Return of the Secret Heir. Rachel Bailey

waited fourteen years for this moment. Why was it only JT who could inspire this level of want within her?

      He pulled her against his strong form and pressed a hot, velvet kiss to her throat. The feeling was so decadent that she moaned as he laid more kisses down her throat to the edge of her collarbone.

      She’d missed this.

      Needing to feel the heat of his skin, she fumbled for the hem of his T-shirt and pushed it up. When her hands made contact, she squeezed her eyes shut to savor the feeling. Her fingertips chased over the planes of his chest, greedy to make up for every moment she’d existed without his skin touching hers. It’d been too long. Unbearably long. She’d had her reasons, but now they seemed to evaporate into nothingness and float away.

      As he claimed her mouth again in deep, hungry kisses, she felt the coil of arousal at her core pull tight. Despite lying on the ground with nowhere to fall, her hands gripped his waist, holding on, trying to stay anchored under the sensual onslaught. His mouth broke away, and she used the moment to drag air into her lungs, his labored breaths fanning over her cheek.

      His thumb stroked over her bottom lip and sent tingles clear to her toes. She looked into his eyes and his name reverberated through her mind—part of her not quite believing it was JT here after all these years, JT who’d just kissed her senseless. The leaves crinkled beneath their coats as she linked her wrists behind his neck and brought his heated mouth back to hers.

      “Pia,” he groaned against her lips as he unbuttoned her jacket and blouse without breaking the kiss. The pads of his fingers fanned across the sides of her breasts, moving to tease the undersides, and she tried to hold back a whimper of pleasure, unsure of whether she’d succeeded or not.

      She threaded her hands under the edge of his shirt, running them over his back. How could someone be the most familiar person in her life, yet at the same time be so unfamiliar? Even the shape of his back had changed—newer, stronger muscles spread from the ridges of his spine—and she was desperate to know everything about the differences.

      He kissed his way to her breasts, then took a beaded peak into his mouth. A hand cupped her other breast, the rough pad of his thumb stroking, while his tongue softly circled, then lightly bit. As she struggled to cope with the exquisite torment, her hands stilled on his upper back. Their surroundings vanished, all that existed in the universe was JT—his mouth, his hands, his heat. Just when she thought she’d dissolve, he moved back up her body and kissed the sensitive spot behind her ear.

      “You’re more beautiful now than you ever were,” he whispered, then his tongue touched the shell of her ear and she sank still deeper into the sensations he evoked. The words, combined with his warm rapid breath in her ear sent a delicious shiver across her body.

      She pushed his shirt up to his shoulders, watching the color of his chest change as it was exposed to the night’s pearlescent light. Absorbing the vague scent of soap that emanated from his skin, she whispered a kiss across his chest, and smiled when he shuddered. He’d always reacted intensely to her caress—strange that he was so changed in some ways, yet her memories of how he liked to be touched seemed as fresh as ever.

      Filled with the power of her recovered knowledge, she pushed the T-shirt higher and he grabbed the fabric behind his neck and tugged it over his head. She touched everywhere she could reach, the ridges of his abdomen, the swell of his biceps, the crisp hair smattered across his chest. The more of him she touched, the faster her blood pumped, and she felt the answering beat of his heart thudding strongly under her hands.

      She needed more, so much more. Desire smoldering in her belly, she reached into his jeans to find him straining and ready for her. The soft slide of him against her palm made her breath catch.

      He groaned and pulled her hand back to slowly remove the rest of her clothes, peeling away fabric, kissing the skin he exposed as his fingers feathered across her belly, the satin of her thighs.

      Instinctively his name slipped from her mouth as he covered her with his weight, and she was losing herself, melting into him. His mouth came down and kissed her with a consuming hunger and she pulled him closer against her. It wasn’t near enough. She wrapped her legs around his strong thighs, and his hand snaked between them and unerringly found the pulsing core of her, his other hand curled around her nape as his mouth sustained the kiss.

      The moment after he entered her, his neck corded with tension and he held himself very still. A tear ran down her face—the beauty of finally being reunited with him was breathtaking, nothing could ever compare. JT leaned down and kissed the tear away, then began to move in a rhythm that she matched without thought.

      His heavily lidded eyes were locked on hers as they climbed higher, his name on her lips, and higher still, the feel of him everywhere, and higher, before she broke free, released of earthly restraints, and felt him follow her, gripping her tight, calling her name.

      She floated for an endless time, neither of them moving, as if not wanting to break the spell. Then, as she drifted back to earth and the hot pulse in her body slowly leveled, the outside world began to intrude. The leaf litter beneath their coats that rustled with every movement, the small stone digging into her arm, the light breeze on her naked leg.

      And with the awareness of her surroundings also came awareness of what she’d done. Her stomach shrank to a cold, hard lump as the full folly of her actions came crashing down—she’d crossed a line. A professional and ethical line. But also a personal one…

      She’d allowed herself to lapse from the person she’d worked so hard to become.

      Although, perhaps it had been inevitable—a healing experience they’d both needed. And now they could move on. She released the breath she’d been holding, relieved to have understanding of what they’d done—she’d simply needed the closure and now she had it. She scrubbed a hand over her face.