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  He turned off the main highway and started heading toward a more residential area. “Fine with me.” They wound their way through a few neighborhoods, until he finally pulled his big black truck into the driveway of a one-story home that was typical of Florida. It looked in a lot of ways like her family home. It made her feel more comfortable in a way she hadn’t even realized she felt unnerved by Drew. If he had come from a wealthy home, the differences between them would be vast. Instead, she was seeing that his life was almost identical to hers other than the Colombian heritage.

  “This is where you grew up?” she commented. He hopped out of the driver’s seat and opened the back door for Brodie, who leaped out with doggy glee.

  “Yep.” He came around to her side of the car while Brodie raced in erratic circles, rubbed the top of his head on the grass, then marked a spot as his by peeing.

  “Give me the tour,” she said, and he held her hand as he walked her to the front door.

  “Brodie, come,” he called with a sharp whistle. The dog immediately sprinted over to stand at his side. Drew pulled out a set of keys and opened the door.

  She stepped into a dark foyer. No lights were on and everything had a feeling of neglect or of stepping into a time machine into the past. Brodie pushed past her and ran all over, sniffing everything.

  Drew closed the front door and snapped on a light. Dust was flying up everywhere Brodie touched. “Shit,” he said. “Should’ve paid a housekeeper to come in here. Now we’ll have to clean before I can put it on the market.”

  “It’s not too bad,” she said. “Your mom obviously took good care of the place. It only needs a good dusting and vacuuming.” She opened her purse and pulled out the neatly handwritten list Karen had provided. “Let’s get started. Should we divide and conquer or work together?” The goal was to pack up the personal things but leave enough furniture to stage the house for the realtor to sell it more easily.

  He glanced over her shoulder at the list. “Together. It’s less boring, and you don’t know where anything is.”

  “Good point.”

  “I’ll grab the boxes.” He headed back outside to his truck where he had stacks of unmade cardboard boxes that he’d picked up at a packing supply store.

  She held the door for him as he maneuvered them in. Together they quickly prepped and taped ten cardboard boxes for packing.

  “Kitchen first,” he said, glancing at the list again. “It looks like she went through the house in a circle.” He made a circling gesture with his finger. “Kitchen, dining room, living room, her bedroom, bathroom, finally my bedroom.”

  “Your bedroom? She kept your room intact?”

  He nodded. “No home gym or sewing room for Karen. My room is a shrine to high school Andrew.”

  “This I’ve got to see.” She made a dash for a hallway, which seemed the obvious place for bedrooms. He followed close on her heels. Brodie barked and followed too.

  She stopped short when she found his old room. Standing in the entrance, she visually surveyed the small room with its twin bed. Drew came up behind her, his wide chest blocking her from moving back out of the doorway. She stepped further into the room and bent to examine the posters taped to the wall.

  Several were of fishing tournaments, and there were a lot of photos of Drew holding up a big catch, grinning at the camera at various ages. “The girls in high school must’ve loved you,” she said, examining a photo of him around age sixteen.

  She looked over her shoulder at him and he shrugged. “It was a small high school. We were all bored of each other by then. I didn’t get my groove on with women until college.”

  Lining the wall alongside his bed were all his class photos from kindergarten through senior year. She knelt on the bed to look. He sat next to her. “My mom hung them like that. It’s not something I would’ve done.”

  No, she guessed not.

  “Honestly, it creeped me out looking at all my faces before bed.”

  She turned to him and started to laugh, but then realized they were inches apart in a narrow bed. They’d been in a bed together before, but she’d been passed out with exhaustion, and they hadn’t started to date—or whatever this was—yet.

  He cupped her cheek with his big hand, drawing her down to kiss her. She went willingly, eager to connect with him after hours in the car. He tasted of popcorn and tangy Gatorade. She wanted to drown in his kisses, eager for everything he had to give. At the same time, giving everything she had to getting closer and devouring him.

  With unspoken accord, they found themselves sprawled on the bed, him on the bottom, her on top. In this position, she felt every line and muscle of his body, so different than hers.

