He slid his thumb along the center panel of her panties as he stared into her eyes. “This. The whole time you were talking about art. I wanted to do this.”

“What?” She’d dug one hand into the hem of her skirt, clenching it in a fist so tight her knuckles paled. “Get between my legs?”

But it had been more than that. He shook his head and leaned down, kissed one knee. Then higher, on the inside of her thigh. With his lips still pressed to her flesh, he curled his fingers into the waistband of her underwear. Cast his gaze up the length of her body. “To thank you.” For so many things he wasn’t ready to say aloud. So instead he lifted his chin and smirked. “For teaching me about art.”

“Oh, really?” Her words and tone were all skepticism, but she lifted up when he prompted, letting him tug her panties down. He eased them over her feet and spread her legs again, holding them wide with his hands on her thighs.

“Really.”

He’d wanted to thank her for letting him see what she was seeing when she looked at ancient paintings, for helping him understand what she was trying to do in her own battered sketchbook.

For giving him this week and all of its diversions, and making him talk about himself, if only a little.

“Well.” It came out like a sigh. She was uncomfortable. Twitchy and nervous, and her thighs kept pressing against his hands as if she were trying subtly to close them. None of it was as bad as that first night, but he still wanted to shake her—to remind her that only good things were going to happen here. Her throat bobbed. “You’re welcome?”

“You can’t say ‘you’re welcome’ until I’ve finished with my thank you.”

“You weren’t done?”

He raised his brows. “Believe me. You’ll know it when I’m finished with you.”

He hadn’t even started yet.

With that promise in the air—with the scent of her driving him mad and with his ribs ready to burst, he slipped his fingers along the soft, pink folds of her. He held them open and ducked his head, transcribing his actions, looking up into her eyes before taking a first gentle lick.

Just like the first time, she was all sweetness and musk and the salt-sweat taste of sex against his tongue. She wasn’t as desperate—he hadn’t worked her up as hard, but he was cresting on his own desire, and he dug in, unreserved and unabashed. He worked teasing circles over her clit and then dipped down to lick inside. Her fingers wound themselves into his hair, finally letting go of the hem of her skirt, and he shifted the fabric higher. There was still something so illicit to it, though, even if he’d lost all sense of shame so many years ago. He knelt there, completely dressed, with his head up a girl’s skirt, eating her out on the edge of a bed. It was juvenile, and it was beneath him. And it was fantastic.

The noise she made when he pressed his fingers inside had his hand digging into the tender flesh of her thigh, his eyes closing as he sucked her clit between his lips. She’d shown him how and where to touch the night before, had taken the buzzing end of that vibrator and pressed it just—

Her knee jerked up, a sharp shock of impact against his shoulder, and her moan was the most uninhibited he’d heard. He caught her leg before she could do more damage, throwing it over his shoulder and swiping harder with his tongue, curling his fingers, trying to match the way she’d angled the glass as she’d thrust it home.

She jerked hard at his hair, and fuck, it hurt, but in the best way. She tried to let go, starting to stutter out some kind of apology, but he grabbed her hand and put it exactly where it had been.

He parted from her flesh just long enough to glare up at her. “Don’t you dare hold back.”

Not after all the progress they’d made, not when she was finally starting to give him exactly what he’d wanted.

Even if it wasn’t anything like what he thought he’d been looking for when they’d first begun.

It didn’t take long after that. As if a spell of her own inhibitions and all that ingrained doubt had suddenly melted away, she gave in to it, pressing her hips forward. He gave her another finger beside the first two, filling her up the way that someday—God, he hoped, someday—he was going to do for real. Kissed her clit wet and sloppy, lapping up the slick taste of her, and when she finally tensed, he locked in. Didn’t change a thing, kept pressing and pressing, circling right where—

“Fuck!”

Her walls clamped down around his fingers, thick waves of pulses squeezing him tight as she arched backward, the hand in his hair yanking hard, sending a shock of pain and need straight down to the roots.

And he was dying for it. Was desperate to rise up over her and get himself right up in all that slick, shove himself home and take what he wanted.

Except before he could even ask—before she could give him that look again, the one that turned all thoughts of his own pleasure to ash and dust, she was urging him upward.

He parted from her sex, tugging his fingers free, and then she was kissing the wetness from his lips.

“You’re welcome,” she said. It was breathless and harsh, needy in a way he’d yet to hear from her.

And practically before the syllables were out, she was shoving him over. Getting him onto his back on the bed, and straddling his hips, and he was so ready he could scarcely think to slow things down.

But he didn’t have to.

Before doubt could creep in, she put his hand where he was aching for her and cupped him oh so perfectly through his jeans. Her face was flushed and mottled, her hair a mess, and she was beautiful.

She rose up over him and said, “Now it’s my turn to thank you.”

Kate’s body was still pulsing with aftershocks and she was kneeling there, bare beneath her skirt with her hand on a man’s cock. He’d made her come, and it had been so easy. In these few short days he’d stripped her of her inhibitions, and without them, she’d had nothing left to do but spread her legs and hold on to his hair and let him.

And she was so grateful it hurt.

She didn’t have any condoms—she hadn’t come to Paris planning for any of this—but she bet he did. Ignoring the taste that lingered there, she kissed his mouth and closed her eyes. She planted one hand beside his head while with the other she worked at his fly. These past few times, she’d scarcely touched him, and he’d seemed fine with that, but it was time.

Fear closed the back of her throat, but she pushed it down.

Goddammit all.

She was sick and tired of her own hang-ups, of letting the past taint the present the way she always did, in her life and in this bed. This time, sex would work. It had to work.

A little of the fog of orgasm cleared as she got her hand into his boxers, curling it around hard flesh. He was big, but she was as ready as she’d ever be. It probably wouldn’t hurt. And she’d be glad she had, later. When she was back in New York alone, remembering the only man who’d ever made her feel like this, and he was here, doing whatever he’d done before he’d decided to do it with her.

A noise of distress fought its way past her throat.

“Hey. Hey.”

A warm hand cupped her jaw, edging her away. She sat back, and he grasped her wrist, stilling it against his flesh. His eyes were dark with need, and he was hard in her grasp. She gazed down at him, confused. “What?”

He shook his head. “You seemed a little . . .” He trailed off, but she could hear the words, and her skin felt hot. Frigid, scared, stiff. He stroked his thumb against her cheek, and his voice went softer. “I want you. So much. But we only do what you want to do, and if you’re not ready . . .” He shrugged, but he let go of her wrist, sliding his hand up her arm to her shoulder.

God, this was so frustrating. She wanted to be ready. He’d made her feel so good, and if she was ever going to love sex, it would be with him.