“I want this,” he said, his voice deliciously husky. “I’d like to promise you it’s a good idea, but I can’t do that. I can’t say anything about tomorrow or what’s going to happen to me when you get on that plane, but I do know that in this moment, you’re a gift. And I don’t want to watch you fly away from me without having this memory. Assuming I don’t embarrass myself or send you screaming into the night, that is.”
“I think you can count on me screaming,” she said, then laughed at the face he made. “And I think you can rest assured that when that plane is taking off, for the first time in my life, I’ll be thinking about what I left behind.” She hesitated. “You know it’s just a night, right?”
He grinned. “You do know it’s an entire night?”
At which point she was ruined. Fully clothed and wrecked. Or so she thought, until the next sweet, tender kiss deepened, and she couldn’t be sure if it was Ethan devouring her or her own pounding need. And even that didn’t compare to the slide of his hand along her side. Because then he wasn’t just kissing her, he was holding her.
Almost shyly, she touched his shoulders, marveling at their strength. He was so solid. Not a broken man, but a man wholly consumed. As her fingertips skimmed his muscle, he leaned to lightly kiss her hand.
And then he stopped.
“I am an idiot,” he said. “I can’t believe I didn’t think of this, but I don’t have any protection. I can run to the store.”
As if she’d let him get away. No chance of that—not when he had her spinning so hard she could only hold on for the ride. “No need. Check my purse.”
He gave her an odd look.
“It’s in the other room.”
He left, and when he came back he’d taken the concept of bedroom eyes to the next level. His gaze smoldered, setting fire to all those places she’d just laid into him about. And she didn’t figure there’d be any chance of putting them out tonight. If anything, they’d burn brighter and hotter and more out of control. She knew just from kissing him that he wasn’t the kind of man you could experience and forget.
He tossed a couple of packets on the bed. Then he straddled her and pulled her to a sitting position and stripped her of her shirt, then managed to unhook her bra on the first try.
“You’re good,” she whispered. Words she barely heard over the raging of her heart.
“No,” he said, kissing her. “Lucky. Damn lucky you locked your keys in your car.”
“That was a stroke of amazing luck, but I bet you’re just full of amazing strokes.” As she spoke, she unbuttoned his pants. Before she could get too involved, he eased out of her reach. But he didn’t go far. He leaned in from a new angle—one that kept her from his zipper—and gently kissed her breast, but not the part begging for him. Instead of giving her any of that sweet relief, his lips touched everywhere else. Driving her crazy. She abandoned her attempts to get to him in favor of threading her fingers through his hair, desperately trying to guide him to touch. Or better yet, suck. The thought of his mouth closing over her was almost enough to send her over the edge, and considering he was barely touching her, that would be a record first.
“Ethan, could you please—”
She lost her ability to speak when he blew on one nipple, simultaneously circling the other with a fingertip. “I’m beginning to think,” he said, his lips barely grazing her tight flesh while she squirmed, “that you might like it rough.”
Her semi-coherent thoughts didn’t manage to form words.
“Or maybe you just like it deep,” he said. “Solid. Full. Un. Mis. Take. Able.”
He punctuated each word by touching his lips to her poor, tortured breast. He didn’t take her in his mouth—no, that would be too merciful.
“I definitely like it deep,” she said. God, if she could only breathe. “And I like it hard. And I want it sweet. And I want it rough. I want to know every side of you, so—”
He sucked her into his mouth then, and the pleasure was so blisteringly harsh that it was almost pain. The only thing she managed was to hold on to him while his tongue laid claim to the best sex she’d ever had.