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He hammered his hips like a piston, his balls slapping my clit, and his weight on my back growing heavier and heavier until I wasn’t sure I could hold him much longer.

My legs wobbled, my tongue rolled and licked, and my jaw extended with delicious pain as Jesse pumped his hips, fucking my mouth.

As they took me at both ends, their thrusts fell in sync, and it felt as if a string of nerve-endings ran through my body, vibrating between them, connecting them, and tying us together.

Roark’s hands moved all over me, caressing every dip and curve, covering my breasts, my waist, my thighs. His fingers sank between my legs, finding my clit, and circling. Right there… Right there…

I screamed around Jesse’s cock as I let go, allowing them to hear the orgasm rolling over me. Their hips jerked, both of them gasping and shaking, then they fell with me.

The hot stream of Jesse’s release hit my throat as Roark collapsed against my back, sucking in staggered breaths.

I wanted to stay lost in my fantasy, dancing and fucking in the realm of possibilities, but Roark’s weight pulled me back to the ground. Literally.

I crumbled beneath him, my cheek landing on Jesse’s thigh and Roark’s big body spooned around my back.

Jesse reached down and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. “I came so hard you’re probably pregnant.”

I grinned, tiredly. “That’s not even funny.”

As his breathing returned to normal, he seemed to be gathering his thoughts, his expression sobering. “I won’t apologize for earlier, but I owe you an explanation.”

I held his gaze, my face open, waiting.

He trailed his fingers over my arm, where it lay across his abs. “I let myself believe, for one rosy fucking moment, that I could have you. All of you. But once I tasted that belief, I didn’t want to give it up. I couldn’t.”

“Just promise me we’ll find another ultrasound on our way to find Michio.”

“Promise,” he mouthed, and my heart gave a thump.

Roark pressed a kiss to my spine, lingering there for a long moment. This was the dreaded part. How would he compartmentalize his broken vow? How much damage had I caused?

I rolled toward him, but he’d already pulled away, climbing to his feet, his face closed off, shadowed in conflict.

“Roark.” I stood and grabbed his hand. “Please don’t do this.”

His thumb caressed my knuckles, his gaze on the floor, looking for something. He narrowed his eyes on his boxers and released my hand to pull them on with shaking fingers.

Fuck.

He stepped over Jesse, who watched him with an unreadable expression, and removed his rosary from his pack in the tub.

Double fuck.

I knew he’d pull out his cassock next. With a tight chest and a resolved breath, I joined him, rooting through the packs to help him find it. Wait, where was it?

“Roark, don’t you have a spare cassock?”

“Tossed the last one out in the mountains.” He stared at his pack, and the lost look on his face broke my heart.

I pressed a fist against my mouth. Stupid selfish woman. I stood there, naked, with his come dripping down my thighs, and I couldn’t bring myself to regret a single second with him. He must hate me.

Golden dreadlocks and braids hung in his devastating eyes, his whiskered jaw taut with emotion. Maybe he wanted to say something to me? Maybe he wanted me to go the fuck away?

I reached up and untied the leather strap in his hair. He closed his eyes as I gathered all the twisted strands away from his face and retied them into a knot at the back of his head. Then I stepped back and let him do what he had to do.

He knelt in front of the door, in his boxers, rosary draped over his hands, and bowed his head.

I wrapped my arms around my waist, aching to hold him and feeling for all the world like an evil-doer, a temptress, like a slithering snake that had just shit in his well-kept garden.

“Evie.”

I turned toward Jesse’s voice.

He pulled the bedrolls from the tub, spread them over the floor, and sprawled on his back. “Come on.” He stretched out his arms, naked and waiting for me to climb into his embrace. “We haven’t slept in two days.”

“Almost three days.”

The sky blazed through the window, another day half gone. Maybe we could sleep until nightfall.

I dropped beside Jesse, snuggling against his side with my cheek on the hard expanse of his chest, and watched Roark. I stared at the knotted bun on the back of his head, the little blond curls on his nape, the flex of his shoulders, and the strong, straight line of his spine until my eyes grew too heavy to hold open.

Just as I began to drift into unconsciousness, Jesse’s whisper hummed through his chest. “Sex doesn’t have to be shameful, Roark. It doesn’t have to be sinful or controlled or feared. It can be something as honest and pure as love.”