‘This much?’
Reaching out, she slid one finger down the front of his trousers, to the part of him that fascinated her most, revelling as the sound seemed to hiss out of Hayden.
He was hard. So hard she felt a resounding throb between her legs.
She was the one who had got him that way.
‘Birdie.’ He circled her wrist with his fingers. Not painfully but firmly. ‘All these years you’ve waited. To give that gift to me...be certain that it’s what you want.’
‘I’m standing here in front of you, for all intents and purposes naked,’ she choked out. ‘How much more certain can I be, Hayd?’
She had no idea if it was the words or saying his name, but he gave in to her with a groan, snaking his hand around her neck and hauling her to him, crushing his mouth to hers and setting her alight like he’d dropped a match into a tank of petrol.
Bridget went up in flames.
He tasted her, sampled her, possessed her. And all she could do was cling to him and let him sweep her along on the ride, opening her mouth to him and feeling his tongue raking against hers just as it had the other night.
Just as she’d dreamt about every night since.
He angled his head, deepening the kiss and taking her mouth over and over again. Almost as if he’d forgotten that she was practically naked in his arms.
She didn’t know whether to think that was a good thing or a bad thing. Then again, she didn’t know that she could think very much at all, especially when his mouth slid so slickly across hers, his teeth stopping every now and then to draw one of her lips between his.
And then, suddenly, he let his hands drop. Skimming down her body, tracing her shape, testing her, as if trying to memorise every curve and every contour. Her skin leapt under his touch, sizzling and scorching, making her want to press her body as close to his as she possibly could. It still wasn’t enough.
Pulling her arms around, Bridget sought out his shirt, fumbling with the hem until he stilled her, and she could feel his lips curving against hers.
‘There’s no rush.’
‘I want to feel you,’ she managed. ‘Against me.’
‘I am against you.’
They both knew he was teasing her. Testing her.
‘Naked,’ she clarified boldly.
‘Ah.’ Taking the T-shirt in his hands, he swep
t it over his head and launched it somewhere across the room. ‘Why didn’t you just say so?’
But Bridget didn’t answer. She couldn’t. All she wanted to do was feast her eyes on Hayden’s chest with its defined muscles and never-ending ridges. Like nothing she’d ever seen before.
Slowly, almost reverently, she ran her hands over him. Fingertips first then palms. Up and round his chest, his shoulders, those arms. If she’d had the courage, she could have followed it up using her mouth, but she still wasn’t sure enough of herself. Or of her effect on Hayden.
Though that was becoming clearer.
And then, before she could think what else to do, he dipped his head down to her neck and planted a host of devastating kisses in the sensitive hollow between her neck and her shoulder.
Bridget was helpless to resist. Letting her head fall back, she arched against him, and as she did so her nipples, already tight and aching, brushed against the fine hairs on his chest, making her gasp aloud. Her hands were pressed against his shoulder blades, her fingers biting into his skin.
‘Hayd...’ she muttered, wanting more. Needing more.
As if he could read her mind, he dropped his head lower, trailing kisses down over the swell of her chest and straight to one aching, straining nipple. And he sucked it straight into his mouth.
Everything began to spin. She felt desperate and wild, feverish all over. All she could do was try to hold onto the edge of her sanity as she finally began to regain some kind of footing.
And then he scooped her up and carried her across the room to the big bed, laying her down until she was sprawled in front of him for his eyes to feast on, before he groaned and removed the rest of his clothing with shocking efficiency.