At his first touch, she arched her back, moving into him, sighing his name. Again and again, he stroked her, at first slowly, teasingly and as she crested closer and closer to her climax, he quickened his rhythm and watched her expressive face as the first tremors of delight shook through her.

Her eyes widened, she bit down hard on her bottom lip and lifted her hips into his hand, his touch, claiming him as much as he claimed her. When she cried out his name, he groaned again and held her while she reached her peak and then fell to earth.

“Brian?” she asked a moment later, lifting both arms to encircle his neck.

She looked more beautiful than he remembered. Her brown eyes were warm and rich and filled now with a lazy satisfaction that was already giving way to new needs. Needs he wouldn’t—couldn’t—fulfill. Brian grabbed her wrists and shook his head.

“What?” she asked, wariness creeping into her expression.

“I’ve gotta go,” he said and gently lifted her off his lap and pushed himself to his feet. Pain radiated through him and Brian realized he hadn’t been that frustrated since he was a kid. A cold shower probably wasn’t going to do it this time. With an ache this big, this deep, he’d need an oceanful of cold water.

“Are you kidding?” she demanded, slipping her arms through the straps of her shirt and rearranging her clothing as she stood up to face him. “You’re leaving? Now?”

“Especially now,” he said tightly.

His hands itched to hold her again and other parts of his body were even more interested in getting close again. Deliberately, Brian turned his back on her and stalked to the front door.

“Was that just me, Brian?” she demanded and the tone of her voice prodded him to turn around to meet her gaze just as he hit the front door.

He saw hurt and confusion along with the anger in her eyes and told himself it was his own damn fault. He never should have trusted himself inside this house alone with her.

“Was I alone in there?” she asked, waving one hand behind her toward the living room.

He wanted to say Yeah, I felt nothing, because that would surely be the easier way. But the whole Coretti polygraph thing had him in its clutches again and Brian discovered he couldn’t lie to her. Not about this.

“No,” he said, his voice just a ragged hush of sound, “you weren’t alone.”

“Then how can you leave?” she asked. “If you feel anything of what I’m feeling, how can you leave?”

“Don’t you get it, Tina?” he asked, hitting the screen door with the flat of his hand and stepping out onto the porch, “It’s because I’m feeling what I am that I’m leaving.”

She threw her arms across her chest and held on tight. Glaring at him, she snapped, “That makes no sense at all.”

His body aching, his mind hurting, his soul emptying, Brian just said, “Yeah, I know.”

Then he left.

While he still could.

For the next three days, Brian stayed as far away from Tina as humanly possible. He even considered moving onto the air base for the duration of her visit. But he just couldn’t seem to make himself do it. Oh, he didn’t trust himself anywhere near her, but at the same time, he didn’t want to cheat himself out of at least seeing her from a distance.

Stupid.

Losing control of the situation had been stupid and Brian couldn’t even remember how he’d lost it. All he could remember was the feel of Tina in his arms again. The soft sigh of her breath. The amazingly responsive woman he’d missed so desperately.

“When are you going to admit it?”

Brian snapped out of his thoughts, which had once again been centered on Tina, and looked at Aidan, across the table from him. “What?”

Aidan sneered at him and jutted his elbow into Liam’s side for emphasis. “D’ya hear that?” he demanded. “He’s not even willing to admit to us that Tina’s getting to him.”

“She’s not,” Brian lied and didn’t even feel guilty for it. What was between he and Tina wasn’t anyone’s business. Not even his brothers.

“Right,” Connor said from beside him and reached for a tortilla chip out of the basket in the center of the table. “You’re just avoiding going home because you hate the dogs.”

“I do,” Brian reminded him.

“Uh-huh,” Liam put in, “but they’ve never kept you away from home.”

“Fine.” He threw both hands up in mock surrender, then reached for his beer. Taking a long swig, he swallowed, then said, “You guys win. Tina’s making me nuts. Happy now?”

While his brothers grinned and nodded knowingly, Brian shifted his gaze to the crowd dotting the tables at the Lighthouse. Always, there were families. Kids, of all ages, parents, grandparents. He’d never really paid attention to them before, and maybe that was because it hurt too much to see happy families when his own marriage had ended.