  Instinctively, she spread her legs, straddling him, so all their best bits pressed together.

  He groaned, pulling away from her mouth. “Olivia,” he murmured.

  She went for his lips again, knowing terrible things would happen if they stopped kissing.

  His palm cupped her ass, pushing her even closer to him. She moaned from the back of her throat.

  He nipped at her earlobe. “You like that,” he said.

  “Mmm,” she murmured her assent, eager for what else he could teach her.

  He quickly took it to the next level, rolling his hips under her spread legs. If it felt this good with all their clothes, she knew her mind would be blown when they got naked. Today was the day, she decided. She was going to lose her virginity to Drew in this narrow bed. There was no better time. They were alone in a city far away from all parents.

  Of course, she wasn’t going to tell Drew of her plans. Instead, she’d catch him off guard and bend him to her will. It wouldn’t be tricky, given the length and hardness of his erection under her. He seemed to want her as much as she wanted him.

  She slid her hands under his T-shirt, feeling his warm muscles under the pads of her fingertips. Exploring with her hands, she kept kissing him, at the same time concentrating on keeping her legs locked around his hips and moving in the rhythm he’d set.

  It wouldn’t take much to get this to go all the way. She was wearing capri-length athletic leggings that had no buttons or zippers. One tug and a shimmy of her hips and they’d be gone, revealing the tiny thong underneath. Panty lines were a serious pet peeve of hers, so she always wore miniscule panties under yoga pants. Now she was grateful, because they probably wouldn’t even need to come off. Drew could tug them aside and penetrate her with the huge dick she felt between her legs.

  As a nurse, she’d seen her fair share of penises, but always attached to patients, thereby rendering them completely sexless. Not the case with Drew. She was wet with desire and aching to see, feel and touch his cock.

  His hands found their way under her T-shirt, and she moaned into the side of his neck as he began to toy with her nipples.

  Something wet and cold pressed into her bare side along her rib cage. At first the touch didn’t register, and then she realized Drew’s hands and mouth were occupado on other parts of her body. She crooked her neck to the side.

  “Brodie,” she said, laughing.

  Drew’s head came up, and his hands moved out from under her shirt. “Dumb dog,” he muttered. “Brodie, go.” He pointed to the door.

  Brodie, who was usually well trained, wasn’t listening. He woofed with intensity, and now they heard what they’d been missing but Brodie had heard. Someone was knocking on the front door.

  Drew gulped back air as he straightened his clothes and went to answer the door. Beside him, Brodie bounded, ready to bark his head off protecting his master. Olivia followed quietly behind.

  He glanced through the peephole, and not recognizing the woman at the door, pulled it open. Brodie predictably went berserk.

  “Brodie, sit,” he ordered.

  The woman looked to be a little younger than him. He didn’t recognize her, but she leaned up to kiss him on the cheek. He stepped back and wrapped an arm around Olivia. Shit, was this someone he’d slept with a
nd didn’t recognize?

  “Hey, Andrew. I saw you pull in and came over to see if there’s anything I can do to help.”

  Then he remembered who she was. Tarryn from next door. She was about five years younger than him. Her mother was watching over the house for Karen and bringing in the mail.

  “Oh, hey, Tarryn. Thanks for stopping by. Are you living next door?”

  Her cheeks pinkened slightly. “For a little while. I’m between jobs.” She grinned at him. “I’m thinking of moving to Miami. Maybe you can tell me about it.”

  Given that she’d interrupted a seriously sexy moment with Olivia, he wasn’t inclined to shoot the shit with her.

  “Maybe another time. Olivia and I have a lot of packing to do. Olivia, this is my neighbor, Tarryn. Tarryn, this is my girlfriend, Olivia.” It was the first time he could remember ever consciously introducing a woman as his girlfriend, but given the sweet looks Tarryn was giving him, it seemed best to clarify, before her ancient crush bloomed back into life.

