The coffee he made was strong, though not too bitter, and she appreciated the heavy dollop of cream. Sitting in the quiet, tiny room with more daylight in the night hours than she was accustomed to, she felt safe again. He stretched out on a chair with an ottoman, his body impossibly long, while she tucked her feet under herself, curling into a ball as if she were going to sit down and read a nice, fat historical romance.

He avoided eye contact at first and then he looked up from his cup of coffee, and said, “Because you’re too amazing not to try.”

The words came out of his mouth slowly, with more hunger in them than he had expected. She didn’t wince, or flinch, or shift back in surprise. Instead, her eyes held his, steady and focused, a feline-like quality to the seconds that ticked by that made him swallow hard, glad for the gambit.

“Tell me why I’m amazing, Jeremy,” she said, her eyes immobile, locked on his. Her mouth moving with a sensuality that he wanted to taste.

“I don’t think that the words that I can use are enough,” he said.

That pleased her. “I’ve had plenty of words thrown my way.” She nodded to herself.

“I’ll bet Mike used plenty of them,” he said, acknowledging the elephant in the room. The big, Michael Bournham-sized elephant.

“He did.” She clipped her words. “I don’t want to talk about him.”

“Considering he’s filling about two thirds of this room, I think we should.” His voice was ragged at the end, filled with heat, lust, and reality.

“What do you want me to say?” she asked.

“I don’t want you to say anything,” he replied, “I’d like for you to say whatever you need to say.” His body felt poured into the chair, muscles like a sloth’s, time slowing down at his leisure. Whatever Lydia might say next, he knew that he had her already if he wanted her.

Problem was, he didn’t just want her.

He wanted her to want him.

An unacknowledged need for Mike wasn’t going to fly. The bundle of hurt she carried around like a baby in a bunting needed to be shed. Jeremy didn’t mind if Lydia still pined away for Mike. That could prove to be helpful in the future, depending on which direction this strange series of relationships took. What he couldn’t stand was to be sloppy seconds, or to be her rebound guy, or—worse—just a pity fuck.

Not that he hadn’t taken his share of those…

But not from her.

Spending the past ten years on the road, he’d carefully kept himself detached. When everything fell apart with Dana last year he’d found solace in more travel, wandering to the various southeast Asian countries, where he’d dabbled in micro-lending for years, investing money in local business loans for small-time farmers, weavers, cooks, and other little businesses. The purpose it gave him counterbalanced his party-guy tendencies, and had given him something to do. By year three or so post-dotcom success, he’d been bored out of his fucking mind.

Mike assumed his trips to Thailand, Senegal, Sri Lanka, and points asunder were all about playing the beaches and finding peace in a bowl, a lick, a bottle, or at the heated core of a woman’s body. Not so. Losing Dana had hurt, and now – with Lydia feet away, sitting in his room curled up like a smart cat, on total alert and waiting to know what to do next – Jeremy needed to obey Mike’s request.

Lydia needed to be watched carefully.

Every square inch of her.

“You tell me why you want to sleep with me,” Jeremy taunted. His legs slowly unfolded as he planted his feet on the floor, and then pushed himself up to stand, coming over to her chair and bending over her, looming large, like a jaguar, all fluid and sinew and purring. Literally purring—there was a strange sound coming out of his throat, a teasing melody that she couldn’t put her finger on. He cleared his throat and stopped it. “Hmm?” he asked. Deep brown eyes, relaxed and open, asked her to bare herself to him. C’mon, they beckoned. It’s not so hard. Just show me your soul.

“I don’t want to sleep with you,” she snapped back. The vein in her throat, where her pulse could be viewed when she was nervous or overwhelmed, throbbed. She could feel it, and his eyes trailed down her face, stopping at the nape of her neck. Could he see it, too? He was challenging her. the two engaged in a dance of words.

“Liar,” was his next one.

The words How dare you? almost slipped from her lips, but she held them back, instead glaring at him, too aroused to make sense of anything that was pouring into her mind, all heat pooling in her belly as his body shifted closer to her, the air between them electric. She could almost feel the hair on her arms lifting, her nipples tightening and pulling up toward him, as if he were a magnet for all the parts of her that wished to touch him—which, in essence, he was.

Narrowing her eyes, the gesture as much about buying herself a few seconds as it was about focusing in more sharply on his fine features, she finally found the right thing to say back.

“Prove it.”

He would have to make the first move. She wouldn’t do it, couldn’t do it. Paralyzed, with inches between them as he took one leg, nudged it between hers and then leaned down for a kiss, she relinquished to the allure of his mouth, the taste of coffee and Jeremy on her lips.

What madness was this? What on earth was she thinking? Letting his lips touch hers, she sank into it. Blissful, and grateful, and needing the comfort of someone to help wipe away the last kiss she’d shared with a man. This wasn’t just anyone, though—this was Jeremy, Mike’s best friend. A cloud of betrayal threatened to insert itself between them, until she realized that there was no betrayal to commit. She had no fidelity requirement in what had been a relationship with a man who wasn’t. Had she been with Matt Jones or Michael Bournham? Who held her heart? Jeremy could do as he wished as well, so why not succumb to the growing heat between them?

