...Ellen leaned in to him. “You’ve finally made it big, haven’t you?”

“Uh-huh.” Shiraj’s lips brushed her cheek as he inserted the key in the lock of the second bus and opened the door. He picked her up in his arms and carried her aboard, stumbling a little over the last step.

Dizzy with happiness and the effects of the bubbly, she steadied herself with one hand on a cupboard and laughed after he set her down. “You didn’t have to do that. We aren’t married.”

A lazy smile broke across his face. “The idea definitely deserves consideration.” Locking the door behind him, he turned to face her. “I’m so glad you’re here.”

Her insides turned to mush. “I’m glad, too.”

When he came to her and reached out, she stepped into the enclosing arms without hesitation, pressing as hard against him as he pressed against her. His dick felt as if it was about a foot long and fashioned from petrified wood. He swayed as he rubbed it against her belly. “I’ve missed you, El. You’ll never know how much. Any time I’ve called and we’ve talked or I’ve seen you, it’s like our friendship’s picked up where we left off at Chaffrey.”

Turning her face up to his, she found his mouth. The kiss he returned lost its previous searching tentativeness and became hard and demanding. Lust crackled through her. She felt limp from its force and from the alcohol.

He must have felt it, too. Without breaking the kiss, he walked her to his quarters at the back of the bus and shut the door. Watching his pecs and abs ripple as he pulled off his shirt caused her to suck in air fast. He’d definitely matured. He hadn’t had so much hair for one thing. Now it underlined his pecs, making them stand out. A line of it began at the base of his neck, traveled down his midline to his navel, then fanned out wide and disappeared into his jeans.

She could only guess at how much he’d matured there. She ached to find out.

Her hands touched his chest, his beautiful chest, and he trembled. But when he started to remove her shirt, she backed up as some of the bolstering effects of the alcohol had dissipated and shyness enveloped her again. She stopped when her legs connected with the large bed behind her. “Isn’t this a little too soon? We haven’t seen each other for four years. You never wrote, rarely called. It’s almost as if we’re strangers. I don’t know about this. Maybe we need to get reacquainted first.”

He captured her face to brush his nose against hers, his breath smelling of champagne, his hands steady and sure of what he was about to do, voice hoarse. “I assure you, once we’ve made love, there’ll be no need to get reacquainted.” He grazed her bottom lip with his teeth. “I can’t tell you how much just the thought of you coming tonight has turned me on. It’s not like we haven’t done this before.”

“But we were just kids then. Now…”

Before she knew it, her shirt and bra were on the floor and her breasts were flattened against his chest. The hair under his pectorals stimulated her nipples to pebble against his skin, sending tiny stars shooting through her. Her mind whirled.

A groan escaped Shiraj. “God, but you feel wonderful. You’ve no idea how long I’ve wanted to feel your tits naked against me again.” He thumbed her nipples, letting her breasts mold to his hands. He leaned in to kiss the mounds. “They’ve grown fuller since we were teenagers. In fact, you’re bigger all over. Sturdier, too.”

Normally, she’d have a quick retort to that, but the need his touch and words were creating in her left her speechless. All she could think of were the sensations spiraling through her.

He kissed her, unzipping her jeans even as she fumbled with the buttons on his. In one motion, he broke the kiss, stripped them both of jeans, panties and briefs and laid her out on the bed as if she were precious and rare. Hands that had played the white guitar with skill and confidence roamed her body like a blind man seeking to “see” her by imprinting her every dip, rise and curve on his brain. She detected the small, hard calluses left by guitar strings, but their roughness only heightened her excitement. When she felt a hand on the back of one knee and then on the other, she drew them up and let them drop outward, opening her sensitive core to him like a flower seeking the hot caress of the sun. When his thumb located the tiny triangle of flesh hidden by the folds of her pussy lips and began to make small circles, she might as well have been slick, wet clay in his hands.

Desire swept through her. She thought her very bones would melt from the liquid fire radiating from his hands to her body. “Hurry, Shiraj. Hurry.”