“That’s another favorite,” she said, gasping from the impact, the pleasure, the overwhelming desire that overtook her any time he touched her this way—or any way, for that matter.

His lips curved into a smile as he kissed her. “Of mine, too. Along with this.” He picked up the pace, moving in her like he’d been born to love her and only her, which he had.

After loving him like this for two years, she was convinced no one else would’ve done for either of them but each other.

Her body responded to him the way it had for no one else—ever. What had been so elusive in past relationships was as easy as breathing with him, so easy that he had her on the verge of release in a matter of minutes.

“Not yet,” he whispered against her lips. “Make me work for it.”

“I can’t. I’m easy where you’re concerned.”

Laughter made his body—and hers—shake. “Easy. That’s the one word no one ever uses to describe you.”

“Don’t make me mad, or I’ll take mine and deny you yours.”

“You wouldn’t do that to me.”

“You want to bet?” She wouldn’t, and he knew that, which made it fun to play with him.

Still smiling, he shook his head as he kissed her more intently this time, his tongue brushing up against hers and setting her on fire with the movement of his cock inside her. Because it was the middle of the night, she didn’t try too hard to hold off the orgasm that had been building from the first second he touched her.

He groaned from the feel of her release and let himself go with her on the best kind of wild ride.

“You gave up easily,” she whispered in his ear, making him grunt with laughter.

“Only because I want you to get some sleep.”

“What about you? Will you be able to go back to sleep?”

“The odds are better after your middle-of-the-night treatment.”

“It’s been a while since we did that,” she said, yawning.

“Because we’re getting old, and going without sleep makes us cranky.”

“You mean it makes me cranky, right? Since you go without sleep regularly.”

“You said that, not me.”

Sam laughed as she yawned again.

He withdrew from her and moved to his side, bringing her with him and holding her close. “Get some sleep. We’ve got some long days ahead of us.”

“I know,” she said, sighing. The trip to Iowa would be among the most difficult things either of them had ever done, and it was probably just the start of the difficult things that would be part of their new roles.

As long as they stuck together, she was confident they could get through whatever came their way.

Sam’s first stop the next morning—after getting Scotty and the twins off to school—was the headquarters of the National Pipefitters Association in Alexandria, Virginia. “Had to be in freaking Alexandria, didn’t it?” she asked Freddie, as they made their way through bumper-to-bumper traffic on the 14th Street Bridge. She’d picked him up outside the Metro Center station.

“Most of the associations in the DC area are headquartered in Alexandria and Arlington,” he said between bites of the powdered doughnuts that made up fifty percent of his diet, or so it seemed to her.

“Thank you for that, Mr. Chamber of Commerce, and P.S., do you have stock in that doughnut company? Because if you don’t, you should get some. You single-handedly keep them in business.”

He popped another doughnut in his mouth and chased it with chocolate milk before burping loudly.

“You’re revolting.”

“I’m just a growing boy having his breakfast, and no, I don’t have stock in the company.”