“I think she’s already startingto.”
He stared so intently into my eyes that I shiveredagain.
“Whatareyour intentions towardme?”
He leaned in to nuzzle the base of my neck again. “Long term, making you mine, but you already knowthat.”
My heartbeatdetonated.
“Short term, showing you how right we are for each other.” He licked a line up to my earlobe, making a fierce wave of desire break against my skin. “How well wefittogether.”
The wordfittinghad my mind concocting all sorts of scenarios that involved a lot less clothes. None at all for that matter. “If we use protection, we can have sex without consolidating the mating link,” I blurted out, before slapping my hand over mymouth.
Had I really said this outloud?
He pulled away from me, eyebrows writhing inamusement.
“I learned that in Tennessee,” I mumbled, cheeksflaming.
He studied me a long beat before dragging my hand off my mouth. “Is that what youwant?”
My throat went dry so fast I had to swallow several times before I could speak again. “Isn’t it what youwant?”
“What I want is you.” He crooked my face up. “And I’m not going to lie . . . I most definitely want to make love to you, but I don’t want to rush into something you’re not readyfor.”
“I’mready.”
His gaze turnedhooded.
“I don’t want to feel like a kid anymore,August.”
He frowned. “You’re not.” His hands tracked up my ribcage and cupped my breasts. “I’m not sure why you don’t seem to believe this, but you’re already very much awoman.”
“Maybe I feel this way because I’m still a virgin.” I strained against his palms. “Please?”
Letting out a husky growl, he dropped his hands to my ass and lifted me up. I gasped, my legs reflexively coming around his waist. He carried me over to the kitchen island and sat me down on the satiny wood, the dim glow over our heads casting luminous ripples over hisface.
As he stood between my legs, he said, “I won’t have sex with you to make you feel like more of awoman.”
My heart stumbled around in my chest. Everything about his body echoed my own desire. Had I read himwrong?
He traced the contour of my lips with his fingertip. “I’ll have sex with you to show you that you alreadyare.”
He dipped his finger down my neck, then kissed the hollow at the base of my neck where his finger had been, before trawling his tongue lower. His hands came around my back and eased my zipperopen.
Air rushed out of my mouth at the sensation of the fabric falling away from my skin, baring my upperbody.
He straightened and drank me in. “God, you’rebeautiful.”
I wanted to roll my eyes or say,have you looked in a mirror?Instead, I forced his already open shirt off his shoulders and rolled it down his arms. I knew this wasn’t a comparison, but my upper body had nothing on his. I trailed my fingers over his copper skin, over his dark nipples, over the perfect grid of his abs, stilling on the sharp indents at hiswaist.
Looking back into his eyes that flashed with the same lust heating my blood, I lowered my hands to the button of his pants and popped it open, then got off the island so that my dress pooled around myfeet.
August’s pupils swelled, blotting out all the green around them, and then his calloused hands grazed my skin. After an agonizingly quiet moment, his face slanted to one of my breasts. He tugged me into his mouth, licking the pebbling skin. As he moved to the other, he raked his deft hands down my spine, hooking the waistband of my black thong and sliding it down mylegs.
He lifted me back to the island, his breathing growing so ragged that the mere sound of him exhaling on me sent daggers of heat into my core. When he took a step back, I squeezed my thighs together and covered mybreasts.
“Please don’t hide yourself from me,sweetheart.”
