She nodded, despite a surge of disappointment. She’d felt so certain that he’d been obsessively anticipating the two of them being alone—as she had. Apparently not, since his mind was still churning with the case. Yet she understood how difficult it was to stop trying to solve the kinds of puzzles it created.
When they reached the house, she went straight to her office and started scanning the books.
And that was when he came up behind her. He turned her into his arms.
“I didn’t mean this second!” he whispered.
His lips touched hers as she slipped her hands beneath his coat and sweater, sliding them along his bare skin. She felt him tremble as they deepened the kiss. He continued to kiss her while struggling out of his coat, then helped her out of hers until both coats lay on the floor. His mouth lifted from hers as she moved her hands along his back.
“Gun,” he whispered.
“What?”
“Gun...I need it by me....” He pulled away for a minute and his eyes met hers filled with humor, a bit of awkwardness and a hunger that made her heart and all her senses soar. “Bedroom?”
“Yes. I have one,” she said, and laughed.
He caught her hand and headed for the stairs. When they entered her room, she turned into his arms again. He found her lips, then drew back.
“What?” she asked.
“Dog?”
“Oh, Rollo, I’m sorry. You’re in the hallway tonight!”
She ushered the dog out, then stepped back into the room and closed the door. It was dark, but she’d left the drapes open, and moonlight shone in on them. He removed his holster and the gun he carried and set them on the bedside table. Then he was back with her. She helped him take off his sweater; he took off hers. They kissed again. And kissed. And each insinuation of his tongue seemed to hint at things to come and increase the sweet arousal that was coursing through her veins.
She slid her fingers under his waistband and felt him tense at her touch. She found his belt and loosened the buckle, then let her hands move along his hips, pulling down his jeans and briefs, and reveling in the sensation of need and desire...and Aidan. His hands were on her naked flesh and she felt each touch like a burst of flame.
His arms swept around her and they fell on the bed together, where he kicked off his shoes and finished stripping off his jeans and briefs. He turned to her, this time encircling her in his arms as he brought her down with him. His finger moved around to her bra strap and he freed her breasts, lowering his mouth to each nipple, teasing and stroking with his mouth and tongue. She writhed, coming closer and closer to him.
But he was a smooth and practiced lover, sliding his hands along her arms to catch hold of her hands, raising them high above her head as he kissed her lips, then her collarbone, and her breasts again, then slipping to her midriff and below. The weight of his body was vibrant and hot, and she threaded her fingers through his hair. He moved ever lower, teasing, kissing, caressing. Her inner thighs received his kisses until she burned like wildfire at the place between them.
He made love to her in a way that left her gasping and straining and arching until a delicious climax broke over her. There were moments during which she felt she wasn’t even there anymore as she drifted to some higher place of ecstasy. Then he shifted on top of her, his eyes like the deep blue sea, gazing into hers. Their mouths met again and she skimmed her hands between them, down the length of him, and touched his arousal. Her slightest touch had him adjusting his weight.
Then he pulled away, groaning as if he was being tortured.
“What?”
“I dreamed of this all day, and...my pockets. I have to look in my pockets.”
“Birth control?” she whispered.
“Yes.”
“I’m prepared.”
“Oh,” he said. “There isn’t someone... Is there a reason we shouldn’t—”
She smiled. “No. I’ve just been ever hopeful that...that someone like you would come along in my life.”
He smiled, too, and stroked her cheek with the utmost tenderness.
Then he muttered, “Thank God!”
And he moved into her with a smooth thrust, overwhelming her with sensations and emotions she’d never known.
She hadn’t thought she could so quickly soar again, but she did. As he moved inside her, she was achingly aware of her own raw need and desire, and she was deliriously glad she’d never settled, that she had waited—for someone like him.
They’d both shut themselves off, she thought. She emotionally and physically, Aidan emotionally. She was sure he was far more experienced than she, and yet she sensed that this experience was still somehow different.
She forgot the world and was glad that only the moonlight drifted in, riding over his bare shoulders and the muscles that gleamed, sleek with sweat, as they moved together. The things he could do, the way he touched her, kissed her, arched against the feel of her fingers on his back...it all seemed to heighten the driving climax between them. And when it happened, she cried out, the feeling so wonderfully erotic and explosive she couldn’t contain the sound.
From the hallway, Rollo barked, afraid she was being hurt.