Before he was ready, she lowered her hips and plunged him deep. Pleasure ripped through his pelvis and teased his spine. Stars lit off behind his eyes.
Mia braced her hands on his shoulders, and with her eyes half-closed, her teeth scraping over her bottom lip, she held his gaze as she set a rhythm. A hypnotic, mind-bending rhythm.
“Mmmm,” she moaned, her voice tight. “Missed this.”
Then she kissed him, her mouth just as hot and hungry as her pussy. Her hips quickened, and she lifted her lips to whisper, “God…I love the way you feel…inside me.”
The statement thrilled him. Lust surged. Emotions tangled. “You’re so sexy.” He pulled her mouth back to his tasting her, connecting with her, loving her. “Mia, baby, Mia…”
He loved saying her name. It reminded him this was reality, not a dream. Not a fantasy. He was loving Mia—his Mia—the way he’d always dreamed of loving her. She was a fantasy come true. Knowing she was slipping away like sand through his fingers made his need even more urgent. More intense. And when she climaxed, it was way too soon for Rafe.
He pulled her mouth against his shoulder to muffle her cries, but the triumph, the satisfaction, the love that swelled inside him made him even more ravenous. He rested a moment while Mia shivered in his arms. She turned her head, and her hot breaths bathed his neck. He ran a hand through her hair and realized her clip had fallen out. The silky strands between his fingers brought back memories of their first night. Of the way he’d skimmed his fingers through her hair while she slept. Tears burned his eyes out of nowhere.
“We can make this work.” His rasp came as barely more than a whisper. He hadn’t even fully thought the words before they touched his own ears. And he immediately knew they were a wish, not a fact. “I want to make this work, Mia.”
“Shhh.” She took his face in both hands and brought her lips to his again. “Don’t. Just enjoy what we have while we have it.” And when she kissed him again, Rafe released the restraint on his passion. He gripped the back of her neck and held her head to his own, lifting his hips to drive into her.
Mia turned her head, pressed her mouth to his hair, and murmured a frantic stream of “Rafe, oh God Rafe. Yes, yes, yes…”
Until she broke again. Until her pussy squeezed his cock and spilled her juice and Rafe let go. His orgasm surged through him like liquid fire, searing pleasure through his body from his pelvis out. He tipped his head and pressed his mouth to Mia’s neck to smother his groan.
But when the pleasure receded to a low, pleasant burn, his throat thickened with emotion. As if the orgasm had cleared his brain, he could see all too clearly that he was going to lose her. And not just to California. He was going to lose her entirely. She was going to move on with her life, grow and change and experience things, and Rafe would be too far away and too busy with his own demanding career to share them with her. Then she’d find someone else, someone closer who appreciated her like he did.
God, he felt like she was already gone, and he was still inside her.
Mia melted against him, boneless, her cheek on his shoulder. Rafe went lax into the seat beneath him, closed his eyes, and tried like hell to absorb the absolute perfection of the moment. He would give up everything in his bank accounts right now to be able to hold on to this, hold on to Mia, and still keep his best friend and Joe.
“So,” Mia said, voice languid and soft, “when I act like a zombie in this meeting, I can blame it on you, right?”
He smiled. “Uh, no. Who climbed on top of who?”
She exhaled. “Ah, right.” Mia pushed back, gave him a tired, lazy smile, and stroked his face. Her gaze lowered to his mouth and went distant, her expression a little melancholy. “And here I always thought those divas were clamoring to hang on your arm for your looks and your heart. Little did I know…” She laughed softly and shook her head, more stupid me than humor. She sighed and brightened her smile. “I guess I’d better get myself back together.”
Rafe cupped her face in both hands and pulled her in for another kiss. He wanted to tell her she was wrong, but she wasn’t. Women did come to him for a good time, which included sex. All kinds of sex. All but the real kind. The kind that involved emotion. The kind he had with Mia.
He leaned back with the wild urge to tell her that she was different. That she’d always been different. That he wanted so much more than they had. Having Mia within reach suddenly made picking up a different woman every other night a chore. He was tired of wondering where Mia was, what she was doing, and who she was doing it with. Tired of worrying about her and wondering whether she was happy or hurting. Damn sick and tired of missing her. But most of all, he was tired of hiding his feelings from everyone—including himself. It was exhausting.