Was Wells playing it cool, as though his life hadn’t flashed before his eyes today?

He was trying desperately to keep it together, but the worry about something terrible happening to Josephine still gnawed at him. He’d entered that bathroom determined to respect her wishes. Even when the urge to kiss her on the couch had nearly overwhelmed him, he’d held back, remembering what she wanted.

But Josephine’s bathroom was a charming blend of her personality and style. It was a mix of frilly and practical—cheerful yellow soap next to an electric toothbrush, and whimsical glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling, contrasted by a meticulously organized array of glass jars filled with cotton balls and Q-tips. The real kicker, though, was the baby-blue see-through bra hanging from the towel rack.

See-through, with a white bow between the cups. At that point, Wells was pushed to his limit.

“Do you have everything you need?” his tantalizingly attractive caddie called through the bathroom door, giving him no choice but to take the opportunity.

Now, standing in a veritable whirlwind of her scent—vanilla and lilacs, wasn’t it?—he watched her approach through the open glass door of the shower, his dick swelling gratefully in his hand. Come on, baby, don’t stop. Almost here. Honestly, Wells wasn’t even sure fucking Josephine right now was a smart idea. His brain was still half fogged with the fear he’d lost her,

his delirium compounded by the slap shot in the other direction when he saw her alive and well.

In no way would this be casual, despite how he’d made it seem.

Was he going to be able to have sex with this woman without professing his feelings and begging her to please, for the love of God, just cut the bullshit and belong to him?

Probably not. Maybe he should have kept his shorts on and left. Gone back to his lonely bachelor’s apartment in Miami.

But Josephine.

Being around her again was like waking up after a lung transplant and remembering what it’s like to breathe. He just wanted to get drunk on her oxygen. Was that so much to ask?

“Take off your clothes,” he requested hoarsely, releasing his cock and bracing a hand on the wall of the shower. Otherwise, all his pent-up sexual frustration was going to end up on the shower floor as soon as he saw her tits. “Strip for me, belle. I need to see you.”

She chewed her lip a moment, indecisive.

As a man who knew the strongest weapon in his arsenal—when it came to this particular woman—Wells turned around and let her see his ass. Eyes closed, he tipped his head forward beneath the hot shower spray, letting the water coast down over his back—and he held his breath, praying for

Josephine to make the decision to climb in there with him.

Come on, belle. I need you. Need me back.

His breath released in a gusty shudder when her palms slid up his wet back and Jesus, his cock saluted so fast, it nearly slapped up against his stomach. God almighty, the effect this woman had on him was unmatched. One touch and he had the urge to promise a bunch of ridiculous shit. You want to be carried around town on a silk pillow, Josephine? Hop on. I knew I had these arms for a reason.

Wow. He had problems. Big ones.

Chief of which, he wanted to turn around and demolish Josephine where she stood. Just wrap those beautiful legs around his waist, lick his tongue into her mouth, and pound his way to heaven while she whimpered and clawed at him. But based on her tentative, featherlight touch, they weren’t quite on the same page yet.

Stay cool. Calm the hell down.

Right. Easier said than done when his dick was stiffer than a flagpole in January.

And it only got worse when he felt Josephine’s tongue trailing up and down his spine, her hands gripping both sides of his ass and massaging. Rhythmically.

A hot ripple passed through Wells, his hand dying to wrap around his dick again.

No, don’t move. Don’t do anything that might make her stop.

“That’s yours if you want it, Josephine,” he panted, his hands turning to fists on the slick tile wall. What was he doing? Offering her ownership of his ass? He didn’t feel compelled to take back the proposition, though. If they weren’t in a dark bathroom with stars glowing overhead, steam muffling their voices, his proposition might have come across . . . bizarre?

Definitely bizarre. In the thick of the moment, though, giving Josephine her favorite thing about him came naturally. Giving her anything she wanted

was the only way to live. “Matter of fact, it’s been yours,” Wells said, without thinking.

Words were just leaving his mouth without orders from his brain. Had his fucking filter been carried down the shower drain along with the water?

And then his thoughts scattered like beads on a wooden floor, because Josephine whispered, “I accept” into his neck—and she rubbed a finger against his asshole.

