Had he not been sitting down, the tentative touch of Amy’s tongue on his chest would have brought Zack to his knees.
He’d had champagne licked off him before. He’d had Jacuzzi baths and chocolate-covered strawberries and more.
He’d never had any woman like Amy to share them with.
It wasn’t just that she was lush instead of willowy, wholesome instead of jaded, or shy instead of bold, although all these elements excited him with their newness and elicited conflicting needs to cuddle and ravish her at the same time. No, it was the inner strength of the woman emerging from her shell that fascinated and aroused him.
He tried to concentrate on the physical awareness of her ripe breasts brushing the hairs on his chest as she leaned over him. But it was the daring dart of her tongue across his skin that made him so hard he could barely restrain his urge to pull her over him right then. She was doing her best to seduce him. He’d stake his fortune and his reputation that she’d never seduced another man in her life — and the knowledge both humbled and excited him.
He caught her face between his hands and lifted her chin so he could kiss soft chocolate-coated lips. She sent his head spinning when she licked the juice from his mouth first.
Her tongue tasted sweeter than berries. He tried to reclaim control of this seduction, but her kisses were as hungry as his, and they nearly slid under the water trying to gulp each other down.
Coming up for air, he could no longer resist the soft press of her breasts against his side. He slid his hands to cup their generous fullness, lifting them to his lips so he could taste even more luscious berries. He thrilled at her cry of pleasure and crushed her closer when she grabbed his hair and held him there to taste as freely as he wished.
She was all women in one, lush goddess, nurturing mother, intelligent partner, and he was about to explode with his need to claim her. But he wanted this first time to be perfect.
Pleasuring her breast, he slid his arm beneath her rounded buttocks, lifting her so his fingers could slide along her sex. Amy’s quick inhalation and widened eyes said all he needed to know. Her fingers bit into his shoulders as he tugged her across his lap. She didn’t resist repositioning but kneeled over him, tentatively surrounding his sex with her palms so he thought he might expire of need right then.
“I have waited too long for this, my Amy,” he murmured, stroking her until she closed her eyes and hummed with pleasure. “We have all night, but I need this now.”
She spread her legs and came down on him without question or quarrel, smothering him in ecstasy, leaving him gasping for air. His senses reeled with the touch, taste, and scent of warm woman in his arms, pressed into his chest. His erection had grown so large, he feared he’d stretch her to breaking.
He lifted her from his lap to suckle at her breasts again, then lowered her more slowly this time, so slowly he thought he’d lose control before she closed over him completely. He fought for restraint so he could move within her, producing excited gasps. She moaned louder as his lips teased her breasts and his hands guided her hips in a slow circle.
He wanted to do this all night, yet his body countered with building urgency.
She pushed upward, almost relinquishing him, and before he could protest, she caught his head between her hands, closed her mouth over his, and plunged down again — while stunning him with a kiss full of passion…and demand.
“Now, Zack,” she whispered, wrapping her legs around him in a way he could not refuse.
Relieved of all restraint by her request, he cupped her buttocks and pushed into her until she cried out with delight. Then he guided her into the driving rhythm he wanted, needed, and couldn’t live without.
Once she grasped his needs and took charge of the passion incinerating them, he hungrily leaned over to suckle her breasts. His hands cupped her rounded hips, and he delighted in their supple movement as they moved together farther, faster. When he knew he couldn’t restrain himself much longer, he slid his hand between them, found the nub of her sex, and pushed her over the edge.
Rather than cry out, she bit his shoulder. Triggered by that erotic charge, with her climax pulsing around him, Zack simply let go, giving himself up to the moment as if he were still a teenager in the first throes of blind love. He thrust hard and exploded in spasm after spasm, finally attaining the release he craved, while she clung to his neck and the warm water bubbled around them.
“I think I’ll just slide under and drown happy,” he managed to murmur as he wrapped her in his arms. After weeks of deprivation, he knew all her soft curves pressed into his hardness would have him aroused and aching again within minutes, if not seconds, but he couldn’t let her go if his life depended on it.
