In a hushed and raspy voice, he surrendered. “I dreamed about watching you unbutton your blouse for me.”
He watched her face, watched the hesitant longing darken her eyes… then held his breath when she lifted her hands and with trembling fingers, started undoing the buttons.
He should stop her. He knew he should stop her. But he was only so strong. And he’d been fighting the good fight where this woman was concerned for what seemed like a millennium.
Her head was down when she reached the last button… so were the last of his defenses. She slowly lifted her gaze to his. “What else did you dream, Ry?”
Her voice was as hushed as a sigh, but there was a boldness in her eyes that promised him everything… if only he’d ask.
And there was another problem.
Asking was beyond him now, too.
“Take it off,” he ordered on a harsh whisper.
Seven
She’d been wrong about so many things lately, Carrie thought as she sat on the lap of the man she had loved for so long. She’d been wrong about Nathan Beldon. She’d been wrong about her feelings for him. She’d never come close to loving him. Never come close to this breathless anticipation she felt as Ry’s chocolate-brown eyes fired beyond warm to barely banked desire.
And she’d been wrong, she realized with a victorious sense of wonder, about the effect she had on him.
He wanted her.
He was dying to have her.
And she’d never been so glad to be wrong about anything in her life.
Riding on a surge of power the knowledge fostered, her gaze locked on his face as he watched her peel back the sides of her blouse then slowly shrug it off her shoulders.
Beneath the red silk she wore a black satin demibra edged in delicate lace. Her breasts spilled over the top of the cups with every deep breath she drew. Just below her left breast, she could feel the elevated beat of her heart. She wondered if he could see it hammering there. Wondered if he knew what his thrilling order had done to her.
His throat worked hard as his gaze shifted from her face then back to her breasts again. “Now the bra.”
The dark intensity of his command sent a shiver of anticipation eddying through her body, heating her blood, but not once did she consider denying him. She reached behind her back for the clasp, unintentionally arching and thrusting her breasts toward him.
He sucked in a slow breath, and she felt his hands on her hips, felt his fingers digging into her flesh…as if he was fighting to anchor his hands there when he wanted them somewhere else.
She felt shy suddenly as the clasp gave and she slowly lowered the bra away from her body. Shy and brazen and…oh, my…beautiful as she read the heated reaction in his eyes.
It was so much suddenly…so much sensation, so much sensitivity. She couldn’t filter it all. Her skin felt flushed and on fire beneath his adoring gaze. Her nipples tightened painfully.
Too fast, she thought as sensations assaulted her with the speed and strength of a lightning strike. And too late to do anything but hang on for the ride, she realized as he stole her ability to breathe, let alone think, when he lifted her until she straddled his lap.
Her hands involuntarily clutched the hot, bare breadth of this shoulders. Her knees dug into the sofa on either side of his hips. The most feminine part of her pressed against the very solid evidence of his desire. Her bare breasts were on a level with his mouth…she could feel the warmth of his breath pulse in an irregular rhythm against her.
And it made her ache.
It made her burn.
Endlessly.
So did his hands, as he slid them up her ribs to cup and adore and stroke her swollen nipples with a caress so tender, yet so needy, a soft plea escaped her parted lips.
“Please,” she heard herself whisper just as he bent his head and surrounded her with the hot, wet pleasure that was his mouth.
The first touch of his tongue stole her breath. The gentle suction of his lips made her moan. And the sight of his dark head bent to her breast in the moonlight made every part of her that was woman appreciate the elemental and incredible mystery that was man.
Oh. Oh how she’d wondered. How she’d yearned and ached with the need to know, firsthand, what it felt like to have a man’s mouth touch her there…how she’d imagined what it felt like when her nipple changed from velvet soft to diamond hard. And always it had been Ry’s mouth she’d fantasized about. Ry’s dark hair shifting between her fingers as she held him to her breast, let him suckle and feast and feed on the insatiable hunger he seemed to have for the taste of her.
It was so good. So incredibly good to hear his gruff sounds of pleasure, to watch his mouth open wide and take her in as he went wild for her…so wild his fingers bit into her hips and he pulled her closer, needing more of her.
“You…make…me…crazy.” His voice was a low growl against the inside of one breast as he kissed and licked his way to the other. “You…taste…like…heaven,” he murmured and bit her lightly before licking away the sting then rimming her areola with his tongue.
It all became a lovely, thrilling, and wondrous blur after that. She was aware only of sensations, was steeped in them, lost in him…in the feel of his mouth touching her everywhere, coasting from breast to breast, racing along the line of her throat, tracking kisses across her jaw, then moving to her mouth to kiss her deeply and sweetly. All the while his big, working man’s hands moved gently over her body, unzipping her slacks, sliding them and her panties down her hips.
“Beautiful,” he murmured as he laid her back on the sofa and settled his long length beside her. His fingers brushed lightly over her curls, stirring lush longings, awakening carnal cravings she’d never known were a part of her. More than a part of her. They were driving her now. She couldn’t help herself…she arched into his touch not knowing what she was asking for…only knowing that she needed.
He knew. He knew exactly what she needed, she realized as he deftly found the center of her, delved deeply with his fingers and made them both moan. She was wet and swollen and the way he touched her…with reverence and desire and such gentle skill…had his name breaking from her lips on a sob.
It was everything she’d ever imagined, things she’d never dreamed, when he finally rose above her, guided himself to her opening and slowly pushed inside her. The pain was sharp, brief, then gone as he filled her where she hadn’t before realized she felt so empty.
In that one amazing moment, she knew she was everything to him and that knowledge almost…almost…transcended the exquisite pleasure of his slow and luxurious glide in and out of her body.
Nothing had ever felt so right. Nothing had ever felt so good. With instincts as old as time, as natural as the moonlight spilling through the windows, she wrapped her ankles around his hips and rode with him toward everything wonderful in the night. A building urgency boiled up inside her, then raced on a deliciously sharp edge of heightening sensation.
He’d led her sweetly to this moment, led her expertly and unerringly toward release. Yet when the climax ripped through her, she was unprepared. Like the tributaries of a flood-swollen river that gathered at one predestined point to spill into the sea, a thousand little pleasures peaked and swelled then met with the force of a storm at the spot where their bodies joined.
“R-R-Ryannnn.” His name eddied out on a stunned and amazed rush. She clung to him for dear life while her world exploded on a maelstrom of bliss she’d never known, never dreamed existed.
Ry had lost all power of reason the moment she’d brazenly reached behind her back, unclasped her bra and her breasts had spilled from black silk into