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  He did, sliding against her skin and bringing all her nerve endings to immediate, rapt attention. His lips were on hers, his hands fisted in her hair. She broke the kiss, breathing heavy, desperate for something.

  “I need you to feel something else tonight. I need it bad.” She unzipped his jeans and wrapped her palm around his dick. This bit of him in perfect proportion to the rest of his physique had made an impression on her that one drunk moment. “Please…Antony…make love to me….”

  He frowned and thumbed her chin while she moved her hand. But his hips thrust forward and the skin on his arm pebbled under her other hand. She molded against him, not letting go of his erection, tracing the dark disk of his nipple with her tongue. They’d been here before, that one time. He’d drawn a lovely orgasm from her with his fingers, she’d jacked him off, and they’d passed out, no big deal.

  But this seemed like a very big deal.

  Antony kissed her hair, took her hand off his cock then pressed her back onto the bed, kissing his way down her neck, fondling and sucking both breasts, licking and nibbling towards her stomach before settling in between her thighs. She closed her eyes and let it happen, loving it, loving him right then as she draped her legs over his shoulders and dug her heels into the muscles of his back.

  “Oh, Jesus!” she yelped, as he teased and sucked her flesh, pressing his fingers deep into her. “Oh…my….” Her body pulsed. She threaded her fingers in his hair and held on tight while she rode out a mind-bending climax.

  She flopped back on the bed, breathing heaving and contemplating Antony’s bedroom ceiling. He got up on his knees between her legs, wiping his lips, and fisting his huge dick. She propped up on her elbows, the erotic energy in the room crackled in her ears as she reached up for him. He hesitated.

  “I don’t have any protection,” he rasped, breathing into her neck. “It’s not safe.”

  “I’m safe, Antony,” she whispered. “Are you?”

  “I can’t do this with you, Rosie. I can’t…love you.”

  “I’m not asking you to love me,” she insisted, relieved, but aching to have him inside her. She angled her hips so she could sense his flesh near hers. “Fuck me, Antony, please…we both need this.” She wrapped her legs around his waist. “Is that what you want to hear?” Tears prickled her eyes, making her feel empty and desperate.

  A slow sound, like a growl seemed to come from his chest.

  “Yeah, Rosie, that’s what I need to hear.” His eyes were twinkling in the moonlight from the open window. The fear tickled her again, but this time it ramped up her lust, dialing it to extra-high, and forcing more words from her lips.

  “Okay then.” She brushed her lips against his. “Take me. Fuck me with that giant cock. Just…do it now, Antony. What are you waiting for, goddamn you.” Gasping, knowing he was holding back, she tilted her hips and covered his lips with hers.

  He shoved his tongue into her mouth, but denied her the connection she demanded. “Maybe….” His grin against her lips sent relief shooting through her. “First, this.” He rolled over onto his back, bringing her with him. As soon as she straddled him, he thrust into her, drawing exhalations from both of them.

  “Hmmm, so that’s how Rosie likes it,” he whispered, before tugging her nipple into his mouth and sucking so hard she cried out. “Ride me. Take it however you want it.”

  She did just that, being a good taking-orders girl. When she lay draped over his chest, sweat slicking the nonexistent space between them, he brushed her hair back from her face and trailed his hand down her back.

  “My turn on top.”

  She giggled and got them back to their original position with a few awkward manipulations, gripping the headboard behind her so she could tilt her hips up and take all of him.

  “Oh…dear…Jesus,” he moaned, still hanging on, in control like always—Antony, the ever-in-control oldest, fixer of things, man of the house, broken-and-crushed widower. She sucked in a breath and let go of the headboard, needing him closer.

  “Kiss me. Kiss me now.” Rosalee wanted to cry or scream. She had to get out of there. She had to…. “Oh God yes!”

  When he lifted his head, his eyes were bright, his hips still moving against her.

  “Wow.” He shifted back into some kind of neutral gear. Rosalee took a breath as he flopped down next to her. She lay staring at the ceiling, trying to catch her breath and still her mind.

  “Thanks,” Antony said.

