“I’m sorry. I have to know.”
Paul put his hand on her shoulder and stopped her in her tracks. His palm was warm, even through the fabric of her shirt. Her head spun for a moment, and his touch brought about the strangest feeling of déjà vu. Maybe she’d met him somewhere before? She didn’t think so, considering the fact that she was pretty sure she’d remember a man like him—an alarming mixture of masculine appeal and confidence with the competence to back it up. Not to mention the whole part where he carried a sword.
She turned to look at him, hoping that would help her remember who he was. He was staring down at his hand with an odd jumble of hope and confusion flashing in his brown eyes. After a second, he cleared his throat. “Did you feel anything?”
Oh, yeah, but she was going to play it cool. This stuff was all too weird for her. “Like what?”
He shrugged, distracting her for a second with the impressive width of his shoulders. “I’m not sure. Maybe it only works if I touch bare skin.”
Andra had heard a lot of lines designed to get her naked before, but this one was by far the strangest. “What only works if you touch bare skin?”
He slid his hand down her arm until just the tips of his fingers contacted the skin below her sleeve. Heat seeped into her, along with something else. Something odd, like a jolt of static electricity, but one that didn’t hurt. In fact, it felt pretty good and was feeling better by the second.
Strength roared through her system, making the need for sleep vanish. Her body came alive, soaring with a heady rush of pleasure that made her sure she could float. Her fatigue drained away, leaving behind a faint, humming energy in its wake.
She looked up at Paul, shocked at what he was doing to her, but the sudden motion made her dizzy and she lost her balance and instinctively grabbed him to steady herself.
He pulled her close, and she went without a fight, unable to do anything else in the midst of her vertigo.
“Easy, now,” he said in a low voice. “I’ve got you.”
As his words slid inside her, Andra’s world ground to a halt. Her nose was pressed against his throat and she could smell the heat of his skin, see the throbbing of his pulse along the thick column of his neck. A pale, luminescent band shimmered only inches from her eyes, and she had the irresistible urge to reach out and pull it from him. She wanted it. Needed it. That choker was hers and always had been.
He was hers. All of him. From the bottom of his wide, booted feet to the top of his mussed hair and all of the lovely, hard places in between.
She breathed in deeply, pulling in his scent. A low hum of arousal swirled inside her, pushing away the grating fatigue that had ruled her only moments before. She still wanted to get into bed, but not for sleep. She wanted Paul there with her, naked and laid out for her pleasure. She was going to take her time getting to know what he liked. Lots and lots of time.
But the bed was too far away for her to wait. She needed to touch him. Taste him. Her hands went to the hem of his knit shirt and snaked beneath it. Warm, firm skin tempted her fingers to explore him further, while she pressed her open mouth against the side of his neck.
She heard him make an incoherent sound of surprise, but he didn’t seem to mind what she was doing. In fact, he tilted his head to one side to give her room to slide her tongue over his salty skin.
“What the hell is happening?” he said in a rough voice.
“If you don’t know, I’m going to have a heck of a good time showing you.”
This was madness, but she couldn’t seem to stop herself, nor did she care that she couldn’t. She shoved his shirt off over his head to get to more skin, needing to feel more of him beneath her hands. He was heavily inked, sporting a large tattoo of some kind of tree that stretched from his shoulder and upper arm all the way down below his belt. She was dying to see just how far down it went.
The limbs of his tattoo were highly detailed, mostly bare except for one single leaf, and she was pretty sure it was some kind of metaphor for life or some crap like that. Not that she cared. He could be as philosophical as he wanted as long as he did it naked.
She ran one finger along a branch, down the trunk of the tree to where it hit the low-slung waist of his jeans. His abs clenched as if he’d been hit, making ridges of muscle stand out for her enjoyment.
Paul shuddered at her touch, but when she moved to pop the button on his fly, he grabbed her hands and held them locked inside a strong grip.
“We should stop,” he told her.
She looked into his eyes, which were dark with need—all those golden slivers were gone now, eaten up by his pupils. His cheeks were flushed and a fine sweat had beaded up along his hairline. “Don’t you want me?” she asked.
“God, yes. Can’t you feel me shaking?”
She could, and it made her smile with a sense of victory. “My bedroom is right through that door.”
Paul groaned and closed his eyes. “This isn’t you, though I wish like hell it were.”
“What isn’t me?”
“This . . . thing we’re feeling.”
He was right. She didn’t normally undress strangers who broke into her house. Something was off here.
Andra shook her head, trying to clear it or make some sense out of the jumble of thoughts and feelings going through her brain.
While she was distracted, Paul let go of her and stepped back. His posture said he thought she might hit him or something, because he was all tensed up like he was expecting to take a punch.
She didn’t hit him, of course, but the need to get him naked was also fading. He was still hot, especially with all those muscles in his chest and abs on display, but at least now she could keep her tongue to herself.