She made her way down the hallway. “How about if you half-sit, half-stand against the table here?”
Right away, he leaned most of his weight on the table’s edge. He looked outwardly relaxed—boots planted apart, hands wrapped around the table’s rim—yet she sensed his coiled anticipation.
He was sublimely masculine but not threatening. He’d subdued his power for her sake.
“Comfortable?” she asked.
“Yes. You?”
“As comfortable as someone who’s highly flustered can be.” She laughed nervously as she neared him. “Where to start? Where to start?” She ran her focus from the top of his head down to his chest and back up.
“Take your pick.”
She hesitated.
“You follow your instincts when you create art,” he said, his voice like velvet on her skin. “Do the same here.”
It felt much too forward and presumptuous to go right for his hair or his face, though both of those areas were screaming for further investigation. She decided on his hand. She picked up his right hand and studied it. There were veins running down its exterior, defined ligaments and tiny muscles. The inside of his wrist was paler than the top side. Jeremiah had large, capable hands. The hands of a man. The hands of a race car driver.
With barely-there pressure, she slowly glided the pad of her pointer finger from the base of his wrist along the outside of his thumb. Then traced a path up and down each finger, pausing for a split second in the valleys between.
Experimentally, she intertwined her fingers with his, pressing their palms together, then closed her eyes for a few moments to test the sensations. Her temperature was rising. Need gathered with pain-sweet force.
Eyelashes flipping open, she watched the rising motion of his chest, listened to the quiet sound of his breath. She released his hand. Placing both palms on his chest, she felt the heat and solidity of him and, beneath that, his thudding heart.
He had almost died, that day she’d found him at sea. But he was all health and strength now. Alive. Virile.
She dared meet his eyes.
He gazed unflinchingly back, causing an almightygongto reverberate through her.
Gently, she turned his face to the side because it was too much to have him staring at her as she investigated him like a three-dimensional map.
Her fingers siphoned through the hair near his temple. The texture of it was slightly denser than it looked. She charted a trail around his ear and down the cord of his neck. Across a collarbone. Back to the groove at the base of his neck. Along the other collarbone.
Her air went shallow. This was ridiculously heady. She couldn’t believe he was letting her do this.
She roamed halfway down his hard chest, then her hands split, trailing up both sides of his ribs, noting the lean indentations of them. He was a gorgeous man. Worthy of sculptures.
Gathering her nerve, she turned his profile back toward her and skimmed her thumb along his bottom lip.
She’d shared pleasurable intimate moments with the boyfriends she’d had before Gavin. Always, though, those moments had felt slightly rushed and her mind had been divided. Half her brain had been focused on incoming stimuli. The other half had been wondering how much or little the guy was enjoying things.
Somehow, this approach was working wonders for her. It was unhurried. No fear existed because he’d given her control. She wasn’t distracted by anticipating or responding to him. Here, she was fully present, free to drink in every response of her five senses.
This was sensual in the simplest way. Mind blowing.
He had not swerved a millimeter from his promise to remain still, which stoked her confidence.
She set her palms on the sides of his face, her pinky fingers cradling underneath the line of his jawbone. In incremental degrees, she brought her profile toward his. Overwhelmingly curious. Greedy for just a quick feel of his lips under hers. Her eyelids sank closed, avoiding what she knew would be the searing heat of his eyes. Then she set her lips on his.
Firm and soft at the same time.
She moved back, putting a space between them.
It was as if an orchestra was hitting a crescendo inside her body, heart, mind.She’d known him for seven weeks. Time enough to begin to comprehend his facets. Time enough to love him.
She pressed her lips to his again in an act of discovery. The pressure was light. It was the emotional intensity that packed a wallop—
