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I turned around on my knees, flushed and out of breath, and found him watching me, his beard damp and his chest rising and falling fast. “I want you inside me,” I said. “And I want to stay on top.”

“Then come here.”

I straddled his hips, reached between us, and sank down on him slowly, one inch at a time. He filled me so completely that I had to stop halfway and breathe, and he went still, his hands steady on my sides, until I nodded and took the rest of him.

The first roll of my hips pulled a groan out of him that I felt in my own chest. “Look at you,” he said, in a voice so low and rough it barely carried.

I rode him slowly at first, because we had time and because I wanted to watch his face. The lamp picked out the ink on his shoulder and the damp at his temples, and every time I rolled down onto him, his lips parted. His hands slid up my sides to my breasts, and when his thumbs circled my nipples, I tightened around him and he swore at the ceiling.

“Careful,” he said. “I’ve got plans for the rest of the night.”

“I thought you were exhausted.”

“I’ve made a remarkable recovery.” He gripped me again and met my next stroke with a firm upward thrust that left me with no thoughts beyond the slide of his cock inside me and the sound of his breathing.

When I picked up speed, I was close again almost at once, close enough that my legs had begun to tremble by the time he sat up, wrapped one arm around my back, and brought us chest to chest. I locked my arms around his neck. We moved together like that, unhurried, foreheads touching and his beard rasping my cheek, and he kissed me between every breath.

“Let me turn you over,” he said against my mouth. “I want to watch your face when you come.”

“Yes. Turn me over,” I said so quickly that he laughed.

He turned us with a care that kept him inside me, easing me down against the pillows and bracing himself on his forearms above me. I wrapped my legs around his waist and gripped his shoulders, and he began to move in long, steady strokes that I felt all the way down to my toes, slower than I’d have guessed he could manage, with his eyes on mine the whole time.

He slid a hand between us and found my clit with his thumb, and the pleasure built so gradually that I didn’t realize how close I was until it was already rolling through me, a long, rising wave, drawing his name out of me in a gasp against his lips. He followed me a moment later with a groan he pressed into my neck, driving deep and holding there while his whole body shuddered over mine.

Neither of us moved for a long time. When he finally eased out of me and rolled onto his side, he took me with him, until my cheek rested on his chest and my leg lay across his. We lay there breathing like guests who had just staggered out of Packaging and Shipping. His heart was still pounding under my ear, and his hand traced the length of my back, and I couldn’t have told you what day it was.

The quilt had gone to the floor at some point, and neither of us had the energy to go after it.

Later, when we finally settled beneath the quilt, Duncan pulled me against his side and tucked the covers around us.

His breathing had slowed, but he was still awake when I rested my cheek against his chest.

“Did you ever think you’d spend Halloween weekend helping run a haunted house again?” I asked.

He ran his fingers gently through the curls spread across his shoulder.

“No. If you’d asked me on Thursday morning, I’d have told you I was done with all of it.”

“And now?”

“I had a good time tonight.” He paused, then added, “A better time than I’ve had doing that kind of work in a long while.”

I lifted my head.

“I’m happy you came back.”

He looked at me for a moment before kissing my forehead.

“So am I.”

I could have asked what that meant for his workshop, his old career, or the talent he’d spent years keeping out of sight. Instead, I stayed close and listened to the quiet cottage around us.

We had both worked enough for one weekend.

After a while, Duncan reached across me to switch off the lamp, and I tucked myself against him in the darkness.

I fell asleep with his arm around me.