But for some reason, the last few days, all Brian had been noticing were families. His friends and their kids. Military wives driving into Parris Island to hit the Commissary for groceries. And he couldn’t help wondering if he and Tina would have had kids by now if he hadn’t insisted on a divorce. But following that thought, he wondered if he hadn’t saved them both a lot of heartache by ending things when he had.

What if they had had kids, and then divorced? How much harder would everything be? And how unfair to children, torn between two parents.

His gaze fastened on a little girl, no more than two or three. She had dark, curly hair and big brown eyes and looked just as he imagined a daughter of his and Tina’s would have looked. She was beautiful, he thought, just a little wistfully. And if a ping of regret sounded in his heart, then he was the only one who would know it.

“I don’t know about the rest of you,” Aidan said, snagging a chip for himself, “but I’m real happy to hear it.”

“Oh, me, too,” Connor put in. “Good to know I’m not the only one suffering here.”

“You guys are lightweights,” Liam said with a sly smile.

“Hey,” Connor argued, “you’ve had a few years to deal with this whole, ‘no women’ thing. We’re new to it, thank God.”

“And not long for it,” Aidan remarked, pointing his beer at Brian. “At least, one of us isn’t.”

Brian bristled. Sure, things were tougher than he’d thought and damn, he’d come close to losing the bet—and himself—in Tina the other night. But he’d stayed strong. Stayed dedicated.

Stayed frustrated.

“Don’t worry about me, boys,” he said tightly. “I’m doing fine.”

“Right. That’s why you’re here with us instead of at home.”

Brian ignored Connor and looked at his older brother. “You enjoying this, Liam?”

“I am,” he said and cradled his bottle of beer between his palms. Slanting a look at Brian, he said, “You know, maybe there’s a reason Tina’s in town right now.”

“Sure. It’s fate, huh?” Brian said with a snort.

“Would it be so surprising?”

“Yeah, it would. I don’t believe in fate,” Brian said flatly. “We make our own decisions.”

Aidan and Connor exchanged a glance and a shrug, then kept quiet and listened.

“And if you make the wrong decisions?” Liam asked.

“Then you pay for them.”

“Like you’re paying now?” Liam mused.

“Who says I’m paying?” Brian argued and when his voice got a little loud, he winced and hunched his shoulders as a woman at the table next to them gave him a quick look. “Damn it, Liam, Tina has nothing to do with this bet.”

“I’m not talking about the stupid bet, Brian,” his brother said softly, as if only the two of them were at the table. “I’m talking about you letting Tina walk out of your life.”

“That’s over and done,” he murmured, refusing to look at any of his brothers. Instead, he stared at the label on his beer bottle and picked at the edges of it with a thumbnail.

“Is it really?” Liam said on a sigh. “I wonder. If it were really over, wouldn’t you feel safe going home?”

Brian snapped him a look then swept his gaze over Connor and Aidan who were both doing their damnedest to look invisible.

Scowling at his sudden discomfort, Brian reached for his wallet, pulled out a bill and tossed it onto the table. Then standing up, he looked down at his brothers, but focused solely on Liam. “I’m trying to stay away from Tina for her sake, if you’ve just really gotta know what I’m doing.”

“Okay,” Liam said nodding. “I’ll buy that, if you can.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I think you know, Brian. You just don’t want to admit it.”

“I don’t remember asking for advice, Father,” Brian pointed out, feeling his temper spike.

“You’re right,” Liam said and he smiled again, even wider this time, as if to prove to both of them that Brian’s temper didn’t worry him. “But consider this a freebie.” He leaned forward, forearms on the table and stared steadily into Brian’s eyes. “You’re not avoiding Tina for her sake, Brian. You’re doing it for your own. You’re hiding from her because you don’t want to admit that you never should have let her go.”

“Bullsh—”

“Ah,” Liam said grinning, “fascinating, well-thought-out argument.”

Brian huffed out a breath, dug in his pockets for his car keys, then glared at the booth full of Reillys. “You guys are making me even more nuts than Tina!”