  She put a good face on it and shook Olivia’s hand, but clearly looked disappointed. “Come on by and I’ll give you your mom’s mail. There’s not much, mostly a few catalogs. I guess you transferred everything important to your address.”

  He nodded.

  “How’s your mom doing? My mom will want to hear in person.”

  “I’ll come by once we get a few more boxes packed.”

  Tarryn frowned. “Does this mean she’s not coming back to Titusville?”

  “Likely not. She’s doing okay, but it’s better for her to be closer to me, and that means living in Miami.”

  “Oh. Well, we miss you around here,” she said. “See you later.” She gave a little wave and headed out next door.

  He closed the door behind her and turned to face Olivia. “Well?”

  She raised her brows and gave a little smile he couldn’t interpret. He moved to pull her into his arms hoping to pick up where they left off, but she held up her palms against his stomach and pushed slightly. “Maybe we should start packing?”

  He brushed a kiss on her forehead. “Disagree.”

  She laughed and pushed at him a little harder. “You’re hoping Tarryn comes back and the two of us will bikini mud wrestle for rights to you.”

  He laughed. “I’ve known her since I was five. She’s had a crush on me about that long, and I see her as a little sister. Cute, but not for me. But bikini wrestling, hmm? I like the way your dirty mind thinks. Tell me more.”

  “I’ll tell you that we need to pack, or your mother will wonder what happened when we return home with none of her stuff.” She headed past him to the kitchen.

  With a sigh he followed.

  They spent the rest of the afternoon sweating as they sorted through thirty years of his mom’s life in this home.

  “It’s kind of sad,” he remarked as they finished up in her bedroom.

  “What is?” Olivia asked. She’d piled her long dark hair into a messy bun on top of her head. He wanted to pull it down and watch it land over her breasts and shoulders.

  “There are no signs of any other relationships other than my dad,” he said. They’d unearthed a box in the back of the closet with the wedding album and other souvenirs of a failed marriage. “As far as I can tell, my mother never dated after the divorce.”

  “That’s kind of sad,” she said. He agreed, though he didn’t want to talk about his mother’s dating life. It was odd. His father had an excess of dates. More than could be considered appropriate, and his mother had none. Zero. As far as he knew.

  “One more room,” he said, changing the subject.

  “Would you have liked it?” Olivia asked, grabbing an empty box and moving on to the final room.

  “Liked what? My mother dating?”

  “You could’ve had a stepfather,” she said.

  “It’s a moot point, because she didn’t date and didn’t remarry. I’m stuck with my one dad and one mom.”

  That brought them to the final room. His.

  His gaze went immediately to the bed where they’d so recently shared heated kisses and a tad more. He was hoping for more, much more, with her. He glanced down at her to see her also looking at the bed, and wondered what she was thinking.

  She shoved the empty box at him. “Start picking what to keep.”

  Olivia carefully removed Drew’s framed school photos from the wall, racking her brain for something to say. Conversation had come easily to them all day, but now, alone in Drew’s room, at the scene of the crime—their kiss—the words were stilted and forced.

  When she couldn’t stand the awkwardness anymore, she let a pile of old comic books drop to the ground and turned to him. “Say it,” she challenged.

  His eyes widened. “Say what?”

  “What you’re thinking.”

  His lips parted, but no words came out.

  “Come on, Drew,” she said, almost teasingly. “What are you thinking? I promise it’s the same thing on my mind.”

  He shook his head, almost looking trapped.

  She took a challenging step toward him, but nearly a yard of distance remained.

  “You are definitely not thinking what I am,” he finally said.

  “Want to bet?”

  “I don’t gamble when I know I’m going to win. No challenge.”

  She laughed. “Nod, if you’re thinking you want to go back to your bed, pick up where we left off and kiss me.”

  He nodded, then shook his head.

  “No? Not what you were thinking?”

