His Little Secret. Maureen Child

could from it.

      “You just going to torture us all night?” he asked, his voice a low, throaty growl of contained passion.

      “That’s the plan,” she murmured, gaze locked on his as she slowly lowered herself onto him, taking him into her body inch by glorious inch. Penny watched his ice-blue eyes flash with heat and the last lingering whisper of reason in her mind faded away.

      She knew this was stupid. She knew nothing had changed. Colt still wouldn’t stay. They had no future. But for this one perfect moment in time she was going to forget all of that.

      She’d wanted him, needed him, missed him and now he was here. In her bed, looking at her as if she were the only woman in the world. Desire quickened, her breath came faster and feverish bubbles of expectation rose inside her. She moved on him, felt him catch her rhythm and move with her and she surrendered to the inevitable.

      Colt King was the only man she would ever want. Damn it, the only man she would ever love and this might be all she ever had of him. How could she possibly deny herself what she found only with him?

      She took him deep and when he was fully sheathed inside her, she sighed a little as her body stretched to accommodate his. Excitement rippled through her system, lighting fires that had been simmering for nearly two years. What she’d had with Colt would never truly be extinguished. One touch from him and those flames had erupted and consumed her in an inferno of sensations. It had been like this between them from the start.

      They fit so well together it was as if they had been meant to find each other.

      She rocked her body on his and heard his swift intake of breath. Penny trailed her fingers across his chest and down, loving the feel of his hard, muscular body beneath her hands. Dark hair dusted his chest and trailed down his abdomen. The muscles in his arms flexed as he reached up to cup her breasts in his palms. Sighing with the intense pleasure soaring inside her, she tipped her head back and gasped as his thumbs slid back and forth across her hardened nipples.

      Penny’s head tipped back and she felt the cool slap of her still-damp hair against her skin. He touched her and she spun out of control. He moved inside her and she only wanted more.

      Her body ached a little as she moved on him, but that tiny pain was lost in a dizzying parade of feelings that had nothing to do with discomfort.

      Darkness crouched outside the window and a soft wind rattled the tree limbs against the side of the house. Inside, though, it was all heat and magic and straining breathing and racing hearts.

      Penny felt the lost time without him in her life melt away until only this one moment existed. The passion she remembered roared up stronger, sharper, more overpowering than before and she gave herself up to it. Staring down into his eyes, she moved on him, loving the feel of him sliding in and out of her body. He filled her so completely, the slightest movement created a friction that left her breathless. Again and again she moved on him, setting the pace, watching his eyes flare with heat and desire. Her blood pumped fast and furious, until it became a roaring in her ears, shutting out every other sound. An exquisite, oh so familiar tingle of expectation began to build deep inside her.

      Colt’s hands moved over her body, touching, exploring, tantalizing her with more and more sensations. He moved beneath her, picking up the rhythm she set and meeting her at every stroke, pushing them both faster and higher.

      She groaned, braced her hands on his broad, muscled chest and raced to meet the climax that was hovering just out of reach. She climbed the peak in front of her quickly, desperate to reach the top and then tumble off the other side.

      “Come for me, Penny,” he whispered and his voice was a caress on every raw nerve ending. “Come for me. Let me watch you fly.”

      Throat tight, air strangling in her lungs, she was almost there, her body alive and simmering with want. Need. Her eyes flew open, locked with his, and when the first tremor shuddered inside her, she raced to meet it.

      Colt shifted one hand to where their bodies were joined. His thumb caressed that one spectacular spot and as he watched, Penny shattered into a million jagged pieces.

      Her mind was still spinning, her body still buzzing when she felt his body explode into hers. She heard his guttural shout, felt the tension in him coil and then release as, locked together, they crashed into oblivion.

      * * *

      A short while later, Colt rolled out of the cramped bed, pulled on his jeans and left her sleeping, curled on her side. He stared down at her, his gaze tracking the curves of her naked body, and hunger grabbed him by the throat again. She was beautiful. And amazing. And dangerous.

      He laid the faded, flowered quilt over her, then slipped out of the room. The house was quiet. Too damn quiet, if truth be told. He wasn’t used to this. The world he lived in was noisy, crowded and rushed—a place where no one got too close and he could move through crowds of people without ever being touched by any of them.

      It’s the way he liked it, he assured himself, as he quietly checked on the twins, then moved through the darkened house like a caged tiger looking for the easiest escape. He found it as he walked through the kitchen, opening the back door and stepping into the smartphone-size backyard.

      He pulled in a deep breath of the cool night air and held it inside, hoping that it might swamp the fires still raging within. Naturally, it didn’t, and he was left to burn as he took a seat on the steps and stared up at the sky.

      Colt was still trying to come to grips with what had just happened. Being with Penny had rocked him right down to his bones. He was used to desire. Used to slaking that desire with whatever woman was handy. What he wasn’t used to was what happened to him with Penny.

      Over the last couple of years, he’d convinced himself that the memories he carried of his week with Penny were exaggerated. That no one could be that amazing. That the...connection he felt with her didn’t really exist. Well, those lies had just been smashed.

      His heart felt like a jackhammer in his chest and his mind was filled with a jumble of thoughts he couldn’t sort through.

      Sex with Penny was staggering. No other way to put it or think of it.

      Stars spilled across the blackness and a quarter moon looked like a child’s teeter-totter. Child. The twins’ features swam into his mind and he felt himself tighten up. Thoughts of sex dissolved as he considered the reason he was here. Those two kids deserved better than this cramped, too-short-for-real-people house. They were Kings. He could admire Penny for all she’d accomplished on her own, but now that he was in the picture, things were going to change.

      He was putting his own life and business on hold to be here for Penny and the twins, but that couldn’t last. He had places he had to be—Mount Etna, to be specific.

      That thought quickly spiraled into another and from there, his brain raced with ideas. A slow smile spread across his face as he considered one notion in particular. Hell, he could go to Etna this week. And Penny and the kids could go to Sicily with him. The twins could see some of the world—never too young to experience different things. Then Penny could take photos of his BASE jumps to be used in advertising and that would help her business.

      Smiling to himself, he nodded thoughtfully as the plan came together.

      * * *

      “You must be out of your mind entirely.” Penny stared at him the next morning, astonished at what he’d just said.

      Colt spooned more yogurt into two waiting mouths and flicked her a glance. “Not at all. This is perfect. I get my work done, you get some advertising for your business and the kids get to fly on a private jet. A win all the way around.”

      Shaking her head, Penny grabbed her cup of coffee and took a long drink, hoping that caffeine would give her the strength to deal with Colt. She’d awakened that morning alone in her bed, and though she was disappointed, she hadn’t been surprised. Colt wasn’t the snuggling kind of man and she knew it. And still there was a flicker of pain when she was forced to acknowledge that he was keeping