The moment Julian woke he knew something was wrong. There was someone in his bed and this time he wasn’t drunk enough to believe he had come home with some unsuspecting woman.

No, unfortunately he had memories, crisp clear ones of the Fates telling him he had three days.

“Three days to do what?” he roared in rage. The only woman he had ever loved was dead and they were playing mind games.

The woman beside him murmured and rolled over. He caught a glimpse of midnight hair that was shockingly familiar. He stared at the dark, silky strands of her hair, hoping against hope that the Fates hadn’t given him a woman that reminded Julian of her.

He couldn’t go through that again.

“You’re watching me again. I hate it when you watch me,” she mumbled into the pillows, but Julian could clearly hear her words.

“Jacklyn?” he whispered.

“Expecting another woman?” she murmured as she turned over.

Julian stared at her for several movements too shocked to do anything more. And then she smiled, that slow, warm smile that always seemed to make his heartbeat race.

“No, there is no other woman,” he growled as he lowered his head to capture her lips. Julian kissed Jacklyn slowly, softly, half afraid that his touch would force her to disappear from his presence. He moved his lips back and forth over hers, tracing the contours of her mouth, memorizing what he already knew by heart.

His hands drifted over her torso, moving up her belly to palm the full cups of her breasts. Callused thumbs brushed across the distended tips, coaxing her nipples to hard buds.

“God, I missed you, Jacklyn,” he groaned as he pushed up her sleep-shirt until her blackberry nipples were revealed. Jacklyn’s giggle of surprise rumbled across his chest as he pressed his lips to her belly. “It’s only been one night, Julian. Don’t tell me you’re sprung.”

Julian lifted his head and caught Jacklyn’s honey brown gaze. And said the words he had not been able to say three years ago. The truth he had steadfastly denied.

“I am sprung, Jacklyn. I love you.”

Jacklyn’s gaze widened and her breathing deepened. For several moments those were the only indications Julian received that Jacklyn heard his words. Then she lunged at him, throwing him onto his back.

Jacklyn peppered soft, small kisses across every inch of Julian’s face. His jaw. His cheeks. Even his eyelids, until a groan escaped from his lips. “Sweetheart, you haven’t said anything yet.”

Jacklyn stilled and stared down at him. A slow grin spread across her caramel face. “I love you, too, Julian. I’ve loved you for some time now.” One small palm connected with his chest. “You made me wait five years to hear that, Julian,” she said with a laugh.

“I know,” he said as he flipped them over. “And I’m sorry I waited so long to say something.” Julian pressed his lips to her and took her mouth in a starved kiss. His hands slipped down her body and drifted between her thighs, seeking and finding the pearl of passion at the apex of Jacklyn’s thighs.

He flicked his thumb across the head of her clitoris. She shivered beneath him and lifted her hips for his questing fingers. “Oh, Julian,” Jacklyn murmured as he thrust one finger into the moist heat of her cunt. Small, honey colored fingers tightened in the midnight strands of his hair when Julian wrapped his lips around her nipple and suckled the bud hard.

“Shit.” Jacklyn’s heartfelt moan drifted over Julian’s head as he scraped his teeth down her pebbled nipple. He withdrew his finger from her cunt and thrust two deep inside her sex.

“Yes. Oh, god yes.” Jacklyn keened as her body tightened around his stroking fingers. Instinctively, she lifted her hips and rode his fingers as he plunged them in and out of her pussy. Julian looked up and watched her face as the passion deep inside her veins blossomed, exploding in her clenching cunt.

It had been so long since he had seen a sight that even remotely matched the beauty of her release.

Three years to be exact.