That thought makes his cock swell hard.

I shake my head again.

He shifts his hips, pushing against me. Since I just got out of the shower, I'm naked beneath my robe. One tug at the belt and he'd be sliding his cock against my bare skin. I draw in a breath. My heart is thumping, especially with him straddling me and looming over me the way he is.

"So?" he asks. "What was it?"

I stare at the bulge in his flannel pajama pants. "You."

"Yeah?" He's still rubbing up against me. "What were we doing?"

A blush begins to creep up my neck. "Um, you know. Having sex."

He pauses and eyes me skeptically. "What kind of sex?"

"Regular... just regular sex." I try to keep my voice casual, but he's not buying it.

Dean sits back on my thighs and continues to look down at me.

"Your reaction was pretty hot for regular sex," he says.

"Well, you did say I was lusty," I remind him.

"Which is exactly why I don't believe you were having a dream about regular sex."

He tugs at the knot on my bathrobe belt. I squirm and try to buck him off again. He pulls the knot loose and eases apart the flaps of my robe.

"Very nice." He gazes down at my damp skin-though I don't know if that's from the shower or if I'm starting to sweat.

Then he palms my breasts and runs his fingers across my hard nipples. His touch is light, gentle, and delicious. I press my legs together because I'm throbbing.

"Tell me." He trails his hand down to my belly button, then lower to brush my mons. "Tell me and I might let you come."

Oh, God. I'm helpless against that kind of talk, and he knows it.

"Dean."

"Uh huh. Where were we in your dream?"

"Um." My flush deepens. I twitch under his teasing touch. "On a... a ship."

He lifts an eyebrow. "A ship."

"Yeah. A... a pirate ship."

"A pirate ship." Dean stares at me before a glint of humor lights in his eyes. "And might I have been a pirate?"

I skirt my gaze from his and look at the ceiling. "You might have been, uh, the pirate captain."

He laughs, but it's so filled with affection and amusement that I can't be irritated. He leans down to kiss me again, his tongue stroking the corners of my lips. Desire rushes through me.

"The pirate captain, huh?" he says. "And what were you?"

"A captured maiden."

"And did I ravish you?"

"Totally."

He sits back and squeezes my breasts. "Tell me."

By now I'm getting so aroused I'll tell him anything if it means he'll give me an orgasm. I take a deep breath and shift underneath him, making sure his erection rubs against my belly again.

"You had me tied down in the... whatever it's called. The brig or something. Had my... my hands tied above my head."

"What were you wearing?"

"A long dress." I can't think straight with his fingers tweaking my nipples like that. "I can't remember why you captured me. I think you wanted my land or something. Maybe it was my house. Or maybe I owed you money for a-"

"Doesn't matter," Dean interrupts. "Get back to the ravishing."

"Well, you had me tied up down there, and then one night I heard you coming down the stairs. You threw open the door and stalked in, all angry and menacing. You untied my hands and ordered me to pull up my skirts."

"And did you?" His eyes are starting to get a little glazed with arousal, which makes me warm to the story.

"Uh huh. All the way up past my hips. Skirt and petticoats. Then you told me to pull down my drawers and turn around so you could see my ass. Next thing I knew you were standing right behind me. I could feel your breath on the back of my neck. Then you... you spanked me."

"I spanked you?"

"Several times. You were wearing leather gloves. It stung. Made my cheeks red. But it also made me wet." Now that my hands are free, I reach up to caress the bulge in his pants. "Then you told me to bend over a barrel."

"And you did."

"I did." I grasp the waistband of his pants and pull them down. When his large, beautiful cock springs free, I can't help sighing. "I knelt down on the cold stone floor and positioned myself over an oak barrel with my drawers down and my petticoats up. You told me to reach back and spread my..."

The blush fires my skin again. I can't help it.

"Spread your..." Dean prompts.

"Spread my pussy for you."

His cock pulses in my grip. The evidence of his reaction, his lust, has my blood burning.

"You did it," he says.

