Page 98 of The Knockout Rule

Always with that glare. “What did he want?”

Eric wrapped his arms around her from behind. “To tell you not to worry and he’s feeling good, but he has a doctor’s appointment tomorrow. He’d like you to meet him there.”

Wonders would never cease. “I didn’t even make him promise to tell me. Apparently you can teach an old dog new tricks.”

“Whit might argue with you.”

“Whit is a human, not a dog,” she said. Eric hugged her tighter, effectively trapping her from drying the plate in her hands. She tried to wiggle out of his grip. “I’m helping your mother.”

“Sorry, ma. I’m stealing her. See you Tuesday.”

Tuesday was his day to pick up the kids from school. Although he’d moved in with Isla and was busy with his fundraising work and coaching and studying, he was here often, helping out when he could. His life was no longer ruled by scheduled workouts and strict diets, constant training. He still exercised and stayed ridiculously fit, but his priorities had shifted, and the shift looked good on him.

His mother said something in Russian, then took the plate from Isla. “Go with my boy. He will only break something.”

“Yeah,” he whispered in Isla’s ear. “Go with me. Before I break something…like the zipper on my jeans.”

He clutched her to his body, her back to his chest. And, oh yeah, something there might break. He walked with her suctioned to the front of his body while he nibbled at her ear.

“Let me go,” she muttered, none too convincingly. “I can walk on my own.”

“I can’t.” He picked her up and swung her over his shoulder, fireman style.

“Bye!” the kids called from the living room. They were watching TV, no longer fighting. For the moment.

Isla waved at them, while pounding on Eric’s back. When he marched to the car without putting her down, she pinched his butt. “You can’t drive like this.”

“Sure, I can.”

“You’ll get a ticket.”

“For being in love?”

She grinned. “For being too sexy.”

He grunted and deposited her on the ground beside the passenger door, then adjusted himself in his jeans. “Buckle up. I’ll be driving fast.”

He wasn’t lying. The drive was fast and a little reckless. She felt reckless.

Too happy for it to be safe.

Every time Isla told Eric she’d landed a new physio client, they celebrated with a home-cooked meal, ending with Eric’s face between her legs and her crying out his name. Every time Eric aced a test or made headway on the Parkinson’s fundraiser, they ended up panting, tangled in the sheets. If one of them had a good day, they spent the night reading and talking and making love. If one of them had a bad day, they spent the night reading and talking and fucking.

Recklessly happy was an understatement.

His big hand rested on her thigh as he drove, squeezing, inching higher. She was already wet, desperate for him. Needing to touch him, she palmed his growing bulge…because fair was fair. Air hissed through his teeth and he drove faster. By the time they parked and kissed and stumbled up to their apartment, she could barely see.

He kicked the door shut behind them, a trail of clothing littering the floor on their way to the bedroom, and she felt drunk. Warm and loose and dizzy with how much she loved Eric. She’d never tire of this, the silk-hard feel of his erection sliding against her hip. His big, strong body under her control. How in sync they were.

She straddled him on the bed, not taking him inside her, just rocking together, teasing. His eyelids got heavy. And, God, he was so hard between her thighs. Thick and heavy and all hers. When he palmed her breasts, she gripped her hands over his, moving with him. She’d never been this free with her body with men in her past, this comfortable in her own skin. Being with the right person had pumped up her confidence and enjoyment of sex, whether against a wall or on the floor or a bed.

He released her breasts, guided her up his solid body until she was straddling his face. Master Cunni-Linguist. She rocked and moaned, couldn’t get enough of this man and his talented tongue until she dissolved in a shock of pleasure, shaking with her orgasm.

He gripped her hips, kept her under his control. Then she was on her back, all that male power pushing into her—hot thick heat filling her up. They gasped. He murmured words as he moved. Some nights he spoke to her in Italian, some nights Hebrew. Tonight was a cascade of guttural Russian that drove her wild. But he moved languidly, their hips meeting, the long drag of him making her inner walls clench.

She put her palm on the words inked on his chest. The matching tattoo to the one on her ribs. Their poem, written by the one and only Ramona Estle.

Let the past blur.