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TJ nodded slowly. But his dark sense of humour had him pointing out, ‘I’m not sure that’s what you’re supposed to say to someone who’s suicidal.’

‘I don’t think you really want to leave,’ she reiterated. ‘You just couldn’t see a way out.’ She turned for the trailer, and when he didn’t immediately follow, she reached out her hand for his, said, ‘Until now.’

TJ couldn’t hold on to the hope flickering inside of him for long enough to give her back the words or make her any promises.

But he did take her hand.

And he let her pull him inside the warmth and the light.

Skye knew she was making a mistake. TJ had been right when he’d said that once would never be enough. Because even as she pulled him into the trailer, told Bandit to ‘Stay’ where he lay on the floor, and closed the door behind them, her hands shook with frenetic anticipation.

This wasn’t just a casual hook-up or a date leading to nowhere. This was TJ. Her first. As far as intimacy and connection went, her only. And just remembering how it would be had her reaching for him.

Skye didn’t go slow or take her time. She’d been deprived too long. She grabbed either side of his shirt and yanked, ripping the buttons off easily. TJ’s abs had always been good, but now, with his new leanness, they were impossibly defined.

Skye ran her nails lightly over him, from his neck to his navel, revelling in the way his body shuddered beneath her touch.

But TJ didn’t reach for her. He didn’t do anything except stand there and watch her, his eyes dark with need.

‘What’s wrong?’ Skye asked.

TJ replied, ‘Nothing.’ But his voice was thick with emotion. Intensity poured off of him. And when Skye stopped moving, dissatisfied with his answer, he finally reached for her. He enfolded her in his embrace, so that she was warmed by his hot skin. He rested his forehead against hers and sighed deeply. ‘I had accepted that we’d never be here again.’

He didn’t explain further, but he didn’t have to. Skye felt that same disbelief and, oddly, relief. For so long, she’d told herself that she hadn’t connected with another lover since TJ because she hadn’t wanted to. And although that was partly true, the one thing she hadn’t been able to admit, even to herself, was that she hadn’t wanted to because she hadn’t been ready to let him go completely.

She didn’t – couldn’t – say that to him. Instead, she placed both her hands on either side of his face and touched her lips to his. She whispered, ‘Stop thinking. Just be here with me now, TJ.’

He nodded. A familiar wicked grin, one she’d missed seeing, spread slowly over his face. He slipped his shirt off his shoulders and let it drop to the floor. ‘Do you know what it’s been like – being close to you the last few days without being able to touch you?’

Skye didn’t lie. ‘Yes.’

‘I intend to make up for it, Skye,’ he warned her.

But the threat only sounded like the sweetest promise. Impatient with lust, desperate to be touched, taken, Skye hurriedly stripped. She lifted her shirt up and off, slipped out of her sweatpants, and it was only once she stood in front of him, completely naked, that she said, ‘I’ve masturbated to the thought of you several times since Dave’s.’

TJ groaned audibly. But even as she stood there naked before him, he didn’t rush. He said, ‘Show me how you touched yourself.’

Skye slowly ran her hands down her own body. She paused at her breasts, cupped them as she ran her index fingers over her nipples and moaned.

TJ curled his hands into fists, almost as if to physically prevent himself from interceding. He rooted himself to the spot, encouraged her, his voice low. ‘Being teased by you is my ripest fantasy come to life.’

His words spread heat through her. His eyes, glinting with challenge, excited her.

Wanting to torment him, wanting him to feel the same desperation she did, Skye dropped her hand lower. She spread herself with her fingers, ran her index and middle fingers slowly over her slick, sensitized flesh.

TJ’s breath billowed. His nostrils flared. ‘Fuck. Hearing how wet you are makes me want to taste you.’

Too desperate to procrastinate, even to tease him, Skye turned and walked to her lofted bed. She hopped up onto the mattress, lay back on her elbows, and let her legs fall open in invitation.

Still, TJ demanded, ‘Say it. Tell me what you want.’

‘I want you to eat me out.’

TJ stepped between her legs. The bed was at his belly button height, and even though Skye knew it would irritate him, she had to say, ‘If your back starts to hurt, tell me.’ Before that signature sadness dampened the lust in his eyes, Skye reared up, took his face in her hands, whispered, ‘There are infinite ways we can be together without pain, TJ. But it might take some trial and error.’

‘I don’t want it here with us,’ he insisted.

Skye kissed him, said, ‘It’s a part of you for now. And I’ll take you how you come.’ The words were intimate, and she wouldn’t have given him them under any other circumstances. But if he was ever going to make progress, TJ needed to start learning that he had limitations but that those limitations didn’t define who he was or how she felt about him.