“After all that?”
“More after all that, actually.”
He took a step toward her. The phone jammed out with “Let’s Do It Tonight.”
When she laughed, he drew her in. Slow. In a kind of glide that had her heart bounding into her throat, then dropping down to her toes.
He watched her as his hands slid from her shoulders, down her arms. Watched her as he eased her just a fraction closer. Watched still as his lips brushed hers, just brushed.
She lost her sense of time and place as he took the kiss deep. Slow, sumptuously slow and deep.
Her knees didn’t go weak. She thought they might have dissolved, but the hands on her hips kept her upright as his mouth woke every nerve in her body.
“Oh. Well,” she managed. “I was hoping that would work.”
“I’m good with taking things slow if you want some time.”
“I really don’t.”
With a hand at the back of his neck, she drew him down to her again.
“If we keep this going, we’ll end up on the kitchen floor.” He nipped his teeth at the side of her throat and sent those awakened nerves snapping. “And the dogs’ll be all over us. I can let them out or we go upstairs.”
“I vote for bed.” Wanting him, wanting her hands on him, she tugged him from the room. “It’s a really nice bed. The dogs can share Yoda’s.”
He stopped, twice, driving her a little more crazy each time. The dogs trotted up ahead of them.
“You said sex with the dickhead was fine.”
“I did?”
“Yes. Do you want to retract or amend that statement?”
“I can wish I hadn’t said it, but no. It’s accurate.”
He circled her into the bedroom. “I can do better than fine.”
“You already are. I might be a little rusty, but I’m pretty sure it’s all going to come back to me.”
Linking her arms around his neck, she pressed her body to his.
“It already is.”
In the flickering light of the fire, the low light of the lamp, he ran his hands under her sweater, up her back. He took his time learning the body he’d imagined far too often over the last weeks.
Something about her. Something.
Now she hummed low in her throat as his hands roamed. Now he felt her skin warm under the trail of his fingers.
“Nice sweater.” She quivered, just a little, as he drew it up and off.
“Yours, too.” Easing it up his body, she sighed.
His hands moved, a sort of glide, up her back, down again.
“We should sit down a minute.”
“Sit down?”
“And take off our shoes.”
“Oh. Right.”
They sat, hip to hip, on the side of the bed.
“A little rusty,” she said.
“Not from where I’m sitting.”
She tossed back her hair. “Maybe a little nervous.”
“We’ll take care of that.”
And, sitting hip to hip, he cupped her face in his hands and kissed her.
Need smothered nerves. As she shifted to him, everything took on such focus, such clarity. The feel of his skin against hers, the taste of that wonderfully lazy mouth, the big, hard-palmed hands on her face, the scent of flowers, and him.
The smooth, crisp sheets when he laid her back made an arousing contrast with the weight of his body on hers.
He never broke the kiss, but took it deeper. Slow, slow, slow, while his hands began to move again. Under those hands, her heartbeat thickened; under those hands, she luxuriated in being touched.
And used her own.
Lean muscle, hard planes, strong shoulders. So long, she thought, since she’d explored a man’s body, felt him respond to her touch.
Testing now, both of them, gauging those responses.
What do you like? What moves you? What excites you?
When he released the hook of her bra, her pulse hammered; anticipation spilled through her like wine.
When his mouth took her breast, she arched, urging him to take more.
Arching again, her hands fisted in his hair, she demanded more.
When he gave and he took, she tugged at his belt. Everything in her shot to urgent. He murmured something as he slid her jeans down her hips, but she couldn’t hear through the pounding of her own heart.
When, she wondered, had the ache of need burned into fire?
Slow, he’d thought, this time, this first time. But she trembled, and heat pumped off her skin. Murmuring still, his lips pressed to her throat where her pulse hammered, he cupped her.
At the press of his hand to her center, she broke in one long, hard wave. Her body rose to his, shuddered, then fell. The hand she’d clutched at his shoulder slid away.
He might have soothed, might have tossed control aside and devoured. Before he could do either, she rolled. And took him over.
First his mouth in a wild, greedy kiss that shot into his system like a live wire. Then his body as she straddled him and took him in. Took him deep.
He saw Sonya in the firelight, moving over him, her skin glowing, her arms lifted as she rode another wave. Then she took his hands, pressed them to her breasts.
Even the thought of control snapped. He rode the next wave with her.
Soft, sated, satisfied, she melted down to him. She wondered if her sigh sounded like a prayer of gratitude. As he stroked his hand down her hair, over her back, she sighed again.
“Better than fine. Like…” She managed to lift an arm in the air. “Up there better than fine.”
“Glad to hear it.” She felt his lips curve against the side of her throat. “I planned to take it slower.”
She raised her head, pushed back her hair as she looked down at him. “Was I too fierce for ya?”
“Just fierce enough. But I missed a few spots.” He trailed a finger down her cheek. “I’ll catch them next time.”
She lowered her forehead to his. “I need to tell you something.”
“If you can’t tell me something when we’re naked in bed after sex, when?”
“It’s actually about getting naked in bed after sex. My personal rule is a minimum of four dates before I get to that event. Four, because three’s become a clichéd general rule, and I don’t like to follow clichés.”
“Or general rules?”
“Actually, I’m fairly reasonable about general rules.”
“So you broke your personal one with me. Flattering.”
“Not exactly. See, I decided to consider the day you and Owen moved the furniture and stayed for dinner a kind of date.”
“Interesting.” Lazily, he twined her hair around his finger. “I usually know when I’m on a date.”
“Well, my scale. Then the whole Gold Room incident, followed by dinner at the Lobster Cage. I considered that date number two.”
“That actually was a date.”
“Then on that our scales agree. After some debate and a lot of justification, I deemed the pot roast dinner a date, which makes three.”
“It appears all our dates involve food.”
“Dates so often do, right? And tonight, you brought pizza, so—”
“Fourth date. You didn’t break your rule for me.”
“No. I just worked it out my way so it came out to four. So, essentially, we’ve been dating for weeks.”