He stomped off, and after a second or two, Aidan held up one hand toward the waitress and silently ordered another round of beers for the table. Then he glanced first at Connor, then at Liam. “Brian’s a dead man,” he said, smiling.

“Oh, yeah,” Connor said, “a goner.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Liam said and lifted his beer. “A toast. To Brian. May Tina make him suffer before taking him back.”

“Amen.”

“Ooh-rah.”

Tina sat on the edge of the bathtub in the tiny bathroom, dressed only in a towel and reminded herself that this was what she’d come home for. Since she’d first hit town, Tina had started off every day the very same way—taking her temperature. And every day, she’d waited, wondering if this was the optimum day for conception or not. Then every day, she’d faced a mixture of disappointment mingled with relief.

Until today.

She pulled in a deep breath and let it slide from her lungs in a slow rush. Nerves twisted in the pit of her stomach, but she resolutely squashed them. Her temperature was right. Her eggs were ready. The time was now. If she was going to do this, she’d never have a better day than today.

And if she was a little nervous about the romantic ambush she’d been forced to plan, well, that was Brian’s fault. He’d been sneaking into his apartment and sneaking out again in the mornings, avoiding her at all costs. “So what other choice did I have?” she asked, more to hear the sound of her own voice in the stillness of the apartment than anything else.

She crossed her legs, uncrossed them, then crossed them again in the other direction. Her stomach twisted and pitched and every nerve ending in her body seemed poised for panic.

“Silly.” She muttered the word aloud, as if to convince herself. “This is Brian. We were married for Pete’s sake. It’s not like we’ve never—” her voice droned off into silence as memories, old and new, flooded her brain.

Of course, there were the memories of she and Brian, first married, and loving each other so desperately, so frantically, they could barely stand to be separated from each other. Then there were the long, empty years and then—images of the other night crowded her brain and Tina’s stomach twisted again. This time from need. From want.

Brian had pushed her higher and faster than anyone else ever had and the crashing climax she’d found in his arms had only fed her hunger for more. She wanted his hands on her. She wanted to feel the rush and roar of her own blood racing through her veins.

And she wanted a baby.

Her head snapped up as a slight sound reached her. The front door of the apartment had opened.

Standing up, Tina smoothed her palms over the pale blue towel knotted between her breasts and falling to the tops of her thighs. She soothed her stomach with a deep gulping breath of air, then pulled open the bathroom door and stepped out.

Brian’s gaze locked with hers.

His mouth fell open.

Tina smiled. “Surprise.”

Chapter Seven

Brian just stared at her.

He tried to talk, but his throat closed up tight.

He’d been thinking about her all the way home from the restaurant. Liam’s words had rattled around inside his brain until Brian was forced to wonder if maybe his big brother was right. But if Liam was right, then that meant that Brian had wasted five years of his and Tina’s lives. So, his brother wasn’t right, Brian told himself. Liam didn’t realize that Brian had only divorced Tina to protect her. To save her years of misery.

Sure he regretted letting her go.

Never more than right now.

The old-fashioned wooden clock on the wall ticked loudly, sounding like a much steadier heartbeat than Brian’s at the moment. Moonlight filled the shadowy room, streaming in the front windows like a silvery fog. Lamplight from the bathroom behind her, backlit Tina, defining her outline with a glow that was almost otherworldly.

But she was all too real.

And Brian was a doomed man.

Every inch of him went on red alert. He felt like he was strapped into a jet, parked on a carrier, readying himself for the roar of engines and the heartstopping jolt of takeoff. Adrenaline pumped and his blood raced.

A second later, Tina started talking, and he fought the hunger to pay attention.

“…I locked myself out of Nana’s house after my shower—”

He held up one hand for quiet. “You went outside dressed like that?” he managed to croak, and wondered if the fact that he found that idea incredibly sexy was a sign that he was truly twisted.

She smiled, slowly, wickedly. “I’m perfectly decent,” she said. “Not like I went for a walk down Main Street. Besides, it’s a big towel.”