“Take me with you,” she replied sleepily, brushing her mouth against his before resting her head on his shoulder.
It wasn’t until he’d nestled her tenderly against his chest that he realized what he’d done. By throwing away all his practiced maneuvers, he’d forgotten protection. He never did that.
The memory lapse was too Freudian to consider. He couldn’t marry and have children with a woman like Amy. The match would be worse than the one between his mother and father. They would have to live on different continents and kill each other by phone.
He didn’t want to argue with Amy. He wanted to play the role of gallant protector while enjoying her laughter, admiring her creativity, and exploring all the facets she hid from the world. And the only way he could do that was if they had no ties. He’d learned that lesson the hard way.
“We have two choices,” he said into her ear, cupping his hands around her breasts and playing with her aroused nipples. “We can put on the bathing suits waiting for us and enjoy the romantic grotto, or we can slip on our robes and go up to my suite.” He nibbled on her ear to encourage the latter choice.
“We can’t just stay here?” she replied, scorching his chest with soft kisses. “We haven’t finished the strawberries or champagne.”
“I’ll have them sent up to us.” Not waiting for her decision, he rose from the water with Amy wrapped around him. If he didn’t get out right then, he wouldn’t be able to walk.
Walking didn’t matter after all. She fastened her mouth to his, wrapped her legs around his hips, and within minutes, he had her beneath him on the cot.
With the cinnamon scent of roses filling their heads and the steam from the bath enveloping them, they sated the frustrations of the past weeks, oblivious to all but sensation.
* * *
Sheets like silk slid along Zack’s skin as he turned to reach for the warmth he’d cuddled all night.
She wasn’t there. He groaned into his pillow.
He could feel the glare of sunlight against his eyelids, but he left them closed, preferring to listen for telltale sounds that would give him an indication of what to expect. He was accustomed to waking alone, but he was abnormally disappointed to do so this morning.
One little night should not be so dangerous.
Perhaps Amy was the wiser of the two of them. They should not let themselves get used to cuddling or expecting romance.
A door clicked, and he lifted one eyelid to peer toward the bathroom, praying that its door was the one he heard and not the one to the suite. The bathroom door was wide open, and Amy wasn’t in sight.
Panic rising, he flipped over to observe the other side of the room.
Looking adorable in the short-waisted jacket and draped skirt she’d worn to work yesterday, Amy stood beside a table tray containing hot dishes, teapots, and a pitcher of juice. At his movement, she poured a glass of juice and brought it to the bed.
“I only have the weekend to work on the house. Hurry up, sleepyhead, it’s time to get moving.”
“Incredible!” he muttered to himself as he threw off the bedcovers and ignored her offering of juice. Stark naked and still half aroused, Zack stalked across the carpet to snatch a pastry from the tray. It wasn’t a substitute for the sweetness of woman that he preferred. “You are the least romantic woman in the world!”
Even as he bit into the pastry, he was startled to realize he didn’t mind that she wasn’t romantic. This was pure Amy smiling back at him in the mirror, undeterred by his reaction. Here stood the practical woman who disguised the seductress underneath — the seductress only he knew.
With Amy, he didn’t have to be charming. In return, she didn’t have to play at being what she wasn’t to entice him. He loved just watching happiness radiate from her.
“Said the grasshopper to the ant,” she replied tartly, as only Amy could do and not give off rancor. “It was your idea to shop.”
“Not at the crack of dawn.” His body ached for more lovemaking before returning to the grim realities of her world, and he wasn’t ready to let her win this argument. “There is a reason for weekends.”
“Of course! Weekends are for doing everything a working mother can’t get done during the week,” she replied as if he were simpleminded.
Zack swung around and caught her openly admiring his physique, and he had to slam his libido to a halt and rethink. She obviously wanted him, just as much as he wanted her, but did a hint of wariness linger behind her admiration? That she still doubted him hurt, and it shouldn’t. He knew she was the settling down kind and needed to be wary.
Why was he the one resenting that Amy was headed back to her life as if this were a casual affair? As he usually did.
“I work hard and I play hard. That does not make me a grasshopper,” he said gruffly, grappling with his odd resentment.
