up to put her lips to his throat, making him shake.
He laughed, but the sound was dry. “How can I not? It’s you, Cass. You .”
“Do you not want to…?” It hurt to even ask, and she froze with her mouth open at his pulse point, her abdomen twisting as she braced herself.
“Fuck.” He moved one hand from the mattress to her hip, his thumb sneaking above her waistband. It was so warm. “I do. But…”
She shook her head. “Then let it happen.” She closed her lips on the salty flesh where his shoulder met his neck and sucked, feeling his answering moan as a blooming heat between her legs. “Let it happen.”
“Cass…”
She slid her hand down his chest, and when she touched the firm muscles of his abdomen, they both tensed. He dropped his head onto her shoulder, throat rumbling with sounds of need. In a whirlwind, his mouth was back on hers, his hands darting higher until one was on her breast over her shirt, the other touching the bare skin of her side.
Scarcely breaking the kiss, he pulled back just an inch to say, “We will be talking about this.”
“I know. Just not now.”
He looked at her with the same intensity that had always captivated her. “Not now.”
With that, all the restraint in his body seemed to evaporate, his mouth capturing hers again as his body melted down. Flush against her, fitting in every way, he was all hard angles and delicious weight, pressure exactly where she needed between her thighs.
Her hands finally free to touch where she wanted to, she dragged them down the expanse of his back and lower, cupping his ass and pulling him close. He thrust against the valley of her hips, and she saw stars. “Right there.”
“You like that, don’t you?”
Her only response was a gasping nod as his lips traveled along her jaw to her neck and to a spot behind her ear that made her wild.
“I always wondered what this freckle tasted like.” He pressed a soft kiss there before sucking at the lobe, grinding into her harder and cupping her breast. “Always wondered what you tasted like.”
And there were too many questions, too many thoughts that made her hopeful heart lift at the same time her doubting one twisted. To silence him and all the voices in her head, she tugged his hair, pulled him back toward her lips. With her other hand, she undid the first button of his shirt. The others followed quickly, each revealing another inch of warm, bare skin. This afternoon, when she had seen him naked from the waist up, she had lusted for this skin. And now it was hers.
He helped her push the fabric from his body, and then his fingers were dancing under the hem of her top, tugging it up. Once it was past her breasts, he tore his mouth from hers and attached it to the swell of flesh above her bra. Pulled the cup down and sucked at her nipple.
The nerves there were on a livewire to her clit, and she gasped aloud as she bucked up into him. Fingers in his hair, she held him to her. “So good.”
“Yeah?” He took the other nipple between his fingers, rolling and squeezing until the pressure was just right.
God, but the man knew what to do with a woman’s body. Knew what to do with her body.
He switched breasts, tonguing and nipping, twisting and pinching until she thought she’d come from that alone. But just as the pleasure made her shake, he pulled away. Nudged her shirt up higher on her chest. Cassie couldn’t seem to move fast enough to help him pull it over her head, and in a snap, he had her bra unfastened and flung to the ground.
“Up,” she mumbled. She got just enough of his weight off her to reach for the bedspread and claw it out from underneath her. He caught on quick, stripping the bed down to clean, white sheets, and then he was over her again. She put her hand to his waist. Lower until it closed around the hardness between his hips.
“Jesus, Cassie.” He pushed into her palm and undid the button on her jeans with a flick of his wrist.
In a mad scramble of