  “No.” He closed the distance between them, held her by her upper arms and walked her backward to the bed until her butt was down on the mattress and he loomed over her. “I was thinking that I want to toss you on the bed, pull off those tight pants—total cock tease, by the way—and plunge my dick into your wet pussy until you’re begging to come.”

  She couldn’t find a response other than her body saying yes please.

  “Not the thoughts of a virgin, huh?” he asked.

  “I’m hardly a virgin.”

  He knelt between her parted legs and ran his palms up her thighs, letting his thumbs come to rest at the juncture, inches from where she was getting damp with want. “You might’ve given out a few favors in high school, Olivia, but that was a long time ago. For what I have in mind, you are most definitely innocent.”

  She leaned back, pushing her bottom into his fingers. “Tell me more. Teach me.”

  His thumbs pushed over the spandex, exactly where she was most desperate, and she moaned. “Do that again. This time without my pants.” She shifted to tug off her leggings, but he caught her and held her arms immobile.

  “I wasn’t finished. You wanted to know what I was thinking.” His face was inches from hers, and her wide eyes looked directly into his grey ones.

  Her lips parted, and she whispered, “More.” More touching? More talking? She didn’t know. All she knew was she wanted more of the man who was caging her against the bed.

  “First I’m going to take those lips again. And that little tongue you keep using to lick your lips? It’s going to be licking mine.”

  Involuntarily, her tongue shot out to lick her lips and he caught it with his mouth, meeting the movement with his own tongue. Her hips rose instinctively, trying to feel him pressed against her, but he only let the kiss go on for a few minutes.

  He reared back, and she knew she’d forever remember his hooded gaze, his tousled hair, and the intensity of his expression that bespoke of wild dirty things not talked about and only done in the cover of the darkest night. She wanted everything his expression promised.

  “Then what?” she whispered.

  “Then I move my lips lower, and we ditch your shirt and bra. What color are your nipples, sweet Olivia?” His finger traced the swollen bud, obvious through the thin cotton of her shirt. “Pink? Tan? Either way, they’re fucking delicious, and I’m going to lick them…taste them…bite them.”

  He bent his hea
d and gently, so gently, he bit down on one of her nipples, eliciting a unique kind of pleasure pain she’d never felt before. The ham-handed boys in high school thought breasts were like a gearshift on a car, the whole thing needing to be grasped in their hand and squeezed and moved around.

  Drew was a man, who knew to tease her slowly and carefully, one nipple at a time. She rose up on her elbows, to give him better access to her chest, but he pulled back. “I’m not done yet.”

  “There’s more?” She immediately felt like an idiot. Of course there was more. She was technically a virgin, but she’d also been easy with her body.

  Drew smiled. “We’ve barely gotten started, baby.” He moved lower on her body, pushing kisses on her breastbone, her belly, then directly over her belly button. He paused when his mouth was over her pubic bone. “I haven’t had dessert yet.”

  “Dessert?”

  “I tasted your mouth. My appetizer. Your breasts. The main course. Now it’s dessert time, and I’m a man who likes his sweets. And you’ll be sweet, Olivia. Sweet like honey, dripping between the lips of your pussy onto my tongue.”

  “Dios mio.” Her head fell back against the pillow and she closed her eyes. She was going to explode before Drew ever got her naked. How did he have the patience to go this slow? She wanted to rip her clothes off, jump on him and ride his dick. If she could ever get him to stop talking and start doing.

  “Patience, baby.”

  “Drew.” She muttered in Spanish about him wasting time when they could be screwing, and that if she were home alone with her fingers, she would’ve already come twice. She gave him the dirty talk, knowing he wouldn’t understand it. “Please. I want you.”

  Her begging must’ve done the trick, because he rose over her, and tore his T-shirt off, then attacked her clothes. Together, they tugged, tore and threw clothes off their bodies and all around the room until they were naked, skin to skin in his narrow bed.

  She reveled in the feel of him. His skin was rough against her softer skin, his chest harder against her distended nipples. And at her waist, where their two bodies differed the most, she loved the feel of his erection pushing at the thin triangle of her pubic hair.