“No one ever took their time with you, did they? Never got you screaming for it before they tried to get theirs, huh?”

She’d thought she’d gone slow before, but it had never been like this. She wanted to twist all the way around inside his grasp. Open her legs and wrap them tight around his hips. She felt so empty and hot and soaking with how much she wanted this.

“Gonna take my time with you,” he promised, gravelly against her cheek. “Gonna take you apart all night, until you’re shaking.”

“Please.”

Her little begging gasp echoed in the room so loudly. Before she could even muster up the presence of mind to be ashamed of it, he was picking her up. Her eyes flew open, a scream forming in her throat as she scrabbled to keep from falling, but then her spine hit the soft surface of the mattress. She looked up, and he hovered over her, on his knees between her spread legs, staring at her like she was something to eat.

No. Like she was something to treasure.

Her breathing sounded deafening to her own ears as he stared down at her, blue eyes pinning her, the sharp point of his jaw and the lines of his cheekbones glowing gold. Without looking away, he undid the buttons of his shirt and shrugged it off his shoulders, then reached over his head to grab the neckline of his undershirt. His face was obscured for a moment as he tugged it off, and she took the chance to glance downward.

A fine trail of dark hair led into the waistband of his jeans, and above that was the smooth plane of his abdomen, lightly defined musculature glinting in the lamplight. His chest was just as sculpted, widening out into the broad cut of his shoulders before drawing the eye inward to the dip of his collarbones and the hollow of his throat.

And there, dangling from his neck, a plain silver chain.

She didn’t have a chance to see what was hanging from it as he dropped the ball of cotton to the side. Leaning over her, he grinned, clearly having caught her ogling, but the smirk receded into an expression that was quieter and more intense. Her chest heaved as he perched on his haunches over her, the muscles in his biceps flexing as he laid his palms on her knees. Slowly, looking up at her through thick lashes, he dipped his head. Placed one kiss and then another on the inside of her thigh, trailing upward, and she could hardly breathe. She clenched her hands as his nose nudged the crease of her hip through her jeans.

Oh God, he’d said he wanted to taste her, but would he? Like this?

He lifted up a fraction of an inch to look at her squarely, and her heart was beating overtime, all her nerves firing off at once, every inch of her body concentrated on the space between her legs. He hadn’t even really touched her yet, and already she was gasping for breath.

Her whole chest felt like it was caving in when he lowered his head again, and Christ, God, he pressed his lips right to the center of her jeans, right over her clit. She could feel the warm rush of his breath even through the fabric, the weight of that touch pushing her to the point where she thought she would explode just from this.

Light-headed, her belly and her sex alive with heat, she arched her spine. She’d never had a man make her come before, but the feeling was already gathering, an ache that bloomed and spread, familiar and foreign all at the same time.

He pressed a little harder, sending a wave of heat through her, and she tightened her muscles, unable to believe this was really happening. But then he lifted his mouth to look up at her, and he was smirking. All at once, the tension that had been building within her dropped away, and she clenched, restless around nothing. As she groaned in frustration, soft lips pressed to her abdomen, then an inch above her navel, then higher and higher. He kissed the tops of both breasts, dragging his torso through the valley of her legs.

“So,” he said, hovering above her, face to face. He held himself up with both hands planted beside her head, his knees between her calves, hips a firm presence against her pelvis, warm and vital and there if not yet grinding in. He kissed the corner of her mouth and then the other, sliding the tip of his nose against her cheek. “Is that a yes to letting me taste you?”

And she couldn’t stop herself. She laughed, sliding her hands into his hair and letting the thick strands twist between her fingers. He’d gotten her so close. She’d probably say yes to anything. “It’s definitely not a no.”

“I can work with that.”

Shaking her head, she tugged more insistently at his scalp, drawing him up her body. Half-naked like this, he was all warm skin and the scent of amber and lust. He lowered onto her, fitting hips to hips, and oh, there was that pressure again, right where she wanted it. Letting out a noise of pleasure of his own, he thrust against the cradle of her thighs, and she felt like she was melting as their lips met. The kissing and the weight of him overwhelmed her, making the air too thick and her lungs tight.

He dragged his lips along her jaw to her ear. “Do you think you’re wet for me?”

She wasn’t sure she’d ever been slicker. But the words, so easy for him, wouldn’t come to her mouth. With a sound that was half whine and half hum, she put her hands on his back, running them over hot, smooth flesh, then lower, to the waistband of his jeans, trying to urge him on.

It was encouragement enough. He kissed the shell of her ear before sucking at it. “Bet you’ll be so sweet.” Encompassing her hip with his palm, he ground into her harder. “Think you’re ready for me to find out?”

She was ready for anything. If he wanted—if he really wanted, she’d let him have it all, misgivings or no. He’d taken such good care of her body so far. Who was she not to trust him with it now?

He lifted his hips and pressed his brow to the pillow beside her head, breathing fast and shallow against her hair. Everything inside her tensed as he shifted his hand, sliding it along the top of her thigh.

When the heel of his hand connected with where she was desperate and aching, she nearly screamed with the relief of it.

“That’s right,” he murmured. “God, I bet you’re soaked. You’re burning up, aren’t you? Just waiting for me to take you over.”

“Please.” She was shocked to hear the plea fall from her lips. “No one’s ever— I’m—” Close. Scared. It was hot and vulnerable, shaking apart like this inside a man’s arms, letting him see all these pieces of her as they broke, their hidden facets exposed.

“Shh.” He made his way to her mouth again, kissing her softly but with no less heat. “I’ve got you.”

But his reassurances didn’t soothe anything at all. Her legs were stiff with how long she’d been tensing, waiting to fall, but all his rubbing at her through her jeans only made her need coil tighter without any of that sweet unfurling of release. If she could just get her own hands on herself . . .

For one hysterical second, she thought about faking it, the way she’d been so tempted to in the past.

But then he was kissing down her body, undoing the fasteners of her jeans.

“What are you—” she started, but it was a stupid question.

“Tell me you don’t want this.” He had the side of his face mashed up against her stomach, his long fingers parting her zipper. Brushing against the fabric underneath.

She didn’t want to pretend to come. She didn’t want to lie.

He turned, burying his mouth and his eyes against her skin. “You’re aching for it. I can feel it. God, let me do this for you.”

What was left for her to do but nod?

As if he’d been dying to do it, he tore her pants down her legs, cursing in frustration when he got to her shoes. Somehow he got them shoved off, and they bounced across the carpet to the other side of the room, followed by her pants, and then he was hooking fingers into the lace at the hem of her panties.