“It’s not a line if it’s true.”

How many times had she fallen for a man insisting he was telling the truth?

Taking a chance, she released her hold on the railing, and he wrapped her up in his arms. Kissing down to where her neck met her shoulder, he let his hips meet her backside. A whole other kind of tremor made its way through her body, a heat so intense it seared. He was hard. On instinct, she shifted her hips away, but he didn’t let her go.

As if he could sense the root of her anxiety, he murmured, “We don’t do anything you don’t want to do.”

She laughed and curled her hand around his forearm where it draped beneath her breasts. “It’s not a matter of want.”

“You want me to touch you?” His fingertips played with the hem of her top, and there was so much promise there.

Her breath stuttered. “Yes.” She squeezed her eyes shut tight again. “Only—”

His fingers and lips both paused. “Hmm?”

“I just—I don’t do this much.”

Slowly, he pressed another kiss to the side of her throat. “What? Have sex?” His lips drifted higher. “Or let yourself be seduced by a man you just met in the most romantic city in the world? Because if it’s the latter, I can’t say I’m shocked.”

Her laughter this time was easier and sadder, all at once. “I’ve gone all the way with exactly two people, and one of them was a pickup, and . . .” She didn’t really want to think about it. “. . . and that wasn’t much fun.”

She’d been into it enough, but they’d both been drinking, and it had all started moving too fast. When he’d gotten her onto all fours, she hadn’t been ready, and it hadn’t been horrible. But that was the best she could say.

The way Rylan held her shifted. It was still loose enough that she could get away at any second if she wanted to—she didn’t doubt that. But there was a possessiveness there. “If I ever make you feel like this ‘isn’t fun’—” He cut himself off and took a slow, deep breath before restarting. “I will never take anything from you that you don’t want, or before you’re ready to give it. There is nothing I want to do tonight but give you pleasure.”

She couldn’t help the twinge of doubt. “Nothing?”

“Nothing.” He swallowed. “It’ll be torture, but I’ll walk away right now if you tell me you’re not interested.” At some point, he’d pulled his hips back, but now the long line of him pressed against her rear again, not insistent or demanding at all. Just there. “Make no mistake about it. I want you. Badly. But that’s all secondary to what you want. If you never touch me but still let me make you come . . .” Trailing off, he ran her hand down her side. “I promise I’ll be satisfied.”

She opened her eyes. What was this man doing to her?

Even with Aaron, sex had never been fun. He’d had a good enough time, but she’d never managed to get him to understand what she needed him to do. He’d never asked.

And now Rylan was offering her all these things . . . And she wanted them. So much.

“I want to touch you.” Her voice came out whispery and low. “Only—can we . . . can we take it slow?”

“As slowly as you want. I have just one request.”

Her stomach sank. “Oh?”

Taking a partial step back, he turned her around until they were standing before each other, eye to eye and face to face, and his gaze was burning. “Please. Kate.”

“Yes?”

“Please tell me you’ll at least let me taste you.”

chapter SEVEN

Kate’s breath caught in her throat. It wasn’t that she’d never had a man do that before. Aaron had tried a few times. It had been warm and wet, and mortifying. Mostly mortifying, though.

She’d never been so close to giving in and faking it already as she had been, lying there, waiting for him to get bored.

Heat rising in her cheeks, she played with a button on his shirt for something to look at. “You don’t have to.”

“I don’t have to do anything.” He ducked, giving her no choice but to meet his gaze. “And neither do you. But I want to.”

She shrugged. “It’s just never done much for me.”

“Then whoever was doing it wasn’t doing it right.”

“And you think you’ll do better?”

“I know I will.” With that, he took her by the hand and made to lead her off the balcony. “Come on.”

As she followed him into the room, he paused to close the door, drawing a pair of sheers over the glass but leaving the heavier draperies open. Squirming inside and uncertain what else to do, she faced the bed and took a deep breath.

He came up behind her, encircling her waist with his arms, just like he had out on the balcony. “Is this all right?”

“Yeah.”

Apparently, he was starting everything on established ground. “And this?” He smoothed her hair out of the way before kissing a longer, wetter line down the side of her neck. The soft scrape of teeth against delicate flesh made it all the better, and some of the stiffness left her limbs.

“Yes.”

He moved so slowly, sliding his lips across her skin. With one arm holding her flush against his chest, he brought his other one up. Warm fingertips dragged across her throat and along her collarbones, lingering there before drifting lower. He swept them down the valley of her breasts. At her navel, he turned his hand over and retraced the circuit, again and again, until the thrumming in her abdomen felt like a smoldering glow. She relaxed her arms. Let her head fall back against his shoulder.

“See?” His voice was a low rasp. “Isn’t that nice? Don’t you like it when I touch you?”

She did, and the pit of heat flared, something clenching deep inside. “Yes.” And she should be touching him, too, shouldn’t she? She reached to wrap her palm around his thigh.

But he shhed her, brushing her overture aside. “Later, if you want. For now, just let me.”

It wasn’t easy, but an instinct she’d thought had been burned out of her wanted to do precisely that. To give over and give in. She dropped her arm back to her side and took him at his word.

His hand drifted to her hip. Her breath hitched. On the way back up, he barely skimmed the apex of her thighs through her jeans, and a sound passed her lips.

Two minutes ago, she’d been so nervous about him coming anywhere near her, and now she was losing her mind, all but whimpering at a teasing glance across her sex.

Murmuring words she couldn’t hear against her neck, he skated his hands up and down her body, flirting with but never quite making contact with the places that were slowly starting to strain for it. When another, breathier sound of desire escaped her, he groaned, pressing himself tighter against her spine. Letting the line of him sear its way into her, until she was liquid, yearning for his touch.

He didn’t have to ask a question. She closed her eyes and answered it. “Yes.”

“Good girl.”

It should have been cold water on her flame, but somehow it was anything but. She wanted that praise again, wanted that soft, gravelly voice telling her she was exactly what he wanted her to be.

Sucking the lobe of her ear between his lips, he rubbed the hem of her shirt between his fingertips, transcribing what he was going to do and giving her room to tell him no. Her breath went shallow as he rucked the fabric upward, skimming warm fingertips over her abdomen. He didn’t push it all the way up, though. Pausing with her breasts still covered, he ran the corners of his knuckles around the outer curve.

“Can I?”

She nodded minutely, arching forward and holding her breath.

He didn’t grab or squeeze at her as he finally let his hand traverse the center of her chest. She exhaled shakily with the relief of his gentle touch, pleasure simmering with the graze of his thumb across her nipple, the pressure of a broad palm encompassing the full swell of her breast.

He nudged at the hem of her top again, and she lifted her arms. He stripped her out of it and let the material fall to the floor before molding himself to her spine again, running his hands more freely over bare skin. Electricity seemed to trail behind every touch, winding her up higher and higher until he dipped into the cup of her bra, brushing the hard, naked nub at her peak, sending crisp and white sparks branching. Panting, she turned her face into his neck, and he held her, even as he was cupping her more firmly, sliding his hand in deeper beneath the satin.