Redwood Bend

with all her internal muscles.
“Holy…” He couldn’t speak any further. All that escaped him was a powerful groan as he held himself for a moment, then pumped his hips and joined her. He pinched his eyes closed and held her hips. As the pleasure slowly let him breathe again, he kissed her everywhere—her eyelids, her lips, her cheeks, her neck, her breasts…
And he held her, stroking her hair, her neck, touching her beautiful face. “Are you okay, honey?” he whispered.
“Hmm,” she said, giving a little nod, her eyes closed. “Possible rug burns....”
“My God, Katie…I wanted you so bad, I didn’t even get you to the couch. I think I went insane.”
She giggled. “When a girl says yes to you, she better stand back, huh?”
“Come on, sweetheart, let me get you to bed…”
“Just a minute, Dylan,” she whispered. “I’m trying to grow the bones back in my legs… Can’t we be still for just a minute more?”
“Yes,” he said, placing gentle kisses everywhere he could reach without separating them. “My God, I’m having aftershocks.”
“I’m weak,” she said softly. “Pleased, but totally limp…”
After a minute passed, he carefully lifted her and she looped her arms around his neck. “Don’t worry about growing your bones back. You’re not going to have to walk for a while,” he whispered. He carried her to the bed with his lips locked on hers. He put her down and climbed on beside her, pulling her into his arms. “Yeah, this is going to work better. Yeah, I like this,” he said, settling his lips against her neck and his hand over her breast. “Now we start over. Nice and slow.”
Dylan felt Katie stir against him and he instinctively pulled her closer. He wanted her again.
“Best sex of your life?” he asked in a whisper.
“I’m not ready to commit,” she whispered back.
He chuckled. “Was for me,” he said.
“But…”
“Seriously,” he said. “And it was for you, too.”
“Don’t go getting a big head, just because I had a couple of orgasms—”
“Four,” he said. “I gave you four and helped myself to two.”
“You’re counting?” she asked, rising up and looking down at him.
“I’m going to keep counting, too. I think you can reach your personal best.” He grinned at her.
“Aren’t you tired?”
“I was sleeping, until you started wiggling around…” He nuzzled her neck. “I can do better. Just trust me…”
“We made love on the floor,” she murmured. “Ten feet from the bed…”
“Hmm. I think I lost my mind a little bit. Are there rug burns?” he asked, trying to roll her over. “I’ll give them a little kiss…” He found a couple of pink patches on her rump and did kiss them sweetly. Then he rolled her back and his hands and lips began to move over her body again.
“Boy, am I glad the rumors weren’t true.”
“What rumors?” he asked, his voice muffled.
“There were lots of them. I think the worst one had you in a drug-induced coma in an institution in New Zealand…”
He lifted his head from her breast. That one had appeared in The Star twenty years ago, shortly after Adele took him out of Los Angeles. “You know,” he said. She nodded. “How long have you known?”
“Well, I strongly suspected at the flat tire, then at the bar I was more sure, then when you told me your last name and a little about yourself, right before you kissed me, I was positive.”
“And you didn’t say anything?”
She shrugged. “It appeared you didn’t want to talk about that Dylan Childress. If you’d brought up your Hollywood career, I would’ve said something. I admit to being curious about which parts are true, which aren’t. The press and rumors were pretty horrible. Liquor and drugs, an unbelievable number of girlfriends, crazy behavior, vandalism and general delinquency…”
“I was just a stupid kid…”
“I always wondered which parts of that were true…”
“Probably too much of what you read was true…”
“I read about the terrible incident that seemed like the end of it all—Roman’s drug overdose.”
“An accident,” he said. “I’m sure it was Roman being stupid, trying to get high, not get out.”
“And that’s when you kind of disappeared,” she said.
“My grandmother got me out of there, away from the insanity. She didn’t know what else to do, I think. She thought I needed to rehab, to put it simply. How many people around here know?”
“Les knows, but she won’t out you. I bet the number