19

When she unhooked the chain and then stepped back, Coop was the one who hesitated.

In this moment, he wanted her more than he’d ever wanted anything in his life. More than he’d wanted his name cleared after Operation Slam Dunk. More than he wanted his next breath.

This could be life-altering, and he didn’t want to screw it up. So he stood there, his fist wrapped tight around the condoms, his gaze riveted on her eyes—eyes that spoke of desire and surrender and that irresistible vulnerability.

“Now?” She backed into the room, a look of utter confusion on her face. “After all that door slamming and demanding that I let you in, now you’re going to stand out there and give me a chance to regret my decision?”

Hell, no.

He stepped inside and, never taking his eyes off hers, shut the door and turned the lock. In the dimness, the bedside lamp made her thin nightgown translucent, leaving very little to the imagination.

In two steps, he had her in his arms. Two more, and he’d backed her against the foot of the bed. Two deep breaths, and his heart slammed against hers, his bare chest pressed against the fullness of her breasts and the erect wonder of her nipples.

Then two words stopped him cold.

“Ground rules.” She pressed her palm against his lips just as he went to kiss her.

“What?”

If she wanted him on his knees, it was a pretty sure bet it would happen. Very little blood remained in his head; most had gone south, where it pulsed and demanded relief.

“We need to establish ground rules.” She sounded as aroused as he felt.

“Okay. Fine. Pick a safe word.” He groaned, pressing his erection against her taut, concave belly. He wasn’t into kinky sex, but if she—

“That’s not what I meant.” She pushed him inches away.

He felt like weeping. “Then what? Please. Just tell me what you want.”

He drew her back against him. Filled his palms with the sweet, fleshy roundness of her ass and ground her hard against the aching length of him. He knew what he wanted. He wanted that filmy pink silk on the floor, her legs wrapped around his waist, and his mind blown like a fried circuit as he buried himself deep inside her.

“We keep this real, okay?”

He arched his hips against hers again, bent his head, and nuzzled the soft spot beneath her ear. “This is as real as it gets.”

“This . . . tonight,” she said, sounding breathless but committed as he nipped her earlobe, tugged, then nipped again. “It’s just about sex. All right? That’s all.”

Her words registered in his brain, but his body was in charge. And his body was about to go up in flames.

“Just sex. Whatever you want.”

She gripped his face in her hands, pulled his head up, and made him look at her. “No commitments. No looking back when it’s over. We’re just scratching an itch here.”

The intense emotion in her eyes told him she wasn’t fooling around. This was important to her.

And while something about her fiery insistence didn’t feel right, in this moment, whatever she wanted was fine with him. He wasn’t looking for long-term, either.

“Whatever you want,” he repeated. “Can we please quit talking now? I promise I’ll make it worthwhile.”

Apparently, she’d reached her limit, too, because when he lifted his hands, wrapped them around hers, and guided them down to touch him, to show her what she’d done to him, her eyelids fluttered shut, and her entire body trembled. Her sharp intake of breath told him she was done talking, all right. And after the initial hesitance of her fingers on his hard flesh, she enclosed him, stroked him, then rose to her tiptoes to slip her tongue into his mouth, confirming that she wasn’t turning back now.

On a groan born of six long months of frustration, he wrapped one arm around the backs of her thighs, the other around her shoulders, and lifted her off her feet.

Digging one knee into the bed, he lowered her onto her back. Resisting the raging need to shuck his pants and pound into her until they were both seeing stars, he leaned back and looked his fill of the woman who had tied him up like a dozen sailor’s knots.

“Take it off.” His throat muscles were so tight the words barely came out as a whisper. “I want you to take it off.”

Her muscles tensed all over, like a silky, sexy cat anticipating that she was about to be petted and rubbed in all the ways she liked best.

He felt the anticipation as keenly as she must have when she gripped the hem of her gown and worked it up over her hips, then sat up. Crossing her arms in front of her, she pulled the pink silk over her head.

He barely managed to stay still, not entirely believing that the reality exceeded his very vivid imagination.

She was so stunningly beautiful that for a moment, he lost his breath.

He’d been with a lot of women, a lot of them models with beautiful faces and bodies. But none of them had ever made him feel what he felt when he looked at her.

Her blue eyes were full of yearning. Her hair trailed down one shoulder, over skin that was as pale and creamy as porcelain. And her lush breasts, round and firm, were topped with the prettiest pale pink nipples. Knowing he was finally going to touch them and taste them sent a fire shooting through his groin and dropped him to his knees on the floor.

He wanted them in his mouth. He wanted all of her in his mouth.

He leaned forward and drew her to the foot of the bed, where he buried his face between her breasts. Silken hair fell over his shoulders; impatient hands caressed his head as he nuzzled her.

She gasped as he nipped her with his teeth, then soothed the velvet tip with his tongue before sucking her deeper into his mouth. He pressed her breasts together against his face, drowning him in tactile pleasure.

She arched her back when he sucked her harder, and she spread her legs until the damp crotch of her black lace panties pulsed against his throat. He could smell her arousal and her impatience.

His lips felt swollen as he reluctantly pulled away. Her nipples were engorged from his sucking, the tender flesh around them reddened by his stubble.

“Lie back,” he whispered, gently guiding her down on the bed.

Still on his knees, he locked his eyes on hers and slowly peeled the black lace down her legs.

She’d hiked herself up on her elbows and looked down her body at him. For as long as he lived, he’d remember that sight. Her hair trailing down to the bed, her pink nipples pointed upward, her flat abdomen rising and falling with her shallow breaths.

He leaned forward and worked his tongue over her belly, a promise of what was in store.

She dropped back onto the bed and groaned. “Hurry.”

That wasn’t happening. Not when he finally had her where he wanted her and how he wanted her. Kissing his way down her stomach, he lifted her thighs and draped them over his shoulders. Only then did he raise his head and look at the heart of her.

She was as open and vulnerable as a woman could be, soft and pink and bare there. He lowered his head and kissed her, once, twice. Then, as her fingers clutched the sheets, he slipped his tongue into her secret folds.

Her sharp intake of breath was all he needed to delve deeper into her sweet, slick core. And as kitten-soft noises transitioned to sounds of aching pleasure and finally to desperate demands, she fueled his own desperation.

“Pleeease . . .”

The scent and taste of her, the delicious wild sounds she couldn’t hold back, triggered the loss of his own control.

He cupped her hips in his hands, tipped her toward his mouth, and annihilated them both.