  Rosie bit back the urge to scream. More physically sated than she had been in years, an empty, bereft sensation suffused her psyche. Antony’s eyes were filled with sadness in the moonlit room.

  “Was it that bad?” She flipped up on her side, needing that expression gone from his face.

  He took her hand, kissed it, and a smile flickered across his lips.

  “It was amazing. You’re amazing. And now I’m gonna pass out. No offense?”

  “None taken.”

  “Turn over so I can hold you while I sleep.”

  She did, loving the warmth of his body against hers, of his breath against her neck. But she couldn’t sleep. Once his breathing evened out, she slipped out from under his heavy arm, found a pair of his boxers and a T-shirt, and headed for the kitchen.

  Rosalee drank a huge glass of water and lingered at the window, letting the night breeze cool her face, recalling the knowing arched eyebrow Paul’s mother had shot her when she’d dropped Jeffrey off. The concept that her own mother-in-law wanted her to be with Antony boggled her mind—well, okay, her former mother-in-law, she supposed.

  What a mess.

  “Well, that sounded like fun.”

  She yelped in surprise, knocking the glass into the sink with a crash. Aiden walked in wearing nothing but a pair of sweat pants, sleepy eyed, hair tousled, as tempting and edible as she’d imagined. Anger mingled with mortification when the realization that he’d heard them just now slammed into her psyche.

  “Jesus, Aiden. I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were…I mean…shit.”

  He grinned, making her knees wobbly. “Obviously.” He pointed into the sink. “We’d better take care of this.”

  As he did that, he moved with a sort of quick efficiency in keeping with his trim body.

  His trim…young body.

  Rosalee bit her lip, wrestling her newfound, inner cougar slut back into its cage.

  “Thanks,” she said under her breath, not trusting her voice.

  He winked, drank his own water and walked past her. Before he made it to the hallway, he turned, then to her alarm and horror, put his lips so close to her ear she smelled his toothpaste. “Glad you convinced him. He needed that.”

  He took her hand and pressed something into it. It had to be her heated imagination because he would never brush her cheek with a kiss. He headed down the hallway, went into a room and shut the door, leaving her clutching the torn halves of her bra.

  Chapter Seven

  Sunlight forced Rosalee to tug up the sheet to escape its intense glare. When her arm found the empty pillow next to hers, relief hit her sleepy brain. Facing Antony after the intensity of last night’s encounter didn’t figure too high on the list of things she wanted to deal with right then.

  It—he—had been incredible, and the connection had definitely been long overdue. But she needed space to figure out what it meant. A phone buzzed somewhere, so she sat up and rubbed her eyes, relishing the soreness between her legs.

  She crawled out of the warm nest of sheets and quilts. The house sounded empty as she made her way down the hall to the living room and into the kitchen. After locating and quelling the offensive alarm, Rosalee took a minute to study the room that still bore the hallmarks of Antony’s dead wife.

  The lacy curtains, copper-bottomed pots hanging from a dusty rack over the cooktop island, even the patterned hand towels hanging from the oven handle all screamed, “Crystal Love.” No wonder the man couldn’t—or wouldn’t—let go of her. He was surrounded by her
every day.

  She wandered into one of the two bathrooms, touching the matching towels and shower curtain lightly while sipping the coffee he’d thoughtfully left for her. Something caught her eye, and she paused until she realized her own image in the mirror faced her, looking about as out of place as anyone could in a dead woman’s bathroom.

  Her unruly hair haloed her pale face, reducing her by its overabundance. She’d never believed her personality lived up to her hair, no matter how much Paul insisted it matched her perfectly. Squinting at the sight of her swollen lips, her faced flushed pink as she put a hand to her cheek.

  Oh, good Lord—Antony.

  He had been incredible, generous, sexy and all man, just like she figured he would be.

  But yet…it had been so strange even after all the time they’d spent together, and no matter the whole town considered them a couple. She trailed her fingertips down her damp neck, reliving the brief moment of connection with Aiden.

  “You need to get a grip.” She glared at her reflection. “Rosalee Norris. Get a dang grip.” She propped her hands on the vanity top and glared in the mirror.

