Matched to Her Rival

“Your turn,” she whispered.

Immediately he complied, whipping his shirt off as fast as humanly possible because there was no way he was letting fabric block his ability to drink in the sight of gorgeous, uncovered Elise.

“Look your fill,” he advised her. “Here in the light.”

Look her fill she did, hesitantly at first but then with a hungry boldness that somehow turned erotic instantly. As her gaze traveled over his bare torso, heat flushed across his skin and coalesced at the base of his spine. All the blood in his head rushed south, leaving him slightly dizzy and enormously turned on.

She was going to kill him.

“Get used to me without clothes,” he continued. “I’m about to be a whole lot more naked. I want you to see how much you affect me when I look at you. How much I want you, how gorgeous you are to me.”

No time like the present to shed his jeans. He stood and with the heat of the fire at his back and the heat of Elise at his front, he flipped the button. She watched, silently, her head tipped up and her lips parted, hands clasped in her lap tightly.

He should have opened with a striptease because she’d totally forgotten her own nakedness. Win-win.

Then he was fully undressed and she huffed out a strangled gasp. It was potent to render a woman with such a quick wit speechless.

“See this?” he pointed at the obvious erection straining toward her. “This is all you, honey. You’re not even touching me and I’m about to bust.”

He wasn’t kidding. Show and Tell was turning into his favorite foreplay game ever.

“What if I wanted to touch you?” she asked coyly. “Is that allowed?”

He strangled over a gasp of his own. “That’s more than allowed. In fact, it’s encouraged.”

Crawling to him, she wiggled out of the remainder of her clothes unprompted and knelt at his feet.

With incredible care, she ran her hands up his legs, fingering the muscles of his thighs, breezing by his erection. She grazed it and his eyelids fluttered with the answering spike of unadulterated pleasure.

She climbed to her feet to continue her exploration and he fought to stay still. Every nerve vibrated on full alert, poised to pounce at the first opportune moment.

“You still have gorgeous abs,” she murmured as her fingertips read the muscles of his torso like braille. “They feel like warm, velvet stone.”

“Looked me up on Google, did you?” He grinned, pleased for some ridiculous reason. Millions of people had seen those ads and he’d never given it a moment’s thought. But the idea of Elise taking secret pleasure in looking at pictures of him—it was hot. “Put your hands a little south of my abs and you’ll find something else that feels like velvet stone.”

There came the blush again and he should totally be chagrined that he’d provoked it on purpose. But he wasn’t.

Glancing at the real estate in question and back up again quickly, she gave a little sigh of appreciation that sang right through him. “I do that to you? Really?”

He groaned in disbelief and frustration. “You have been for weeks and weeks. Years. For an eternity. And now I’m moving on to the ‘show’ part of this demonstration.”

Catching her up in his arms, he fitted hungry lips to her mouth and let all the pent-up desire guide the kiss. Instantly, she melted against him and he took full advantage, winding his embrace tighter to fit her luscious little body against him.

She felt amazing, warm and soft, and he wanted to touch. So he did, running his hands down her back, along the sweet curve of her rear, and he nearly cried out when she responded in kind. Her hands were bold and a bit clumsy with eagerness and combined, it swirled into a vortex of need more powerful than any he’d ever felt before.

This was so far beyond simply taking pleasure and returning it, he couldn’t fathom it.

The urge to make this cataclysmic for her became more important than breathing.

He picked her up easily and laid her out on the couch where he could focus on loving every inch of her. Kneeling between her amazing legs, he inched over her until they were skin to skin, but his full weight rested on his elbows on either side of her.

“Talk to me,” he murmured as he nuzzled her neck.

“Talk to you about what?” she asked.

He lifted his head so he could speak to her directly.

“Tell me what you like, Elise.”

As passionate as she was about connection and relationships, she’d probably be incredibly responsive to anything he did, but he’d prefer to start out educated.