Her hand was caressing my chest, her leg moving slowly brushing the inside of her thigh against mine. "I loved it. Loved you. To be that special to someone is, I don't know, fulfilling? Ego-gratifying. Whenever my life was in any kind of crisis, I could always count on my Jeremy to lift my mood. Your calls to me, telling me what was going on in your life, God, they were wonderful." She lifted her head, lips offered up, and I kissed her. Softly, lovingly. She chuckled afterward. "Gotta admit. I never expected this."

"Me neither," I confessed. "Fantasized, yeah. But the thought that it could ever be real? Holding...