  Resolved, she turned away from her image and stomped down to Antony’s room. Ignoring the open door to the room his daughter AliceLynn hadn’t occupied since Crystal had been killed, she kept going, determined to get dressed and get out. But the door to the room Aiden had entered early that morning posed an insurmountable temptation. She stopped, unable to resist peeking in on the chaos of clothes, the open laptop, and a tall, neatly arranged stack of papers on the makeshift desk near a window.

  “Move along.” She shut the door and walked into the room where she’d finally fucked and slept with the man who’d been, for all intents and purposes, her chaste and helpful boyfriend for years.

  By the time she was back in her truck and headed toward the center of town, Rosalee’s chest ached. The windows were cranked down to welcome the overly warm air, radio blaring as loud as she dared on a Sunday morning, when the bulk of the population would be on their way home from church. The perfect blue sky framed by green leafy trees mocked her. The soft air caressing her bare arm dangling out the window reminded her just what a horrific error she may have made, letting Antony Love do…that amazing set of things he’d done to her the night before.

  “Goddamn it,” she muttered under her breath, shifting around in the faux leather seat at the thought of his skill set. Driving up Paul’s mother’s drive, she noted the grass needed mowing and figured she’d ask Antony to help with it at the same moment a wave of sorrow slammed her right between the eyes. She gripped the steering wheel, forcing back the memories of her many hours spent in this very driveway, giggling, kissing, and groping her way into adulthood with Paul. The memories still stung. They’d never truly faded, just ran in a near constant loop like background elevator music.

  The sight of her son in his grandmother’s arms calmed her as she climbed the steps up to the front door with a smile.

  “Mommy!” Jeffrey’s face lit with joy. He struggled until Paul’s mother let go of him. “I was so worried about you.” His familiar warmth and body’s curvature made her happy and miserable at the same time.

  “No worries about me,” she insisted. “Remember, we talked about that. When you’re with your Grammie, all is well. I’m just doing something I don’t need your help with.” She sighed, unwilling to address that particular irony even in her head, while her son proceeded to choke her in his relief that she’d remembered to come get him.

  She sank to the porch with Jeffrey clinging to her. It would take a while for him to calm enough to let go. Janice Norris sat next to her and bumped her shoulder.

  “So…good night?”

  Rosalee’s face burned hot. This had to be the strangest set of circumstances ever. Janice had adored her own son to the point of despising Rosalee for the better part of her high school and some college years. But once they’d both gotten past the first couple of agony and newborn-baby-filled years after Paul’s death, the woman had taken on the role of matchmaker like someone paid her to do it. It was a little creepy, especially since she’d become such an advocate for Antony Love’s case.

  Rosalee shifted and the old wooden planks creaked. She suppressed a smile at the soreness in all the right places. But a giant boulder occupied her chest, heavy and cold, and just as annoying as her mother-in-law’s eager grin over Jeffrey’s head. Taking a breath, she tried not to snap at the woman. She meant well, bless her heart. But the way she kept waggling her eyebrows like Groucho Marx made Rosalee want to snatch her baldheaded right around Jeffrey’s needy body.

  “Yeah.” She kept her gaze on the front garden with its fussy rows of foliage. “Thanks.”

  “Anytime, hon, anytime.” Janice stood and stretched. “He’s such a little Paul, isn’t he? I don’t know how you stand it.”

  Confused by the shift of subject, and struck dumb by the comment, Rosalee stayed silent. Janice walked down the steps and sought out geraniums to dead head.

  “So, are y’all gonna watch the game?” she asked, scrutinizing the perfect flowers.

  “Uh…what game?” Rosalee tried to loosen Jeffrey’s arms from around her neck, but he’d be stuck fast for a while. So she patted his back, waiting him out while sweat gathered and dripped down her back under her shirt.

  “You know, the weekly basketball game, down at Vets Park. I swan, I told that new neighbor man to keep his foul dog out of my….”