“So do I,” she replied. “But my idea of playing is with my new house. And since that was the purported reason for my coming here, you shouldn’t be surprised if that’s what I want to do.”
He wanted to stage a scene where they either both walked off in a huff or ended up in bed again. That was normal in the world he’d occupied these last years.
He was tired of the scenes, he realized. He was tired of waking up in strange beds to women he didn’t even like.
He liked Amy, in his bed and out of it, even when she was at her most exasperating, as she was now. She was running from him because she was scared and testing his staying power.
He didn’t entirely know what to do about it. Not yet. He needed to go home and set his head straight. Was that how Amy felt, too? No wonder she was keeping her distance.
Thunderstruck by the realization that he could have a woman he enjoyed beyond sex, he almost dropped into a nearby chair.
It would appear that they might be on the verge of a real relationship — whatever that might be. He didn’t know what to do about it. Only one thing was certain — he had just gone beyond fighting it.
Was that how Amy felt? As if she’d been smacked on the head by a two-by-four and knocked under a steamroller? He would have to sort through the maze of that possibility as soon as he picked his rolling head up off the floor and set it on straight. He knew what “relationship” meant to Amy.
He was only mildly terrified and not quite shaking in his boots. Yet.
For the moment, he must deal with the impossible female waiting for his response. She was tapping her foot and starting to frown.
Zack miraculously discovered a desire to knock down ceilings and paint walls.
“Sit. Eat,” he commanded. “I will shower. You will not run away.” Smiling broadly, he planted a kiss on her cheek — anything more and he’d have her undressed in seconds — and strode off to the shower whistling.
Amy held a hand to her cheek like an infatuated teenager and tried not to melt through the floor as Zack’s beautifully muscular ass disappeared into the bathroom.
She’d been doing fine until that confident gleam had returned to his eye, and he’d started giving orders. She’d felt very woman-of-the-world climbing out of bed, washing, and dressing while a handsome man slept sprawled across the bed they’d made love in. She’d thought ordering room service on her own a brilliant idea to establish her independence and the casualness of their relationship.
It was one thing to look to Zack for a job. That was business. But depending on him to feed her and plan her time off, that was scarily intimate and spawned thoughts of planning days around him….
And mornings.
She’d faltered there for a minute when he’d actually sounded hurt and uncertain. He was the experienced one, wasn’t he? She was the one who should expect more of an affair, right? Which was why she had to prove she didn’t expect anything.
Now she was just plain confused. This was the reason she had resisted the idea of an affair for so long. She couldn’t separate sex from commitment. And commitment with jet-setting Zack was out of the question.
She finished her glass of orange juice and poured tea. The kitchen apparently already knew Zack’s requirements, because they’d sent up a real teapot and real tea leaves instead of hot water and herbal tea bags. She nibbled pastry and listened to him shower and was relieved she was dressed so she wasn’t tempted to join him for a repeat of last night.
Last night had been…. She couldn’t think of words to describe how she’d felt, or she’d cry, knowing she’d never have another night like that again. Zack was ruining her for any other man.
Well, fine. She didn’t want any more men.
She flipped on the television and half listened to a weather report about another hurricane barreling into the Gulf Coast. She flicked it off when Zack emerged smelling of sandalwood, wearing blue jeans and a worn work shirt, with his hair still wet and curling from the shower. Before she could say a word, he gathered her into his arms and drowned her in a kiss so hungry that he jump-started her stuttering heart and left her gasping.
“We are good together, yes?” he demanded, releasing her to press her into a chair at the table.
All she could do was nod. It was the truth, after all.
“Regrets, Amy?” he asked softly.
Her heart stumbled at the gentleness of his voice, and that he even considered how she felt. “No,” she replied in a whisper.
“Then we will enjoy the day as we choose colors for your new home.” Apparently satisfied with his decision for her house, he uncovered the hot plates and ravenously consumed the breakfast she’d ordered for him.
How did one pound a whirlwind over the head?
One didn’t. One went to ground and didn’t come out until the tornado had spun past.