“What the . . . ,” he said on a rushing exhale, his world tilting sideways. “Okay. Fuck.”

Briefly, her hand appeared to his left, picking up a square yellow bar of soap—the handmade shit, like the kind someone bought at a farmers’

market. Did she go to the farmers’ market? Why was he thinking about this? Probably because he had no right enjoying what Josephine was doing back there. She’d soaped her hand up really well, based on the slippery sudsiness of her palm and she was . . . cleaning him. Rubbing three whole fingers up and down, up and down . . . there. Like, right there.

Motherfucker, that felt good.

Felt great, knowing Josephine was the one doing it. Enjoying the hell out of it, too, if her fast breaths against his shoulders were any indication.

The longer she kept at it, the more his hand itched to beat his cock and finally he couldn’t hold off anymore, so he wrapped a fist around his

inches, pumping hard. “Ohhh. Shit. What are you doing to me, baby?” “Whatever I want.” She sank her teeth into his shoulder, dug them in,

then kissed the spot in apology. “Right?”

“That’s right,” he grated, sparks twinkling in the far corners of his vision. “But I can only take so much before I need to hit that pussy, Josephine.

Please.”

She did it. She actually did it. She pressed a finger inside him. Deep.

“What’s the rush?”

His fists shook on the wall, his balls weighed down so heavy, the sexual pain was making its way into his stomach. “I don’t . . . oh my God. Should you stop?”

“You tell me.”

A soft thump on the shower floor had Wells glancing back over his shoulder—and down—to find Josephine on her knees, her lips tracing the valley of his ass, her eyes closed like she’d never tasted anything finer, and his pulse began hammering out of control, a new kind of serpentine lust uncoiling and slithering in the lowest region of his belly. What was happening here? Why was this the most turned on he’d ever been in his fucking life?

“What are you going to—”

Her tongue raked up the part of his backside—firmly—and traveled over the pucker of his asshole, sliding over it roughly once, twice, three times,

while his knees verged on buckling and then, holy shit, she reached through his thighs and started to jack him off, her tongue still working and prodding and licking his rear entrance like her goal was to drive him fully insane.

And she was. God help him, his right foot slid wider with a wet squeak of tile, so she could have more, and she moaned gratefully in response and nothing, nothing, could have prepared him for the animalistic surge of lust that tightened his balls and made him growl at the shower wall, without even really seeing it, because he’d gone fucking blind.

“You are in for such a fucking pounding, Josephine, I swear to God,” he said hoarsely. “Enjoy being on your knees, baby, because you’re going to spend the rest of the night on your back dealing with my dick. You’ve got one more minute.”

He’d live to regret that. Or maybe the opposite. He didn’t know. She made the most out of that minute.

That grip of hers cinched up tighter around his painful erection, luxuriating in every single thorough stroke, while she did things with her tongue that he’d never even fantasized about. Had no idea he would even

enjoy. She wet him down so thoroughly that when she entered him with her thumb, there was no discomfort, only this mind-blowing pressure in his

balls that increased and increased the deeper she pushed, until he was shouting epithets at the wall. He probably made it only thirty seconds of that final minute before he was slapping off the shower spray, turning around, and scooping Josephine off the floor by her armpits. No sooner had he settled her on her feet outside the shower than he was tossing her up into his arms and kicking open the bathroom door, exiting into the hallway.

“Can I come inside you again?” Her desire-dazed expression only made him more desperate to lay her down and connect their bodies. Now. By any means necessary. He needed to get close and feel her have a goddamn orgasm. Watch her take his climax between her thighs and love every second. Every stroke. Every drop. “I’ve got seven days of frustration waiting for your pussy, Josephine. Can I take it raw? Yes or no.”

She had to cross her legs, right there in his arms while he carried her.

Squeeze them together tight. A good sign if he’d ever seen one. “Yes. You can.”

“Bedroom.”

“There.”

Wells stormed into the room she indicated, seeing nothing. He just dropped her onto the bed-shaped thing and lunged into the space between her thighs, fitting himself into her tightness and pumping home. Hard and deep, giving her every inch of the cock she’d made so stiff, he could barely breathe. “Son of a bitch,” he growled, dropping down to roll his face around in her neck. “You have no idea what it’s like to miss you, baby. No fucking idea.”

