The Texas Valentine Twins. Cathy Thacker Gillen

stalled. Holding her arms akimbo, she said softly, her eyes still holding his. “If you insist...”

      Oh, he insisted all right.

      Her blouse went the way of her skirt, and her skin felt soft and silky beneath his fingers.

      Whole body thrumming with need, he undid the clasp and eased her ivory bra down her arms. Her breasts were fuller than he remembered, taut and round, the nipples rosy and erect. She wore matching panties that were slung low across her hips.

      He hooked his thumbs into either side of them and tugged them down. Past the damp curls, her sleek thighs, past her knees. She gasped as he lowered her to the edge of the bed, parted her knees with his hands and buried his face in her sweet warm softness.

      “Wyatt...” She caught his head in her hands, quivering now.

      “Shhh.” He found his way to the feminine heart of her. “Busy here.”

      She laughed softly. Shakily, as if on the verge of a new flood of tears.

      Determined to help her find the release she sought, he dropped butterfly kisses, slow and deliberate.

      She shuddered again but did not resist as he ran his thumb along the feminine seam, coaxing her to let all her worries, all her inhibitions float away, to open for him even more. She whimpered low in her throat and gave him full rein. He suckled the silky nub and stroked inside her, fluttering his tongue, until she caught his head in her hands and let her thighs fall even farther apart.

      She quivered as he cupped her bottom with both hands, lifted her farther back on the mussed sheets of her bed. Pausing only long enough to grab the condom he carried in his wallet, he covered her and penetrated her slowly. She closed around him like a wet, hot sheath, her entire body shivering with need.

      Feeling a little like the conqueror who had just captured the fair maiden of his dreams, he kissed her again, slowly tenderly, even as she draped her arms and legs around him and arched up to meet him. Her response, as true and unashamed as he always hoped it would be, he plunged and withdrew, aware of every soft whimper of desire, every wish, every need.

      Until there was no more holding back for either of them.

      She came apart in his hands. He free-fell right after her. Together they spiraled into ecstasy, and then slowly, breathlessly returned to the most magnificent peace Wyatt had ever known.

      For long moments they held each other tightly, still shuddering, breathing hard. Loving the warmth and softness of her, he rolled so he was on his back. Stroking one hand through her hair, he held her nearer still.

      Finally she lifted her head, and her hand came to rest in the region of his heart, even as a wry smile curved her kiss-swollen lips.

      “So,” she whispered with unexpected playfulness. Ready to do what she always did, which was downplay the import and strength of their connection. “Is this part of our conscious uncoupling, too?”

       Chapter Five

      “We’re really going to throw that term around, as pertaining to us?” Wyatt asked lazily, doing his best to ignore the disappointment churning in his gut.

      He knew Adelaide wasn’t the least bit romantic. She had made that clear to him numerous times. Part of it was the way she had grown up, with a family that didn’t seem to know the first thing about love.

      Another was the linear nature of her chosen profession—as an accountant, numbers either added up or they didn’t, and if they didn’t, there had to be a concrete reason.

      The rest was her unwillingness to forgive him for pushing her into an elopement she clearly wasn’t ready for when they were kids, and letting her talk him into a reckless consummation years later, when he had known, deep in his gut, she hadn’t been ready for that, either.

      And tonight they’d done it again.

      Made love on a reckless whim. For a whole host of reasons, all of them, obviously, in her retrospective view, wrong. Which likely meant, deep down, she was mad at him. Again. Even if she wouldn’t let herself admit that, either.

      Adelaide extricated herself from his arms, and grabbing a velvety pink blanket, wrapped it around her as she rose from the bed. “Conscious uncoupling is what we’re doing.”

      He thought about how she looked and felt when she was on the brink, and, despite his effort to be the gentleman he’d been raised to be, got hard all over again.

      He waggled his brows. “Funny, that felt more like coupling to me.”

      “Ha, ha.” Adelaide grinned and tossed her head. “And you know what I mean. We have to figure out a way to get along with each other and peacefully co-parent. This—” she waved a hand down the length of her body, then his, before pulling on her bra and panties once again “—can only get in the way of that.”

      Aware he had nothing to put on save the washcloth he’d utilized earlier, he lounged in the mussed sheets of her bed. “Or make things more pleasant for both of us. After all, we’re both healthy human beings in our prime. We have needs.”

      Bypassing her skirt, she walked to the closet and plucked out a pair of jeans.