Not big enough, Brian thought frantically. She looked…beautiful. And edible. And irresistible. And so many other things, he could hardly name them all. Her dark, curly hair brushed her shoulders, and her darker eyes glittered with expectation and a hunger he remembered only too well. His fingers itched to explore the length of her tanned, smooth legs and when she smiled, her lips looked full and luscious.

Then his gaze locked on the towel, knotted between her breasts. His breath hitched. Was the knot slipping?

Please.

Slip.

“Anyway,” Tina said and strolled—there was no other word for it—strolled to the double bed on one side of the room and sat down on the edge. He swallowed hard as that towel edged apart slightly and rode high—too high—on her thighs. “I know you have a spare key for Nana’s place and I didn’t think you’d mind if I waited for you up here.”

He watched her and wondered if she’d sat just there on purpose. Moonlight played over her, gilding her in a soft silver glow that made her even more beautiful than usual.

“No. Don’t mind,” he ground out and swallowed hard. His brain was clouding over. Not good. His body was pumped and eager. Also not a good thing.

Tina scooted around until she was stretched out on the bed, long legs crossed at the ankle, her back against the headboard. The moonlight loved her. As he watched, she lifted both arms and stretched lazily, as if she didn’t have a care in the world. As if she wasn’t nearly buck naked in his bed.

As if she wasn’t driving him crazy with a wild desire that had a stranglehold on him.

“It’s a nice apartment,” she said, letting her gaze slide around the small room.

Now she’s making small talk? he thought furiously. He was a man on a knife’s edge and she wanted to talk about home furnishings? Bullshit. She was playing this out, deliberately torturing him. She knew what she was doing and knew what it was doing to him. No way was she actually admiring his place. He knew exactly what she was seeing. The studio apartment was small, efficient and anything but homey. But it had always suited him fine.

Until now.

Now, he didn’t think the place would be big enough if it were a castle.

He’d still be able to smell her perfume.

Okay, key to his survival here, was to get Tina the hell out of his place as fast as possible. Preferably, without touching her or smelling her hair or…hell. Anything.

“C’mon,” he said, grabbing up his keys and shifting his gaze away from her. There’d be no help for him at all if he kept looking at her. “I’ll take you downstairs and let you in.”

“What’s your hurry?”

He looked.

She turned slowly onto her side.

Brian stifled a groan, but it almost killed him.

Head propped up in one hand, Tina kept her gaze locked on him as with her free hand, she inched the hem of the towel up a little higher on her thigh.

His heart pounded in his chest. He forgot how to breathe. His eyes glazed over.

And then the towel parted. One half of the pale blue terry cloth fell away, displaying a tantalizing slice of Tina’s naked, curvy body to perfection.

Brian groaned. “You’re killing me.”

“So not what I had in mind,” Tina said softly, making no move at all to cover herself.

He scraped one hand across his face, frantically trying to get a grip. And losing. “Your towel fell.”

“I know.”

“I know you know.” Damn it. Why was she doing this? Was this a game? Payback maybe, for him getting the divorce? But if that’s all it was, why wait five years to claim it?

And if it was more, what did that mean?

And if he asked himself any more questions, that didn’t have answers, he really would slip over the edge into insanity.

“This is nuts,” he blurted.

“Maybe.”

His gaze locked with hers, studiously avoiding noticing her bare, beautiful skin. “You’ll be sorry.”

Tina smiled and shook her head. “Not if you’re as good as I remember.”

Like a punch to his gut, her words hit him hard and left him shaky. He was only human, right? Mere mortal? And faced with Tina Coretti, Brian was willing to guess there wasn’t a man alive who could have walked out that door.

Still, he had one last hope. “I, uh…don’t have any condoms here.” Actually, he’d gotten rid of his stash purposely, since he figured with the bet on, keeping a supply handy would only submarine his chances of winning.

She smiled again. “Doesn’t matter.”

“Uh, yeah,” he said tightly. “It does.”

“Brian,” she said, her voice dropping to a husky note that damn near killed him, “as long as you don’t have some socially icky disease, you don’t have to worry.”

Don’t have to worry. So she was on the pill. Okay, there went the last wall standing between him and glory.

