I plant my palms on his shoulders. “I like this plan.” I frown. “I wonder if you may need to do that addition Franco mentioned. Another bedroom or two, another bathroom, bigger garage…a pool.”
 
 “You do, huh?” His eyes follow the pendulous swaying of my breasts, and I know the conversation is close to over. “You wouldn’t mind me and the girls moving in with you?”
 
 I shake my head, nuzzle my nose against his. “No, James. Not only would I not mind it, I can’t think of anything that would make me happier.” I sigh, and feather my lips against his.
 
 James cups a breast, palms my buttock. “No? Nothing?”
 
 I reach down between my thighs, and find him waiting for me, hard and thick and hot and incredible—and incredibly mine. I stroke him slowly—more of a sweet caress than a greedy clutch.
 
 “Actually…” I writhe against him, sliding his thickness between the damp lips of my core. “I can think of one thing.”
 
 He reaches out, rips open a condom—I take it from him and take my time rolling it on, making a pleasurable game of it, making it take as long as I possibly can. Once it’s on, rolled to the root, I nestle the very tip of him inside me and writhe my hips in a slow, teasing undulation.
 
 He groans, moves, and tries to thrust. I take his hands and tangle our fingers, pressing his palms to the pillow over his head.
 
 I continue teasing him with quick, shallow movements. “Want it?” I whisper.
 
 “Fuck, Nova—yes! I want it. I need it.”
 
 I crash my mouth against his and kiss him with all the need inside me, while continuing the teasing roll of my hips.
 
 He snarls like the grizzly bear he resembles, and breaks my grip, sits upright, and slams up into me. I laugh even as I cry out, snaking my arms around his neck and clinging to him, thrashing up and down on him—taking all of him, hard and fast. He’s feral, then—primal. All mad passion, taking me with everything he is, everything he has.
 
 He wraps my long red hair around a fist and pulls me closer, kissing me while his other arm curls around my waist to clutch my opposite hip. He bites my lower lip and moans; I cling to his neck and shoulders and let my voice ring out. He grips my ass and parts me to drive deeper, and deeper, and I feel myself clenching, spasming around him as he thrusts into me, kissing me and tugging me wider.
 
 I bury my face in his neck, whimpering through my climax, and the moment I begin to orgasm, he cries out pushing deep, groaning, snarling.
 
 And every sound I make, then, is his name…every sigh, every grunt, every snarl from his lips is mine.
 
 He presses our foreheads together. “Look at me,” he murmurs; my eyes snap open. “I love you, Nova. I love you—I love you, I love you…” This, to the rhythm of our joining.
 
 I find the rhythm, match it, echoing him, responding: “Love you—I love you—god, James, James—I love you!”
 
 When neither of us has anything left, no breath in our lungs, no climax left in our bodies, we flop back on the bed, me on top of him again, and this time I’m cradled in his arms, heedless of the mess going cold and sticky against my thigh, content to breathe him, hold him, be held by him, to feel his breath on my hair and his arms around me and his hands roaming my skin as if he just can’t get enough of touching all of me.
 
 “Can we just do this forever?” I whisper.
 
 He rumbles a laugh. “We may have to leave the house eventually.”
 
 “Nah. There’s delivery. All we need is food and condoms, and the occasional nap.”
 
 James sighs happily, contentedly. “I guess you’re right.”
 
 I nuzzle against his beard. “At the very least, we can stay up all night fucking like we’re sixteen again.”
 
 He rumbles, somewhere between aroused and amused. “Keeping up with you is gonna be fun, isn’t it?”
 
 I pat his chest. “You can try. You’ve awakened a very needy creature inside me, James. I hope you’ve got your A game ready.”
 
 “More than ready. Bring it, babe.” He slaps my butt. “Got anything to eat? Or should I call the aforementioned delivery?”
 
 I wriggle. “I’ve got something for you to eat, all right.”
 
 He grumbles a laugh. “You really are insatiable, aren’t you?”
 
 “You have no idea.”
 
 “Maybe not, but I’m sure as hell looking forward to finding out.”
 
 “So am I,” I whisper, as he begins to do dirty and thrilling things to me. “So am I.”
 
 * * *
 
 THE END
 
 Epilogue
 
 Three years later
 
 I’m sitting in a rocking chair on the front porch of Ryder and Laurel’s farmhouse. On my lap is little Renée Audra—she’s three years old, sassy, too smart for her own good, rambunctious, a brown-haired, brown-eyed beauty with the most infectious laugh in the world. Right now, however, she’s sleepy. Not quite asleep, but close. It’s almost six in the evening, and it’s been a full day; she usually takes a nap around eleven or noon, but today she didn’t get one, being too busy helping me, her auntie Nova, get ready.