It likely wasn’t his best idea, but this desire wouldn’t be denied.
And something in him wouldn’t let her deny it in herself.
“What are we doing?” she asked.
“Nothing…yet.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Sometimes the sharing of a coat was simply the sharing of a coat.
Any number of situations could necessitate it—cold…wet.
Both were in evidence.
Except the look of necessity flickering within Dev’s half-lidded eyes had naught to do with exterior elements.
But only with what sparked between them.
It was spoken in that tiny three-letter word.
Yet.
As he closed the distance, Beatrix allowed her gaze to rove across him in a way she hadn’t allowed herself…yet.
How gorgeous he was.
The rare man who incorporated ideals of both beauty and masculinity.
The rain had turned her into a sopping, wet mess.
But it had turned him into a god—black hair damp and tousled with a loose curl to it…clinging white shirt revealing the dense muscles of his arms.
And there was the swagger in his step—and in his smile, too.
How alive the air was around him.
How alive she was when he was near.
He moved with slow deliberation, as if not to startle her into bolting.
She was going nowhere.
He stopped just beyond her knees, and she had to tip her head back to hold his gaze.
Intention.
That was what glittered there, and it arrowed a bolt of desire straight through her.
It wasn’t she who parted her knees but rather desire and need.
He reached down and pushed the clingy muslin up her legs. Then he kneeled between, so they were face to face, his body brushing against her inner thighs, that skin so sensitive and so alive to the large, male feel of him. She opened the coat and twined her arms around his neck so they both shared in the warmth. The world outside this intimate cocoon ceased to matter.
All that mattered was the ragged in and out of their mingled breath…the hard drum of their hearts…the heat that flowed between them…
He reached up and brushed his knuckles across her cheek, and her eyes drifted shut for an instant so her entire earthly experience was the feel of his bare skin against hers.
Then he angled forward and pressed his mouth to hers.
