He caught her nipples in a firm pinch and fire shot through her like a lightning bolt, one hot blast that singed every nerve ending from warm to blistering.
“Yes.” The sound slipped out as a moan, an absurdly undignified sound that made his gaze twinkle.
“And this?”
He held on and tugged her nipples in a slow pull that splintered that bolt of heat until she could feel it everywhere. Her nipples flushed pink. Her breasts swelled visibly. She couldn’t stop herself from rising up on tiptoes to arch her whole body into his touch.
“Oh!”
Not the most articulate of replies, but given his grin, Dale got the general idea. He thumbed the now-swollen peaks and each stroke made her tremble in reply, full-bodied quivers that mirrored their achy counterparts deep inside.
“You have such beautiful skin.” His deep voice whispered against her ear, the caress of his warm breath making her sigh aloud. Trailing his fingers away from her nipples, he traced a vein that shone faintly along her breast. “You’ve got skin meant to be handled carefully and to be cherished.”
He touched her with teasing swirls of his fingers, leaving her to savor the ache he’d started, an awareness that echoed down to her toes.
Dale understood pleasure. He understood how to make a woman respond to his touch, and he handled that knowledge with as much skill and experience as he’d ever demonstrated at work.
On the job he’d known how to interpret her architectural needs. He’d taken her vision to create the Wedding Wing. In this honeymoon suite, he understood her desires and how to fulfill them. He took her unspoken fantasies and made them reality.
She thought about making a few demands of her own. She wanted to kiss his mouth, wanted to wrap herself around him and learn the feel of all his hard places. She wanted to taste him and tempt him the way he tasted and tempted her, so much.
She wanted to prove that even though she didn’t normally indulge in flings, she would play by the rules. Bad was an attitude, after all, and she could wield attitude if it meant this man pleasuring her. And getting a chance to pleasure him.
But even through the haze of steamy sensation that made her melt against him, Laura recognized that she’d both offended and challenged Dale with her frankness about his personal life. She hadn’t intended to, but explaining herself had brought his actions and her opinion up for discussion.
Dale Emerson might be a lot of things—a brilliant architect and construction manager, an oh-so charming man—but first and foremost he was male. He wanted to prove himself.
Right now she would let him. She’d told him she could handle a fling, and she would have plenty of time during the upcoming weeks to back up her statement with proof. At the moment, Dale wanted the upper hand so she gave up all thoughts of demands and let him do what he did best—be bad.
Raising her arms, she stretched until she could slip her hands around his neck and contented herself with fingering the silky hairs at his nape. He raked a hungry gaze over her reflection and dragged his strong hands over her, solid, persuasive strokes that skidded along her skin, made her imagine what it would feel like to press her body full against him.
Running his palms over her hose-clad backside, he massaged her cheeks, rounded her hips, then drove his fingers between her thighs with an intimacy that made her gasp. He anchored her close, riding that rock-hard erection against her, and his expression sharpened into a look of white-hot need.
“I want you,” he said.
“You said we have time,” she reminded him in a stranger’s voice.
His eyes closed. He exhaled a sound that wasn’t quite a groan, a sound so needy Laura knew instinctively that her effect on him rivaled his on her. And knowing she was the object of this man’s desire blindsided her with its potency, a physical reaction that made her tingle with arousal.
“We do.” He exhaled those words on a kiss. “If we move fast. But I’ve waited so long to make love to you that I won’t be rushed.” He brushed another kiss along her temple. “Do you know I’ve never seen your hair down? Will you take out your braid for me later? I want to see you wearing nothing but hair.”
Even such a simple request meant he’d been thinking about her, perhaps even fantasizing, and she found the thought exciting. “It’ll be my pleasure.”
His eyes fluttered open again, and he speared her on a heated gaze. “Mine, too. And speaking of pleasure…” His voice trailed off as he slipped his fingers into the waistband of her hose and dragged them down.
She suddenly stood there with her arms wrapped around his neck, her breasts thrust outward and her sex exposed, looking decadently bare with the hose tangled around her thighs.
His low growl rumbled near her ear, and he ground that hot erection against her for good measure. But before she had a chance to ride his length and share some of her excitement, he stepped away. The air suddenly caressed her bottom, punctuating the distance he put between them.
“I’m going to bring you pleasure, Laura.” His husky-voiced declaration filtered through her, almost as potent as the hands he grazed along her bare skin.
Threading one hand between her thighs, he zeroed right in on the knot of nerve endings there. Coaxing the tiny bundle from its hiding place, he expertly rolled his fingers, sending a jolt through her.
Their gazes locked in the mirror. The intensity on his handsome face, those thick lashes hooding smoky eyes, promised her more pleasure than she’d ever imagined, promised that he would enjoy making her come apart at his command.
Forcing her to part her thighs, he explored her at his leisure. With sleek curls of his fingers, he spread moist arousal along her most intimate places, and Laura arched back against him, surrendering to the heat, letting him have all the control, payback for having resisted him for so long.
And he welcomed her payment, taking liberties that seemed astonishingly brazen for two people who’d only just decided to get intimate. But obviously Dale felt as if two years of unrequited attraction entitled him to privileges.
He thrust those fingers silkily in, and her body grew slick beneath his skilled touch. The mirror displayed every nuance of her expression, the way he worked her in long pleasured strokes, the way she swayed sinuously to feed this awakening need within.
“I want to watch you come,” he whispered. “Let go.”
Let go? She barely hung on. She rode his hand with an urgency she’d never known before, didn’t want to control, a need that tossed her normally sound reason to the winds to keep up this steady rocking motion… A motion that created friction exactly where she needed it.
Dale promised to bring her pleasure and he did. Tension mounted, a coiling pressure that wound its way through her, and took over until she recognized the look of casual determination on his face. He hadn’t been joking. He wouldn’t stop until he made her come. Right here. Right now.
While he watched.
And when he hauled her back against him to find a deeper position, she did let go. She couldn’t keep her eyes open anymore, wasn’t sure she even wanted to as her body moved decadently in time with his strokes. Let him enjoy the show because once he used the heel of his palm to knead her orgasm into breaking, she couldn’t worry about anything but the way her body had started to vibrate….
When Laura came, it was an expansive, glorious sensation that rolled through her body, as if two years of longing had crested and finally broke. Two years of fantasies that had grown into almost an obsession. A climax that shocked her with its intensity, left her panting as she leaned against him to support herself because her legs wouldn’t do the job.
She wasn’t sure how long it was until she could force her eyes open, but when she did, she almost wished she hadn’t. Dale still watched her with that hungry