I started crying harder, and he held on to me tighter. I wanted to tell him the truth, but I didn’t want to ruin this moment. As we stood there in the pool and held on to each other, I remembered his ass was completely naked.

“I know what I want to do next,” I said with a smile as I looked into his eyes.

He pushed my hair away and smiled so sweetly at me. “Anything…you name it, Court.”

“Please make love to me, Reed. Please…just love me.”

I watched as his eyes filled with tears, and he smiled.

“Court…” he whispered as he began walking us out of the pool. “I have to take a shower first though.”

He scrunched up his nose in the cutest damn way, and the butterflies went nuts in my stomach.

Oh God…I’ve totally given Reed Nickolas Moore my heart and soul.

I let out a giggle. “Yes, please take a shower first.”

He gave me his beautiful crooked smile and said, “Oh no, baby, not just me. You’re taking one with me.”

My heart dropped, and I couldn’t help but smile. I’d never done anything like that before. Mitch was the only guy I’d ever had a somewhat normal relationship with, and he had been a wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am kind of lover. He’d never done anything other than typical lovemaking, and even that had sucked. He certainly hadn’t been my Prince Charming in the lovemaking area.

Reed set me down, ran over and grabbed a towel that had been left on a table since the other day when we had been sitting out by the pool. He wrapped it around his waist and turned to look at me.

I looked his body up and down as he stood there in the moonlight, looking all hot and shit. His body was amazing. He would go running every morning, and I swore, he’d work out every day in some way or another.

He had a tattoo on his back of a Texas longhorn with the colors of the Texas flag, and on the side of the bull’s face, next to his eye, was an outline of the Texas star. On his chest, he had another tattoo of a Latin phrase. Ever since I’d first seen it, I’d wanted so badly to ask him why he had cor meum, which meant my heart, tattooed on his chest, but I had been scared to death that it was for someone else, so I’d decided that I would rather not know. I knew it was his most recent tattoo. I remembered a few months back when Layton had asked Reed how he liked his new Latin tattoo. He also had a small tribal tattoo on the other side of his chest. It was a circular pattern, and the shading on it was amazing. I had stared at it the other day, wanting nothing more than to run my tongue all along the design. I hardly ever saw the few tattoos he had because he always kept them covered up with a T-shirt. I knew he couldn’t have any showing because of his job.

“You ready, Court?” he asked, snapping me out of my thoughts.

I glanced up and nodded my head as I pulled off my boots. I didn’t want to walk through the house while I was soaking wet. I knew Layton would kick my ass if I got his wood floors wet, and plus, my clothes felt like they weighed a ton. I reached down, lifted my shirt up, and pulled it over my head. Afterward, I never took my eyes off of Reed’s face. I wanted to watch him as I slowly slipped out of my wet clothes. I tossed my shirt onto a chair, and I decided to leave my bra on. I was silently thanking God that I had put on my light pink lace push-up bra with matching panties. The panties were my favorite lace-trim cheeky panties, and they always made me feel so sexy.

I unbuttoned my jeans and began to push them down. All thoughts of being sexy went right out the door when the bitches got stuck right below my ass, and I started hopping up and down, trying to get them off.

“Motherfucker! Really?” I yelled as I tried to pull the jeans off. I felt myself losing my balance, and I closed my eyes, preparing to go back into the pool.

I felt a jolt of electricity run through my body as Reed grabbed a hold of me to keep me from falling in.

“Only you could make all of that look sexy as hell, Courtney,” he said in a low voice.

Wait, what? He thought that was sexy? Oh hell, he’s going to be easy to please!

“Sit down on the chair, baby,” Reed said.

He knelt in front of me and began working my jeans off. He finally got the soaking wet jeans off my legs and stood up. He reached down for my hand and gently pulled me up. His eyes moved up and down my body, like he was trying to memorize every inch of me. I’d never been so turned-on in my life.

“You’re so beautiful, Courtney. You take my breath away. You’re so damn beautiful,” he whispered.

Oh God. I wanted him to touch me so badly that it hurt. I’d loved him and wanted him for so long. I was afraid if I moved, I would wake up from a dream. I stood there, not really sure what to say or do.

He placed his hands on my face and gently began kissing me. When he pulled away, he took my bottom lip and sucked on it, and I let out a soft moan.

“Reed…” I whispered against his lips.

He reached down and picked me up, and then he started walking toward the house. He was just about to open the back door when he practically walked us into it. The door was locked. He stood there for a few seconds, just staring at the door.

“Um…your truck keys are still in your truck. I left them in there,” I said, thinking he needed them to unlock the door.

He looked at me and started laughing. “I don’t have Layton’s key on my key ring. I had it on another set of keys…that I left in the house. I was so excited about tonight that I left them sitting on the kitchen island.”

I smiled and shook my head. “I have a set in my purse that’s still in your truck.”

He slowly began putting me down, and then he quickly kissed me on the lips. “Don’t move!” he said before running over to his truck.

The only thing I could think was, How is the gravel driveway not hurting his bare feet?

By the time he ran his way back with nothing but a towel wrapped around him while cursing for forgetting the keys, I was so turned-on that I could hardly stand it. I wanted to reach my hand in my panties and ease the throbbing.

He ran up, unlocked the door, reached in to turn off the alarm, and then flipped on the kitchen lights. Following him inside, I held my breath and waited for the dogs to come running. I thought Reed was doing the same thing because we both just stood there, listening. Once we heard Lulu barking from her kennel, we looked at each other and smiled.

“Thank God,” we both said and laughed.

“I’ll go let the dogs out. You go upstairs and start the shower in my bathroom,” Reed said.