than discovering they kissed like they were born to kiss each other. He broke suddenly, gazing into her eyes, shaking his head slowly as if he were as dazed by this sudden burst of passion as she was.
"I think…" he tried, but lost his words.
"What do you think, Danny?"
"I think if we just keep our eyes on the door, we'll be fine."
"Okay."
Was he putting the brakes on? She wasn't sure. It was the most sensible thing to do, that was for sure. He slid off her and sat up, back against the wall, eyes on the door. She did the same. But he curved an arm around her back and brought her body sideways against his. It was awkward at first, but then he positioned her so that she was lying halfway across his lap.
"Now that I'm watching the door," he said, unbuttoning the top few buttons of her blouse, "I think we'll be fine."
"Oh, yeah?"
He brought his fingers to his mouth, moistened them with his tongue, then dipped them between the folds of her shirt. Slowly, he wedged them under the cup of her bra. When he found her nipple underneath, he said, "Yeah. Just fine."
In an instant, her body was flush with goose bumps.
Eyes on the door, his gun within easy reach, he circled her nipple with his moistened fingers. His precision and restraint combined to make her wet in other places as well. She'd seen the passion in his eyes, a youthful crush that had matured into a man's desire. But now, he was willing to delay his own gratification so that he could protect her and pleasure her at the same time.
"Let me give you a little help there," she whispered.
Without getting up, she reached back and unfastened her bra.
It fell away from her breasts slightly, still trapped within the confines of her blouse, which she wasn't about to remove.
She was facing the door too. It only seemed fair.
And she didn't want to distract Danny again by rolling over onto her back and offering herself up to him. Then he might lose all control. As much as she wanted him to, now wasn't the time. Now was the time for this sweet, prolonged torture, for the slow and leisurely way he was testing her nipples with his fingertips. Searching for just the perfect spot. The perfect amount of pressure that would make her muscles tense and her breaths sharpen into gasps. For some reason, dividing his focus between the door and her body seemed to make him highly responsive to each sound of pleasure coming from her.
"See, we'll be fine as long as I keep my eyes on the door," he said.
"More than fine," she whispered.
The wind howled. His fingers traced her breasts. Her folds moistened.
"So that thing you said." He unbuttoned her jeans. "About concrete examples."
"Yes," she said between gasps.
He parted the flaps of her jeans enough so he could slide three fingers under the waistband of her panties.
"When the moment's right, when I've got you all to myself, safe and warm and home, what I'm doing with my fingers right now…" He traced her folds with two fingers, dragging them gently toward her aching bud. "I'm going to do this with my tongue. After I kiss every inch of you, of course. After I use my mouth to show you what a man I've grown up to be."
"Danny…"
"Yes, Eliza."
Not Miss Brightwell. Not anymore. She was Eliza and he was Danny, both adults now, brought together by circumstances beyond their control. Now his heat and desire sustained her, wrapped her in comfort and pleasure on one of the darkest, most terrifying nights she'd ever known. And that was part of the pleasure, she had to admit. The defiance of it. The refusal to be terrified into submission by anonymous gunmen in the icy dark. As if Danny was thumbing his nose at their pursuers by leisurely, attentively fingering her clit. Worshiping it gently and easily and without the crazed, porn-star acrobatics that had always defined her ex-husband's ineffective work in that area.
Each subtle, precise move of Danny's fingers convinced her he had all the time in the world to devote to pleasing her. The