“Me neither.”
He didn’t reply. His mouth was too busy tantalizing her collarbone. She didn’t mind. In fact, she threw her head back to give him better access. “I like that.”
“You don’t taste like bleach. You taste so damn sweet. Just like I fantasized.”
“You fantasized about me?”
He licked the column of her neck and she shivered. “Yeah.”
Remembering what he had said when he’d first got there, she asked, “Was I naked in these fantasies?”
“Yes. I never forgot the sight of you without your top that one time we went crazy together in the barn.”
That was nice. She melted back into his embrace, eager for another of his searing kisses.
Talking about it was making Grant desperate to feel her naked flesh. Flowers weren’t the only things he’d bought at the grocery store. He leaned forward and scooped her up in his arms.
She gasped. “What are you doing?”
“Taking you to bed.” He leaned down to kiss her again. She averted her face, so he concentrated on her neck while making his way to her bedroom. He walked in and dropped her on the bed. He started stripping out of his clothes.
She began to unbutton her blouse, and he stopped moving just to watch her.
She stilled. “You’re watching me.”
“I want to see you. All of you.” With a body as beautiful as hers, she should expect it—or had she always made love in the dark?
Her cheeks turned a very pretty shade of pink. “I want to see you too, but there’s something I need to tell you.”
“What?”
“You know how tonight seems so much like four years ago?”
Except for the fact that tonight he was going to have Zoe, and four years ago he had only dreamed about it. “Yes.”
“Well, it’s a lot more like it than you might expect.”
“What do you mean?” If she didn’t get to the point soon, he wasn’t sure he’d have the patience to let her.
“I was prepared to give you my virginity that night, Grant.”
He realized that was why she had been so hurt. “I wish I had known, querida. I would have handled things differently.”
“That’s the point. I need you to know now.”
His breath stilled in his chest. “Are you saying you are still a virgin? None of the men you dated in college and since…?”
“No.”
His knees threatened to buckle. She’d never had another man. She belonged to him. Completely.
“I…” He didn’t know what to say. Emotion welled up, clogging his throat.
She finished unbuttoning her shirt. “Promise me something?”
“Anything.” He was so overwhelmed with his desire to touch her that nothing else registered.
She peeled out of her shirt and his fingers literally trembled with the need to touch the sweet flesh she’d exposed. She stopped with her hands on the front clasp of her bra. “Promise that you won’t regret this.”
Regret it? He wanted her more than anyone or anything he had ever desired in his life. “The only thing I regret is how long you’re taking to get out of your clothes.”
He loved the way her breath hitched at his words. “No more talk about spending time apart?”
He frowned. How could she even suggest such a thing? They were about to make love. Her for the first time. And he liked that more than he should. “You know I only said that because I was worried about your reputation. I wanted to protect you.”
She smiled. “We’ll have to discuss that tendency of yours sometime, but not right now.” She unclasped her bra.
He was out of his jeans in seconds.
He stopped his rush across the room when her wide brown eyes looked at his erection with a certain amount of trepidation. “It’s going to be okay, baby. I’ll be gentle.”
She swallowed, and then shifted her gaze to his eyes. “I know. I trust you.” She opened her arms to him.
He dived across the space that separated them, wanting to touch her, to taste the nipples that peaked at him like raspberries on top of two scoops of luscious, sweet, French vanilla ice cream.
She gasped when he landed on her with a thud. He smiled, feeling like a predator blessed with the sweetest prey ever sighted. “Sorry. Did I hurt you?”
“No.” She sounded breathless, but not nervous, and for that he was very, very grateful.
He shifted his weight to his forearms and started kissing her again. She hadn’t made it out of her jeans, and they rubbed against the bare skin of his thighs and his hardened male flesh, making him burn. He skimmed his hand down her shoulder, then over her chest, until he cupped the fullness of her breast against his palm. Its soft resiliency intoxicated him.