"While you watched," I add. Parts of the dream are still vivid, but other parts have faded with daylight. At this point, though, I don't care whether I dreamed it or am making it up on the spot. "Then I felt your hands skimming over my ass again, felt you kneeling behind me."

"I had my cock out, I'm sure." His gaze is hot on the movement of my hand on his shaft.

"Not yet," I say. "First you took my arms and lashed my wrists behind my back. I was completely helpless." At the gleam in his eye, I add, "And at your mercy. Then you took off your gloves and trailed a finger over my folds. Like you were testing how wet and ready I was."

His chest is heaving. "Then what?"

"You rubbed the head of your cock against my pussy."

I squirm. I want his hand between my legs. Shivers wash through me. He puts his hand over mine, indicating he wants my grip tighter. He sucks in a breath.

He looks gorgeous, all masculine and sweat-damp above me, his skin flushed, his thighs hugging my hips. I'm so turned on that one flick of his finger on my clit and I'd come like a rocket.

"Go on." His voice is strained.

"Then I felt you pushing inside me," I gasp, "and your hands gripped my ass which was still red and burning from the spanking. I felt you stretching me, filling me, but all I could see was darkness. My breasts pressed against the barrel, aching. I couldn't move my arms. Then you started thrusting, slapping against me, making my ass burn hotter.

"I was moaning and jerking against the barrel, astonished by the feeling of your cock sliding in and out of me. I couldn't stop my excitement, the urgency that drove higher and higher. I started pushing back against you, begging you to do it harder. Then you thrust so deep I felt it through my entire body, and that was it. I screamed and came all over your cock... oh!"

An orgasm pulses through Dean's cock like a wave. He grunts and pushes forward into my fist, spilling over my breasts and belly. It's a sight that has me gasping with need, but before I can say anything, he slides down and pushes my legs apart.

The instant his tongue swipes across my clit, I shatter. I clutch his head and moan as he closes his lips around me and urges every last sweet sensation from my body.

"Damn." He heaves in a breath and crawls up the bed to lie beside me. "Those are the kind of dreams you've been having while I'm gone?"

"Nice, huh?" Even so, the mention of him being gone elicits a twinge of sorrow.

I push it aside, snuggling into the warmth of the sheets and the heat of his skin. My pirate captain, my gladiator, my white knight. I rub my cheek against his bare chest and stretch.

"Hungry?" he asks, skimming his hand up and down my arm.

"A little."

He pushes out of bed, and I admire the muscular lines of his body as he tugs his pants up and goes to the kitchen. As the coffee brews, we dress and bundle up in our jackets, then take our coffee and toast out to the porch so we can watch the sun rise over the lake.

I squeeze myself into Dean's chair, half on his lap so I can stay pressed close to his lean, strong body. The coffee is hot, steam rising in whorls, the air cold, the sun streaked with red and gold. Whitecaps ripple the surface of the lake.

We stay out until the sun is hovering over the water, then we go back inside and sink deep into the whirlpool bath, soaping each other down until we're both breathless and wanting each other again.

I make him sit back this time, straddling his lap and easing his thick cock into me with one glide of my body. Then we're both panting and moaning, water splashing over the sides of the bath as I move faster and harder, and Dean grips my hips and pushes up into me. I come violently, squeezing his shaft inside me as some distant part of my mind wishes this would never end.

As the day progresses, that wish intensifies. We watch a movie, leaf through some magazines, trade massages, play backgammon with a board that Dean finds in a cabinet by the bookshelf. We fool around, laugh, tickle each other, order room service, consider and quickly dismiss the idea of actually leaving the cottage.

I spend most of the day wearing Dean's sweater vest and nothing else. After dinner, I get dressed so I can do a little striptease for him in front of the fire-even though I forgot to bring along an extra set of sexy lingerie. Still the dance doesn't last long, as Dean growls his appreciation once before pulling me down on his lap and crushing his mouth to mine.

