“I could always quiz you more about your art,” she suggested, laying her hands on his chest. “Or your plans for the future.”
He leaned closer to speak into her ear. “For every suggestion you make, I’ll bet I have a better idea.”
Her heartbeat sped faster.
“You think so?”
He traced a finger over the exposed skin along her collarbone. Goose bumps trailed in his wake, her mouth drying up with the memory of just how good he could make her feel.
“Just lead me into a room with real blinds.” He didn’t need to remind her the living room window looked out at the field between her house and her mother’s.
“I like the implication you’re going to do wicked deeds you don’t want anyone else to see.” No more wondering if this would happen again. No more waiting. Just living in the moment, with each other. Taking his hand, she drew him deeper into the house, grabbing one lit candle from the mantel.
Then, she headed up the stairs. To her bedroom.
“I like any opportunity to be with you.” He stopped her just outside the bedroom door. Turning her to face him, he removed the jar candle from her hand and set it on top of a small bookshelf in the hallway.
In the flickering light, she could see the serious set to his face. And while she appreciated all that male interest and intensity, she also wished she could make him smile more.
“What are you thinking?” he asked, his hand cupping her chin. “I can practically see your mind race.”
“I’m thinking about how happy I’m about to make you.” She nipped his ear, surprising a smile out of him after all.
With a quiet growl of approval, he angled her face and slanted his mouth over hers.
He was a kisser in a class by himself. Erin held on tight and savored each heated stroke of his tongue. A woman could lose herself in a kiss like that. In a man like this.
She couldn’t afford to get lost in him that way.
Easing back, she undid a button on his shirt and placed her lips over the skin she exposed. His heart beat heavily, adull vibration that zinged right through her. With trembling fingers, she unfastened another button. And another.
Then reaching behind him, she shoved open her bedroom door and nudged him backward into the darkness. The quiet of the power outage was a deep silence broken only by their breathing, which grew more ragged with every touch.
Erin shoved his shirt off his shoulders and smoothed both hands over the expanse of his chest. What an incredibly well made man.
She kissed her way down his chest, lingering over the ridges between abdominal muscles while she unfastened his belt. Undid his pants.
Every now and then, a lightning flash filled the room in a slow strobe effect. Only then did she get to see the visual of him standing over her in all his strong, muscular glory while she kissed and stroked him through his boxer shorts and then—without them. But even when her greedy eyes couldn’t see him, she savored the taste and texture of his skin, so hot where she kissed him. Her hands wrapped around his thighs, the muscles straining as she teased him closer and closer to fulfillment.
She would have brought him there, too, if he hadn’t hauled her to her feet and started undressing her with fast, determined fingers. His harsh breathing filled her ears as he kissed her neck and stripped off her shirt, kissed the swell of her breasts and then swept aside her bra. Hungry swipes of his tongue along each nipple had her panting hard, too, her fingers twisting in his hair as he kissed lower to her hip and belly.
When he slid off her shorts, he wrestled for a moment with the lace tights she wore underneath, but once he got a hand beneath them, he helped her shimmy out of those, too.Soon she lay bare except for a pair of plain blue silk panties featuring a strategically placed cutout heart.
He spotted it in a blink of lightning. He sought it with his fingers in the dark afterward, then measured the place for a kiss right there in that small, bare place.
She nearly came off the bed when he licked her there, too.
The needy sound she made in the back of her throat filled the quiet room. In answer, he reached beneath her underwear and plucked gently at her swollen sex until she came apart in his arms.
Only then did he tug the silk from her hips. Retrieve the condom box from the nightstand where they’d left it the night before. And enter her with a slow stroke that nearly sent her over the edge for a second time.
“I wanted to be the one to makeyouhappy,” she protested halfheartedly as he pushed himself all the way inside her.
“That’s exactly what you did.” He thumbed a path along her lower lip and kissed her again. “I’ve never felt anything as beautiful as that.”
Some of the boundaries she had put in place to protect her heart damn near melted under those words. She tucked her head against his chest and rode the pleasure with him, letting it take her higher and higher all over again.
When they came together, the moment drew out in a timeless way she knew she would never forget. She gripped his shoulders with both hands, holding on tight and allowing each delicious shudder to travel from her toes to her forehead, racking her body with lush waves of release.
