Something about the vulnerability and honesty in her bittersweet chocolate gaze convinced him she wasn’t playing games.
Nodding tersely, he put some distance between them. “Go, then.”
When she disappeared, he drew in oxygen with a sharp inhale. Was Cassidy Corelli some kind of scam artist? Would he awake to find his billfold missing? Or was she what she seemed...an artless, far-too-young-for-him ingenue with a propensity for flirtation?
He paced automatically, doing everything he could think of to get himself under control. The last woman he’d slept with had been an artist in Asheville. They’d met at the home of mutual friends and acted on a quiet attraction that proved to be physically satisfying. Despite having much in common, their relationship had ended after six months due to a lack of fire.
That wasn’t going to be a problem with Cassidy. Though this current encounter had all the earmarks of a one-night stand, what he felt at this pivotal moment was far more volatile than simple attraction. It wasn’t that he wanted Cass. He craved her...with an intensity that alarmed his well-ordered existence.
Thankfully, she was true to her word. She reappeared in a very short amount of time wearing the same robe she had modeled earlier. He cleared his throat. “All done?”
She nodded, staring at him.
“Give me three minutes,” he said. In the shower, he washed rapidly. The taut skin covering his erect sex was almost too sensitive to touch. Imagining Cassidy’s fingers on his body made him groan.
When he stepped out of the shower, he caught his reflection in the mirror. It gave him pause. His eyes glittered with feral hunger, and his cheekbones were slashed with hot color. Every vestige of civilized male had been stripped away. He shuddered, closing his eyes as he imagined the moment when his body would penetrate hers.
She was so alive. He wanted some of that warmth for himself. Whether he had isolated himself deliberately or whether it had been a quirk of his birth order, he found it difficult to let people get close. With Cassidy, it was the opposite. He wouldn’t be satisfied until they shared the same space, the same air, the same hushed anticipation.
His hair was still wet when he tucked a towel around his hips and returned to the living room. He found Cassidy sitting on the edge of a chair, feet planted flat on the floor, knees pressed together. She looked like a schoolgirl waiting for punishment to be doled out.
“Are you ready?”
She jerked when he spoke, as if she had been lost in thought. He saw her throat move as she swallowed. “Of course.” She stood up so fast she stumbled and had to catch herself on the arm of the chair.
If he could have reached out a hand, he would have, but he was afraid that if he touched her, he would take her right there on the carpet. Extending an arm in the direction of the bedroom, he gave her what he hoped was a reassuring smile. “After you, Cass.”
When she slid by him, careful not to touch, he caught a whiff of the shower gel he had rubbed over his own skin. The scent got in his head, imprinting her in his psyche.
Beside the king-size bed, she paused, her back to him. “Do you have condoms?”
“Of course.” Though he had forgotten to fetch them from his shaving kit in the bathroom. In moments he rectified that glaring omission. Tossing a handful of packets onto the small bedside table, he glanced at the clock. It would be dawn soon.
Placing a hand on her narrow shoulder, he turned her around. Without her outrageous heels, the top of her head barely reached his collarbone. Using one finger, he tipped up her chin so he could see her eyes. Though she was by no means a helpless woman, her small frame seemed delicate next to his.
The expression in her gaze was difficult to read. Despite the fact that her hands rested trustingly at his waist, he sensed defensiveness in her posture. Perhaps she, too, saw the disparity in their physical sizes and felt threatened.
“I would cut off my arm before I would hurt you,” he said. “I may be under the spell of a wicked arousal, but I’m not an animal. All you have to do is say stop...anytime. Do you believe me?”
She searched his face. “Yes,” she said. Only that one word, but it was enough.
She had tied the sash of the robe tightly at her waist. If the knot was supposed to slow him down, she didn’t know much about men. He dispatched it in seconds and slid the entire garment off her shoulders and down her arms. When it fell to her feet, he thought he heard her gasp. Or maybe it was him.
All night he’d been desperate to hold her...to take her...to make her his. Now that the time had come, he had to pause a moment to take it all in. “You’re beautiful,” he said. The compliment was trite and commonplace and totally inadequate to convey the truth.
A more feminine woman, he had yet to find. Her skin was golden, a light, warm color that conjured up Italian olive groves and barefoot maidens running laughingly from ardor-filled suitors. Her glossy hair, black as a raven’s wing, curled around his finger when he tested a strand.
He tried to fix his attention above her neck, but it was impossible not to notice the bounty below. Full, rounded breasts...curved hips...pert bottom. He scooped her into his arms, though the bed was no distance at all. It was a ploy to test the softness of her skin, to relish the naked magnificence that was Cassidy Corelli.
Her arms linked around his neck. “When do I get to undress you?”
“It’s only a towel. I’m pretty sure we can manage.”
“I notice it’s kind of poochy in front.”
Her mischievous teasing made him want to smile in the midst of his sexual frustration. “Are you calling me fat?” he asked, eyebrow raised.
“You don’t seem to be in other places,” she said. “But there’s definitely a bulge beneath that terry cloth.”
He flipped back the covers and dropped her on the bed. Her breasts jiggled nicely when she bounced. “Feel free to investigate.”
Sprawling beside her, he settled on his back. What he wanted was to pounce and take. But then again, anticipation was half of the pleasure. It took everything he had, even so, to feign relaxation.
Cassidy reared up on one elbow, fascination in her gaze as she looked him over. “I guess you work out.” When she placed a hand, palm flat, on his abs, he flinched. It was too much and not enough.
“I’m not much for gyms,” he said. “But where I live we spend a lot of time outdoors.” His skin was several shades darker than hers for that reason. Except for a pale strip around his hips, he was tanned all over. He and his brothers had ranged free as kids, playing wild in the woods until they’d heard the bell summoning them to dinner.
She traced a scar below his rib cage. “What’s this?”
“My brother Dylan shot me with a bow and arrow when we were in grade school.”
“That’s terrible,” she exclaimed.
When she ran a fingertip over the puckered, long-ago-healed wound, he squirmed. “He didn’t mean to. He was aiming for a squirrel. I ran into the line of fire at the wrong moment.” The words were guttural, barely audible. He had broken out in a cold sweat, every cell in his body leaning toward the moment when she would remove the towel that tented lewdly upward.
Finally, when he thought he couldn’t bear it a second longer, Cassidy curled her fingers beneath the edge of the damp towel and tugged. He lifted his hips. She finished the job.
“Holy crap.” Her eyes widened. “Do you have a license to carry that thing?”
His penis was neither abnormally large nor embarrassingly small. But Cass stared at it as if she had unearthed a rare and exotic treasure. Her rapt regard increased its length and girth another increment.
“Trust me, Cassidy. We’ll be a perfect