LET HIS HEAD DROP against Lyddie’s shoulder and hoped to hell he could remember how to breathe. It wasn’t exertion that had knocked the wind out of him—hell, no. It was the fist to the gut that hit him when he realized that right now, with Lyddie lying beneath him and the sound of her final gasp still echoing within him, with her hair on his arms and her softness beneath him and her vanilla perfume surrounding him, he was the most complete he’d been in a long, long time. Maybe forever. If he weren’t so utterly content, he would have been scared silly. “J.T.?” Her voice had a breathy quality that went straight through him. Still too blown away to put words together, he settled for licking her neck. She giggled and squirmed, sending dozens of energizing aftershocks through his body. It wasn’t much but it gave him the strength to untangle himself and slide onto the bed beside her.
