.”

Except that wasn’t true. Another unpleasant reality. I had to get on a plane in less than two days.

* * *

Gwen

I trailed my nails down August’s scalp, and he sighed. When I clenched my core, a delicious rumble moved through his chest. Little things. New things. Precious discoveries I wanted to hoard.

He pressed soft kisses all over my face. “Stay here. I’ll get a cloth to clean you up.”

I flinched as he pulled out, the emptiness instant, but when he tripped kicking off his jeans and briefs, we both laughed; the silly intimacy of it filled me back up. The way he reached behind him and yanked off his T-shirt had my laugh trembling into a moan.

He smirked over his shoulder. “Like what you see?”

“Love it.” The defined muscles of his back. The divots at the base of his spine. How his toned ass flexed with each move. “Bathroom is down the hall to your left.” I watched him in all his naked glory until he disappeared. I tilted my hips to keep his release from spilling farther down my thighs, and the wackiest of wacky thoughts blindsided me: I wish I wasn’t on the pill.

I pressed my hands to my flat belly and almost keened. The urge to have a permanent reminder of what we’d shared ripped through me. A piece of August mixed with a piece of me. Forever. If he could read my mind, he’d probably bolt so fast the air would spin.

I focused instead on the tenderness between my thighs.

That had been life-altering sex. Moving with him, staring into his eyes while he pumped into me hadn’t been like I’d imagined. And I’d imagined it a lot. This had been more intense than expected, deeper. Like we’d never lost our connection.

Or maybe the intensity was because we had lost it. The anger, the regrets—they’d fueled our flames. And what flames they’d been. Unfortunately, flames too often left scars…and unhealthy baby-making thoughts.

While waiting for him, I removed my bra and tank top. I lay on my hard floor, naked and exposed. Instinctively I knew nothing in my life would be the same. I wasn’t the same. I closed my eyes, pressed my fingers against my breastbone, tried to tame my rattling pulse. Heat pricked my neck.

“Gwen, honey?” I opened my eyes. August knelt beside me and ran a warm washcloth up my inner thighs. “You okay?” He worked as he talked, tenderly moving the cloth over my sensitive flesh, and I melted. He was buck as naked got, on his knees, taking care of me. I was a puddle of happiness. I was petrified.

“I don’t think I’m okay.”

He frowned and tossed the cloth behind him. Leaning on his elbow, he pressed to my side, his legs stretched next to mine. With his free hand, he traced dizzying patterns on my abdomen and breasts. “Talk to me.”

“You’re going to leave. Go back to Europe, aren’t you?”

His fingers faltered. He flattened his palm on my ribs, below the curve of my breast. “I am. But—”

“When?”

His answer took too long. He swallowed one too many times. “Two days. Early Monday morning.”

If this was how getting punched in the gut felt, I’d leave boxing out of my workout regime. I curled away from him, stood and gathered my clothes, blinking the burn from my eyes. My throat stung. My belly churned. How would I say goodbye to him?

“Gwen.”

I kept moving, kept breathing, kept blinking.

“Gwen.” When I didn’t answer him a second time, he wrapped his arms around me from behind, stilling my frenetic movements. “Don’t you dare do that. Don’t you dare cut me off again. Not after tonight.”

He cocooned his naked body around mine, forced me to drop my clothes. He spun me around and locked me in his arms. “That was the best sex of my life. It’s the beginning, not the end. We have another day and a half together, and I plan to spend every second of that time with you.”