It didn’t matter anymore why she was here or what she wanted. Maybe it never had. Maybe since the day she arrived in Baywater, they’d been heading right here. To this place. Maybe it was something they both needed.

She trailed her fingertips up, over her hip, pushing the other half of the towel aside.

His mouth went dry.

His heart hammered in his chest.

“So?” she asked, her voice a whisper in the moonlight as she repeated her earlier question. “Are you as good as I remember?”

Even a Marine knew when to surrender.

Brian grinned and pulled off his shirt. “Babe. I’m way better.”

She held one hand out to him. “Prove it.”

He tore off his clothes, and in seconds, he was there, beside her on the bed. He peeled the towel off her body, then cupped one of her breasts.

“Brian…” she whispered, arching into him, pushing herself into his touch, “I want you so badly.”

“I want you too, baby,” he murmured, dipping his head to taste her nipple. A lick, a nip of his teeth and his words muffled against her flesh. “I’ve always wanted you.”

She put her hands at the sides of his face and tipped his head up until she could look into his eyes. Brian read the hunger in those dark chocolate eyes of hers and something more. Something he didn’t want to think about. Or acknowledge.

She pulled him close and kissed him, nibbling at his bottom lip for a long moment before saying, “Then take me, Brian. Take me and let me take you.”

He was lost.

Groaning, he covered her mouth with his and swept his tongue into her warmth. Grabbing her tightly, he held her close, and took everything she had to give. His tongue mated with hers and his breath filled her as she filled him. He felt the heat of her, pressed along his body and thought wildly that he’d been so cold for five years. So damn cold and he’d never realized that it was because he didn’t have her.

She was the heat.

The light.

Tina Coretti was the missing piece in his life and even if it was for this one night, it was good to have her back. To feel the connection blistering between them. To realize that here, at least, there was nothing else in the world that mattered. Here there was only the two of them and the magic they created together.

She moved against him, and slid her hands up and down his back, scoring his flesh with long swipes of her short, neat nails. And he wanted more. He wanted her to somehow mark him permanently, so that he would always carry a reminder of this night. This moment.

His brain raced, blood pumped and an ache he hadn’t known in five long years built within. Sweeping one hand down the length of her body, he defined every curve, every line of her. He touched, caressed, explored. He tasted, as he shifted over her, trailing his lips and tongue along the line already drawn by his hands. She moved in his grasp, wriggling and sighing softly into the night.

And no music had ever sounded sweeter.

He ached for her.

Sliding down her length, he kissed every inch of her as he moved along her body. She lifted her hips, arching into him, digging her head deeper into the pillow beneath her. Her fingertips scraped across his shoulders as she reached for him, but he evaded her touch, determined now to explore all of her. To rediscover every hidden delight. To touch her as he had before—and as he’d dreamed of doing since.

“Brian,” she whispered throatily, “I need you inside me.”

“Not yet, babe,” he answered, then nibbled at her abdomen, making her hiss in a breath. “Not yet.”

Tina didn’t think she could stand much more. Oh, she’d thought herself prepared. Thought that she remembered what it was like, being with Brian. Being the sole focus of his attentions.

But she hadn’t.

It was so much more than mere memory could provide. The sensations coursing through her ebbed and flowed and rose up again, nearly swamping her with their strength. Her mind fogged over and her heartbeat tripped and staggered. Breathing was almost impossible. She couldn’t think clearly enough to draw a breath—only remembering when she was on the verge of passing out from lack of air. Her vision swam and silvered in the moonlight and she lifted her head from the pillow to look down at the man moving over her.

She reached for him again, but he shifted, sliding around and down the front of her as though he were determined to taste every square inch of her body. She felt the fluttering nips and licks of his tongue and teeth and she shivered in his grasp.

Oh, she hadn’t counted on this, Tina thought wildly, frantically as his hands moved over her hips, her thighs, exploring, defining. Then he was kneeling between her legs and Tina sucked in a gulp of air like a dying woman hoping for five last seconds of life.

“Brian-” she reached for him.

“Shut up, Coretti,” he said, smiling, then scooped his hands beneath her bottom and lifted her hips off the mattress.

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