She’d uprooted her entire life to escape a man who had disguised himself. Why not shake off her conservative sense of who she thought she was for the sake of a man who very much wanted her right now? The sound of their breath filled the room, the quiet, winking light outside giving the air a soft glow. As Jeremy took the kiss from a gentle hello to an insistent more, giving over to what she felt about Jeremy helped the thoughts of Mike to simply dissolve.

Sinking her hand into his hair, she smiled through a kiss, her tongue darting out to touch his, the move triggering a deepening from him as he took her invitation and lay on top of her, his body a warm, muscled sheet, her hips rising to meet him as their mouths broke through the first contact with ever-increasing urgency.

“You want to sleep with me,” he said through a smile, the corners of his lips upturned, her own skin feeling his affection. He smelled like coffee and faded cotton and an exotic soap scent she couldn't name, the combination imprinting in her. She would forever associate this scent with him, like a fingerprint in her system, triggering a palpable sense of Jeremy, and only Jeremy.

“No, I don’t,” she teased, running her hands along his back and ribs, palms stroking his tight ass in jeans so well-worn they were as soft as Egyptian cotton. His body went on and on and on…

“Prove it,” he murmured, biting her earlobe, then tonguing it with quick flicks, a preview she felt in her clitoris, which swelled and throbbed. The teasing had shifted from verbal tests to a very tactile layer they were about to experience, and she felt her hesitation fade.

“If I really wanted to sleep with you, I wouldn’t do this,” she hissed in his ear, squeezing one ass cheek with a lovely possession, her fingers digging in to strong muscle.

“And I certainly wouldn’t do this,” she sighed, arching her hips and shifting one thigh to find his erection, long and thick, curving her pelvis and making micro-movements that elicited Jeremy’s groan of frustration.

“Of course, if I really wanted to make love with you, I would never, ever…” Her hand reached between them for the snap on his jeans.

“You win. You proved it.” Jeremy stood, stiffly, his voice choked and halted. Afraid she’d alienated him, Lydia leaped up to explain herself.

And he tackled her onto his bed, laughing. “Gotcha!”

“Right where you want me.” A warm hand slid under her shirt, her inhale a sigh and a moan of repression unleashed. His double bed seemed luxurious compared to her single in her own room, and she quickly realized he needed it; keeping Jeremy’s entire body on the bed was no small task. One searching hand cupped her breast as his mouth slanted against hers, the kiss more a claim this time. He was hers for the taking.

Take me.

Their joining took on a fevered pace, her own hands finding the bottom of his t-shirt and peeling it up over his head, revealing the same naked chest she’d admired so much at the hot springs. His body was damn near perfect in a lean runner’s sense, and as he hovered over her, one hand behind her back, expertly undoing her bra, she traced circles around one of his nipples, admiring and marveling that he was about to be hers.

And she, his.

In a moment that should have been filled with doubt and recrimination, Lydia instead found joy. Sheer, playful joy as Jeremy stripped her bare and inhaled audibly. “I…” He hesitated as he pulled up on his knees, watching her, his eyes combing over her body as if she were a painting. “I had no idea how breathtaking you are, Lydia. I suspected, but…” His voice trailed off as she watched him watching her and knew he was sharing a piece of his inner heart.

The look in his eyes was so patient, so caring, that she melted, whatever remained of her shell just evaporating under the spell of his adoration. It made what had been a more generic lust convert to a tempered pleasure, a desire to know him both intimately and with great respect, to honor the part of him that was worshiping her with his eyes.

Simple touch wasn’t enough anymore. She needed as much of him as she could handle. Their next kiss felt like finding her way home, and the last rational thought that lingered in her mind was crystal clear in its clarity: quit her job and go home with Jeremy.

In the morning she would follow that through, but right now, enraptured by the full overwhelm of all that Jeremy offered her, she tangled tongues and fingers and sighs and caresses with him, both maneuvering out of clothing to find themselves under the covers and splendidly nude, open and ready for each other as if made for this encounter.

Her ears rushed with the pumping of blood that drove her through each connection of flesh, his mouth telling her with his lips how he felt inside. Skin against skin, she worked to fit with his body—not in an awkward sense, but more from sheer logistics; the one-foot difference meant that they had to be creative.

Creative was good. Creative was very, very good. His mouth found her nipple, their bodies tenting the covers as the sun shone in behind the curtains, pale midnight light that gave the moment a sweetness and surreality she needed.

“Jeremy,” she whispered, his name hissed out as his mouth teased and played, drawing out a slow burn inside her that heated so fast she was drained of playfulness, filled instead with a magnetic force that wanted only to be filled by him. Spreading her legs, she arced one around his hip, his erection pressing against her belly, the twitch of his strong shaft against her making her wet and ready. The warm heat of his mouth on her pert nipple made her remember that day at the lagoon, his hands massaging mud into her pores, how he’d inhaled sharply when her hand had strayed a bit too close to…