Josh had never been stingy with the orgasms, but tonight he pulled away just as she was on the crest, and she let out a moan of protest and leaned forward and bit his shoulder in revenge. He growled, spinning her around and pushing her upper body onto the small console table where he kept his sheet music and notebooks, paper scattering as he bent her over.
“Stay,” he commanded, swatting her ass with just enough force to sting as he went to his discarded jeans, fumbling through the pockets until he came up with a condom.
“You just carry those around?” she asked huskily, watching him over her shoulder. Even still, she stayed put, her breathing heavy as she waited. Wanted.
He didn’t respond, for once, not willing to engage in flirtation as he walked back toward her, ripping the condom wrapper open with his teeth before rolling it on as he positioned himself behind her.
There was no warning. His hands closed around her hips at the same moment he plunged inside her. She cried out at the unexpected invasion, arching her back in pleasure.
He gathered her hair in one hand, winding it around his fist, holding her captive as he slammed into her over and over again. There was no gentleness tonight, but she didn’t want it. She wanted this—this unapologetic carnality that had come out of nowhere and somehow was exactly what she needed.
His other hand slid around to her front, his fingers stroking her in light teasing flicks until she was practically sobbing for a release he kept just out of reach.
“Please,” she whispered.
He grunted in gratification, stroking her harder still, his motions growing smaller and more precise until she shattered against him.
He’d been waiting for her, and the second she clenched around him and cried out, he came with a low groan, one hand on her hip, clenching and unclenching in a helpless surrender that mimicked her own.
Her knees buckled, and he wrapped an arm around her waist, lowering them both gracelessly to the ground.
Josh rolled to his back, his chest still heaving with exertion, and Heather did the same, so they lay shoulder-to-shoulder, basking in the aftermath of the hottest, most intense sex of her life.
• • •
“What was that?” she asked several minutes later, still splayed out on the floor next to him, when she finally stopped panting.
“Fantastic,” he said, his voice raspy as though his throat was dry.
“Well, yes, that. But why?”
“Hell if I know,” he said. “I just saw you there, wielding your little spoon, and I just wanted. So I took.”
His words sent a shockwave of forbidden want through her. Nobody had ever wanted her this way. And she had never wanted anyone else.
Maybe it was okay that this was all they were. Friends and neighbors who could make each other lose their minds in the most raunchy, unapologetic kind of way.
“So do we talk about it?” he asked quietly.
“Talk about what?” she replied, keeping her voice light.
He turned his head slightly and looked at her. She looked back. For a moment his expression seemed almost tender, and she could have sworn she saw a thank-you in his gaze. Maybe a sorry somewhere in there, too.
But then he reached down by his side, picked something up, and flicked it against her bare thigh.
“Ouch,” she yelped, realizing she’d just been slapped with her own spoon.
“Come on, 4C. Let’s make banana bread.”
Heather groaned, but let him help her to her feet. “Not that again.”
As usual the banana bread never happened.
But round two definitely did.
Chapter Twenty-Four
I KNEW IT. SHE looks just like me,” Josh said as he gazed down at his days-old niece, and felt his heart lurch as one of her tiny arms flopped outside of her tight pink swaddle blanket, her features peaceful as she slept.
“Sure, if you look like an adorable Craisin,” his sister said, coming to peer over his shoulder at her infant daughter. Jamie leaned forward and pressed a kiss to the baby’s forehead, then each of her cheeks.
“Did you just compare this lovely lady to a dried cranberry?”
“I did. She’s all sorts of wrinkly pink goodness, and the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
Josh didn’t disagree. Marian Margaret Clyde was pretty much perfection in his eyes. His niece had come into the world hearty and healthy, if a bit late by her mother’s preferences, and Josh had been on the first flight down to Nashville once his brother-in-law had given him the go-ahead.