Pushing to a stand, he offered her his arm. “Shall we?”
Her only response was a quick exhalation. And the moment her little fingers curled around his bicep, he felt two things in equal measure.
One was lust. A deep, all-encompassing, all-consuminghunger.And the other was pride that someone like her, someone so good and kind and smart and sexy, would wanthim.
He noticed the sand had turned cool beneath his bare feet as he led her toward the western tip of the island. For a long time, he stayed as silent as she did. Listening to the waveshissagainst the shoreline. Enjoying the gentle warmth of the evening breeze as it teased across his skin. Sneaking glances at her pretty profile and fantasizing about running his finger from the slope of her smooth forehead down to her button nose and ending under her stubborn little chin.
Eventually, though, he couldn’t stand her silence any longer. “You’re being awfully quiet this evening.” He realized what he’d said, and rephrased. “I mean, quieter than usual. What’s on your mind?”
She tentatively met his searching gaze. For a moment, he thought she wouldn’t answer. Then, she did. Andwhenshe did, the simple truth of her words, and the way she said them without ego or artifice, hit him like a grenade from a rocket launcher. “The answer to that question is the same as it’s been for the last couple of months.You.You’re what’s on my mind. It’s always you.”
“My god, Mia.” His voice sounded like it’d been raked over rocks on the way out of his mouth. “You have no idea—”
He stopped there, because he wasn’t sure what he even wanted to say. That she had no idea what she did to him? That she had no idea how she made him feel? That she had no idea that it was taking the last bit of his willpower not to pull her to him so he could taste the mouth those sweet words came out of?
She placed a gentle hand in the center of his chest, and his heart thudded up to meet her touch. “Are we about to become lovers?” Her expression seemed pensive.
When the wind whipped some of her hair across her face, he did something he’d been longing to do since the day they met. He brushed the wavy lock behind the delicate shell of her ear, letting the strands slip slowly through his fingertips.
Softer than I imagined,he thought.Silkier too.
Would the rest of her end up being softer and silkier than his fantasies? If so, it was going to take all his manful focus and discipline not to skip the foreplay, strip her naked, and plow into her tight little body like the animal she reduced him to.
Never in his life had a woman made him feel so...primal.
“I want that,” he admitted in a voice so low it was barely more than a growl. “Is that what you want?”
His heart tripped over itself when something that looked very much like indecision moved behind her eyes.
“Yes,” she finally answered, and he realized his shoulders had tensed, because they suddenly relaxed. “But...” She frowned. “Can you promise, no matter what, we’ll stay friends? I don’t think I could stand it if—”
He silenced her by placing a finger over her lips. He’d have rather used his mouth for the job, but once he started kissing her, he wouldn’t be able to stop. And right then she needed his words, not his tongue.
Hot damn, the things I’m going to do to her with my tongue...
“I will never stop being your friend,cariña,” he swore to her.
She looked relieved. But it only lasted a second before her brow beetled again.
He used her troubled expression as an excuse to run his finger over her forehead, down her pert nose, and beneath her stubborn chin. There, he stopped, tilting her face up so that she was forced to hold his gaze. “What is it?” he asked quietly. “Tell me.”
“I haven’t...” She rolled in her lips when the words seemed to get stuck in the back of her throat. After a second, she tried again. “I haven’t had as many lovers as you have. I might not be what—”
He didn’t let her finish. He didn’t need to. “Mia, my sweet, sexy woman, believe me when I say that’s nothing you have to worry about.”
She nodded. But he could tell she was still nervous.
Who could blame her? Doc had accused him of staring at her like he’d like to eat her whole. What small, delicate creaturewouldn’tbe nervous when she found herself caught in the sights of a much bigger, much hungrier predator?
But he wasn’t going to eat Mia in one giant gulp. Fuck, no. Mia wasn’t a fast-food french fry. She was a seven-course meal from a Michelin-starred restaurant.
He was going to eat her slowly, lick by lick. Suck by suck. And bite by delicious bite.
But first...
“Breathe,cariña.” He tucked another unruly strand of hair behind her ear because he couldn’t get enough of touching her. “We aren’t going to start now.”
Not that he didn’twantto. He’d have liked it if they neverstoppedafter that first kiss. But she was all up in her head, and that’s the last place he wanted her. When he made his move, and hewouldmake his move, he wanted her totally in her body.