“I have some idea,” she murmured, kissing the side of his face.

She lifted her knees and rubbed her inner thighs against his rib cage.

It was too much at once. Her words—the implication that she’d missed him, too—along with the welcome of her body was like a balm to his wounds. By some miracle, she seemed to know their exact location and

how to treat them.

Mine. My Josephine. End of story.

Her fingers sank into his wet hair, her hips shifting and rising beneath him. And it felt so good, he had to roughly pin down her lower body or risk coming too soon.

“So smooth. God. Your body is so smooth,” he praised in her ear, easing into the fuck with shallow thrusts of his cock, teasing her and testing himself, trying desperately to keep a grip on the pressure that needed an outlet so badly, he was on the verge of destruction. “That goes double for your cunt, Josephine. You ride so nice and smooth, don’t you?”

And hot damn. Maybe he needed to stop talking to her like that, because she gasped and bucked beneath him, her intimate muscles seizing up in an erotic pattern, making his eyes roll back in his head. The way she squeezed him had to be illegal.

“Jesus,” he groaned, his lips launching a sensual attack against her neck, sucking that spot beneath her ear. “Don’t bother answering. Yes, you do, baby. Yes, you fucking do.”

There was really no excuse for the way he took her on that bed.

It was savage and desperate. Wells wasn’t exactly a stranger to hard, fast sex . . .

But this was not just that.

Every physical sensation had an emotional trigger point. He felt every thrust into her body like it was happening all over. In his chest, behind his trachea, deep in some unknown part of his gut. He couldn’t get close enough to Josephine, couldn’t keep his mouth off her delicious skin, trying to afford her as much pleasure as she was giving him, as if that were possible. He licked her neck, bit into the slopes of her shoulders, bruised her mouth with kisses, all while rocking into her body with a ferociousness he would have been ashamed of if she didn’t have her nails dug into his ass, screaming at him to go faster.

He framed her jaw firmly in his hand, tilting her face up. “All right, baby.

Just keep your legs open and I’ll give you whatever you want.” They fucked like Armageddon was right around the corner. And they looked right into each other’s eyes while it happened.

Wells was on the verge of coming the entire time, because sweet hell, what she’d done to him in the shower would live forever in his spank bank, but he refused to let himself finish because then it would be over. And he never, ever wanted his time inside Josephine to be over. This full-body event that was shaking him, inside and out.

But then she started arching her back and making hiccupping sounds, her hands flying from his ass to the bedspread, twisting it in twin grips. He felt her pussy start to pulse with more insistence and there was no way he could hold off any longer.

Christ. He was done for.

She was the most beautiful goddamn thing he’d ever seen and so fucking tight, he was plagued with the urgency to fill her up. Mentally pleading with his balls to wait just a little longer, Wells reached down and used his middle and ring finger to play with her clit, shouting a curse when he felt exactly

how soaked she’d gotten while he fucked her so unbelievably hard. She moaned at his touch, hands twisting and back arching, showing her bouncing tits off to him like a fucking meal—and thank God she hit her peak at that moment, because he went off like a bomb.

“Fuuuuuuck,” he dragged out, rubbing her clit as long as possible before he had to find his own anchor, planting a fist on the bed so he could get

those final, deep strokes that were made a million times more incredible by her clenching flesh, her husky cries of his name. “Fuck taking breaks from each other, Josephine,” he rasped in her ear, raking his mouth over it from side to side. “You feel how done I am with breaks from you, baby?”

“Yes.”

He gave her one last, rough drive, making her gasp, the final dregs of hunger and pressure and misery leaving his body. “Say you’re done, too,” he demanded.

“I’m done. I’m done!”

“Damn right you are,” he growled, licking the sweat from her throat like a certified wild animal freed from its cage for the first time. Wells collapsed onto Josephine, perspiration and water cooling on their skin for long, heavy minutes, before he tucked her into his side, wrapped them in the comforter, and finally, finally, got to hold his caddie in a bed.

They were asleep in seconds.