  Rosalee stopped listening. She’d almost forgotten the Love family Sunday tradition. After church and their mother’s lunch, the Love brothers would gather at the park for a game of two-on-two basketball. They’d spent a few years corralling various friends to stand in for the missing Aiden. Sometimes their father joined them, but that hardly ever worked out well, according to Antony.

  So that’s why the house had been empty when she’d left. The Love siblings missed church at their peril, she recalled. Lindsay and Anton Love had struck an Episcopalian compromise, once it became clear the Catholic-Italian stable hand had knocked up the horse farmer’s proverbial daughter, and they’d been married in the Methodist church at her father’s demand.

  And each of the boys followed it, or at least made a show of it every single week, no matter what, or risked the combined wrath of the fiery-haired mother, and the dark and moody father. They still did. Antony never missed church. This morning had just been the first one she’d ever woken up in the man’s bed to find him missing, Sunday or any day.

  Of course, when Lindsay’s longed-for daughter had arrived late on the scene, the energy had gone out of them on that point. The brothers were trained to attend and never question why. But once Angelique Love had been old enough to make a choice about it, she never darkened the church door again.

  Rosalee made a tsk-tsk sound with her teeth then forced her thoughts away from the gorgeous, wayward Love daughter. She had enough to worry about. Besides how could she judge? She’d stopped attending church the second she’d gotten her mother’s cancer diagnosis on the heels of Paul’s accident. That had been the beginning of her life as single, grieving, widow mother, with a crap job and a too-big mortgage. She had no room for mythical fantasy requiring her to get dressed up every Sunday morning and force her mule-headed son to do the same.

  “No,” she called down to Janice who’d gotten on her hands and knees to yank at invisible weeds. “I should get him home.”

  “You should go to the game,” the woman called out from below her. “Let Jeffrey play with them. Anton started the whole thing when Antony and Kieran were only learning to walk. He’d add a son to the nursery and then to the basketball court as soon as it could walk. It’s a nice tradition. Jeffrey could use something like that. You know, men he can….”

  Unwilling to tolerate any more blather about how Jeffrey needed more male influences in his life, Rosie resumed ignoring her mother-in-law. She didn’t know if Jeffrey could get any more “boy-like,” being a handful and three-quarters alr
eady.

  Her conscience prickled. Janice only wanted the best for her dead son’s child. Rosalee knew that. She also knew her son could stand a heavier hand—something that Paul would have definitely had, but Antony seemed reluctant to provide.

  “Thanks again, Janice.” After peeling Jeffery off her, she stuffed him into his car seat. By then they were both drenched in sweat. Her head pounded. Paul’s mother waved at her as she backed out into the quiet street.

  Rosalee chewed on her lip as she drove home, trying not to make the turn down River Road leading to the park. But when she found herself there, gripping the steering wheel, and staring at the four men going at it on the basketball court, two of them shirtless, it didn’t really surprise her…much.

  “Mommy.” Jeffrey mumbled, half-asleep. Once she unhooked him and set him on the asphalt, he ran off toward the court like he’d been shot out of a cannon. She remained by the truck, leaning on the hood, content to observe from afar.

  Apparently today, Antony and Aiden were shirtless, taking on the other two, Dominic and Kieran. A shiver shot down her spine at the sight of Antony. The man’s tall, broad-shouldered, slim-hipped, long-legged physique drew her eyes like a magnet. All four had that going for them, but each had his own twist on the theme.

  Jeffrey had reached the fence and was waving at the men, who ignored him, intent as they were on what might look like a friendly pickup game of round ball, but what really passed as an excuse to beat on each other and work out their “issues.” She recalled broken noses, black eyes, one dislocated shoulder, and several smashed fingers in high school, or on holidays back from college when all four of them would be around.

  Easily the biggest of the four men, Antony dominated the court, but Kieran had always been the true athlete, and his slick moves had the sort of practiced professionalism the rest of them lacked. All of them had played high school sports, but Kieran and Aiden were the only two to play in college—Kieran as guard for the Kentucky Wildcats basketball team that had gone as far as the NCAA tournament final his senior year. Aiden bucked the family trend, playing soccer in both high school and college.