So many times in one short night, Cole had asked her to be brave. To take a chance by dancing with him. To marry him. To let him tie her up. And, now, to tell him what gave her pleasure.

He was the first person who had ever looked at her and seen someone who might have guts.

A woman who might be willing to take a risk.

She’d been so afraid of falling her whole life that she hadn’t ever known the feeling of leaping and not knowing where she’d land.

But Cole had taken her hand and given her the opportunity to jump.

The chance to take a free fall and feel the wind in her hair.

Sucking in a breath, she told him something she’d never thought to say to anyone. “My breasts are really sensitive. Good sensitive.”

She felt the air go still in the room, realized neither of them were breathing. And then, his fingers found the clasp at the front of her bra and cool air was rushing over the heated tips of her breasts.

“Anna.” Her name was almost a prayer on his lips. “Sweet Anna, no one should be this beautiful.”

She thought—prayed—that he was going to drop his head down to her breasts, especially when she felt the soft ends of his hair brushing against the super-sensitive flesh.

“Tell me what you want me to do to your perfect breasts, sweetheart.”

Before she could say a word, his hands came around the undersides of her breasts and cupped them together.

“Lick them.”

His hair brushed against the outside of one breast, his tongue laving between her soft flesh and her rib cage. “Like this?”

She couldn’t believe she was smiling, but it was such a surprise that the big, hard man she’d married loved to tease.

And, oh, was he good at it.

“What if I said yes?” she found herself teasing back.

After a bit of a pause that only served to ratchet up her anticipation, his tongue came down over her again, laving small but intensely sweet circles of pleasure against the side of her breast. And then, after a quick sweep of his soft hair over her chest, he found the mirror-image spot on the other breast.

She knew what he was doing, that he wasn’t going to take another step on his own without forcing her all the way to the edge, but not off. Jumping was all her own responsibility.

She knew that now, understanding it for the first time ever.

“My nipples, Cole.” She felt him lift his head slightly, pressing a soft kiss to her skin before moving away completely. “Lick my nipples.”

She was instantly rewarded for her bravery by the wet flick of the tip of his tongue against the rigid points. His hands were wonderfully rough on her as he pushed her breasts close enough together that he could lick first one hard tip and then the other, again and again in such rapid succession that she never had a chance to recover.

Just Cole’s tongue on her skin was better than any other sexual encounter she’d ever had.

And still, it wasn’t enough.

Not nearly enough to satisfy the need he’d made her feel.

And, oh God, the things she was feeling, white-hot flames rippling across her skin, pulling her into a maelstrom of heat...and boundless pleasure.

“Suck them.”

Again, her request was instantly granted, and she couldn’t possibly contain her cry of deep, dark delight as Cole’s strong lips pressed around a nipple, as his tongue flattened against the underside so that it dragged along the roof of his mouth.

She’d heard women say they could come like this, but she’d never believed it, not for a second. None of her previous lovers—it wasn’t even fair to put the men she’d slept with in that category, she suddenly thought—had given her what she needed. No amount of foreplay had taken her to this place where Cole had so effortlessly brought her.

While his mouth found sweet purchase on one nipple, his hands and fingers didn’t neglect her other breast, rolling the sensitive peak between his thumb and forefinger so that she wasn’t able to focus on just one spot, not when it felt like her entire body was on fire, her cells molten heat beneath Cole’s talented fingers and mouth.

She sucked in one breath and then another around her moans of pleasure and just when she thought she was getting a handle on the incredible sensations coursing through her veins, he surprised her with something she wouldn’t have been able to ask for, simply because she didn’t know that lovers could touch each other in such a way.

The scrape of teeth against sensitive flesh had moisture flooding at her core, her stomach tightening down when she was unable to push her thighs together to try and drive herself over the edge. She couldn’t control the arch of her back into his mouth or the sounds coming from her throat, a cry of wonder as she rode the edge of pain and came back around to the most incredible ecstasy.

And then, he was moving to her other nipple, and she was saying, “Do that again, Cole,”

but he was already there, already scraping against the tight tip with his teeth before laving the small hurt away with the tip of his warm, wet tongue.

Her limbs yanked against her binds as she tried to press herself up, higher, harder against his mouth. But then, her breasts were free, his mouth and hands moving down her torso as she opened her mouth to complain, his tongue dipping into her belly button and stealing away any words that might have been on her lips.

One of Cole’s fingers slid beneath the upper edge of her panties and all of her awareness suddenly centered on the slick, aroused flesh between her thighs. She could feel the silk of her panties sticking to her labia and where she’d previously been afraid before to let a man she hardly knew see her naked, now all she wanted was for the final barriers to be pulled away.

“Anna, baby, tell me what you want. Tell me what you need.”

His words brushing warm air against her belly almost had her coming. God, what would happen when he finally touched her there? If he loved her vagina with his mouth as well as he’d loved her breasts?

Amazed that she could actually feel her clitoris swell at the same moment another gush of arousal spilled out from between her thighs, she breathed, “Just touch me, Cole. With your hands. Your mouth. Your tongue.” She shuddered. “Your teeth.”

With her sight taken away by the silk blindfold, the sound of fabric ripping was loud enough to make her jump, but a second later, as thick, warm fingers moved through her bared, damp curls to part her naked flesh, she forgot everything—that she had married a stranger, that she was blindfolded and bound to his bed, that she was frightened by the strangely powerful desire eating her up from the inside—everything but how desperate she was for release.

Air blew across her clitoris and she bucked up an inch—all her bindings would allow.

Oh God, he was teasing her.

Had she actually enjoyed his teasing before? Didn’t he know that it would kill her if he teased her now? That she couldn’t take any more of this pleasure, not when it was all coming at her so fast, so hard, stealing her breath—and her senses—away.

Second by second, she was disappearing into a swirling storm of ecstasy. Breath by breath she was on the verge of losing the Anna Davis she’d always been against Cole’s hands as they slid slowly against her slickly aroused skin, his mouth as it dropped softly to her clitoris, drawing the tight, hard bud into his lips so that he could drag his tongue over it.

And then, just when she thought he was going to give her what she wanted, one more swirl of his tongue against her, over her—all she needed to crest the peak and come apart—he pulled away and blew out another hot breath over her delicate skin.

“Don’t tease me, Cole. Please don’t tease me anymore.”

His tongue came out to flick against her drenched skin and relief swept through her as pleasure spiked and she tried to grab onto the wave and let it take her over.