He fumbles with the clasp of my white bra, groaning at the sight of my bare breasts before hefting me into his arms and getting us both to the bed in three strides. I open my arms, feeling excited, happy, loved to the very center of my soul as my husband lowers himself on top of me and kisses me senseless.

CHAPTER NINE.

Olivia fter weeks of wanting, hoping, needing, now finally... it's us again.

Spring flowers bloom from vases around the cottage, and a crackling fire burns off the chill in the air. Reddish clouds lace the mountaintops. The lake is a sheet of glass, but inside everything is coated in a golden light.

I roll over in the feather-soft bed, putting my hand out to find Dean. He's not there, but the sheets are warm from his body. I open my eyes and find him sitting in a chair by the French doors, dressed in unbuttoned jeans and a wrinkled white shirt.

He's twisting a loop of string between his fingers, his strong hands spread apart, the cuffs of his shirt pulled up to reveal his hair-roughened forearms, hard with muscle.

Warmth floods me. His thick hair, which has grown longer over the past few weeks, brushes the back of his collar. He's wearing his reading glasses, his forehead furrowed slightly in concentration.

He glances up and finds me watching him. A smile tugs at his mouth.

"Hello, Sleeping Beauty," he says, his voice a husky murmur that makes heat pool in my lower body.

I yawn and stretch, feeling my muscles lengthen deliciously. "What time is it?"

"Almost six. Coffee?"

"Not yet." I shift onto my belly and rest my chin on my hands. My mind is foggy with pleasure, my body still pulsing from the thorough fucking I received a few hours ago.

A shiver travels down my spine. This is it. This is the solution. And it's so easy. It's what we've both known all along-all we need is us. All we need is to be alone, cocooned again in our own private world where neither of us has to explain or overthink anything.

It's the place where we don't have to distinguish between Dean's need for control and my unending desire to give him everything. From the beginning, he has taken me places I didn't know existed, and he has always kept me safe. I'll follow him anywhere, and he knows it.

That will never change. And for the first time I realize... it doesn't have to.

Because the opposite is also true. Dean always has and always will follow me into unfamiliar territory, knowing that his heart is safe with me.

"Your plan worked," I whisper.

"Mmm." His gaze tracks over my body beneath the sheet. He untangles the string, then lifts his hand and makes a circling gesture with his forefinger.

My heart jolts. He puts the string and his glasses aside and pushes to standing. The sight of him coming toward me, all masculine grace and prowling heat, sends my pulse soaring.

Already hot with anticipation, I shift beneath the sheets so that my back is to him. I feel him stop beside the bed, grab a fistful of the sheet and pull it off. The cotton slithers over my body, cooler air brushing my naked skin. My breasts press into the mattress, and I bury my head against my crossed arms.

Dean settles his large palm against my ass, rubbing his hand in circles. A thousand quivers fall through me. I twist to look at him over my shoulder, my breath catching as his dark eyes meet mine. He's all disheveled masculinity, his muscles coiled with that taut, intense energy that has my heart racing.

I shift, wiggling my ass enticingly. I want that energy unleashed on me.

After another slow rub, he trails one finger down the cleft of my rear to where I'm already damp between my legs. I tuck my face against my arms again and surrender, feeling my whole body yield. Dean leans over me to press a kiss right below my left shoulder blade. Then he pushes himself between my legs, spreading my thighs wider as he probes me gently with his finger and circles my clit.

My blood flames. I start to push myself onto my knees, thinking this is what he wants. Still standing beside the bed, Dean grabs my hips and eases me back down. He tugs me closer so that my legs dangle off the side of the mattress. There's a rustling sound as he pulls off his jeans. I start to turn and look at him again, wanting to see his thick, erect cock...

"No." He puts his hand between my shoulder blades, urging me down again. "Don't move."

Excitement spirals through me. I curl my fists into the bedcovers, my heart pounding as I feel the hard knob of his sheathed erection against my folds. With a muffled groan, I try to push backward and impale myself on him. He gives a hoarse laugh, and in one movement, plunges into me so fast that I shriek.