She closed her eyes. “I might have made an error in judgment on that one.”
“Live with it.”
She sucked in a breath as he moved to her other breast and lavished the same treatment on it. There had been times in her life when being with a man had made her feel shame. But nothing about Gabe’s touch made her feel that way. His hands and mouth on her skin savored her—treasured her—as if she were one of his fine wines. She closed her eyes and savored him. His touch. She was stone-cold sober, had only had that half a glass of The Devil’s Peak during the toast. And yet she felt as if she’d consumed way beyond her limit.
He took her other nipple into the heat of his mouth. This time he stayed longer, made her ache for him inside. “Gabe—” she gasped, digging her fingers into the fine material of his shirt.
“Rilassarsi,” he murmured, sliding his hand over her hip and down to where her dress bunched under her knees. Every centimeter of her skin glowed with scorching awareness as he slid his fingers under the edge of the silk and brought the dress up to her thighs in a slow, deliberate movement that made her body clench. “What did you think of my foreplay last night?”
She closed her eyes as he traced the edge of her panties with his fingertips. “Mean. It was just mean.”
“That wasn’t mean,” he countered huskily. “This,” he suggested, moving his thumb to the center of her, “is mean.”
Alex burrowed her head in his shoulder and caught her lip between her teeth. He rotated his thumb against her in a firm, insistent movement that set her blood on fire. She moved her hips against his hand, seeking more, needing more. “Please.”
“What?” he murmured huskily. “Tell me what you want, Lex.”
“Your hands on me.”
“But they are.”
She muttered something low under her breath and he laughed softly, sliding her panties aside. “Oh, you mean like this, cara.” He set his thumb to her bare flesh. She was wet and slick beneath him. His quick intake of breath told her he’d noticed. His low growl told her he approved.
She thought she might die as he feathered his thumb across the taut nub of her. Began a maddening rhythm destined to drive her crazy. “More,” she demanded.
He slid the tip of his thumb inside her. Held her there. Alex groaned. “Please.”
“Because you asked so nicely...” He eased a long, elegant finger inside of her. Moved his thumb back to her center. “By the way, Elena keeps her window open.”
“What?”
He brought his mouth to her ear. “Don’t worry. If you scream, I’ll shut you up.”
Hot, he was so hot when he talked like that. She squeezed her eyes shut as he eased his finger in and out of her, kept his thumb on her center in that maddening pressure. She shifted her legs further apart, beyond caring about Elena or anything else. He slid a second finger inside her, stretching her, filling her, building her pleasure to an almost unbearable level. “Like that, angel?”
“Yes.” Her body was so tight she felt as if she was going to explode. “Gabe, please I need to—”
“Come?” He dug her face out from his shoulder and tipped her chin up. “You know what I was thinking about last night in the hot tub?”
She gave him a tortured look.
“What you’d sound like when you came apart under my hands.”
Her lashes came down over her eyes. His thumb worked the throbbing center of her pleasure; his fingers plunged deep, touching her in a spot that pushed her close to the edge. “God,” she murmured. “Please.”
He covered her mouth with his. Slid his tongue against hers in the same erotic rhythm as his fingers were sinking into her. She let herself drown in the heat of it, let him take her over the edge with a series of ruthless plunges that made her scream. Then moan his name into his mouth as he drew out her orgasm to impossible heights. To a hot, shimmering pleasure that radiated out from her core and seemed never ending.
“I knew you would be like that,” he murmured, pulling his mouth from hers when she’d finally quieted.
“Like what?”
“All in.” He lifted his fingers to trace her trembling mouth. Eased his thumb inside. The taste of herself on him made her insides pull tight. Her gaze rocketed to his. “There are so many places I want my mouth to be,” he murmured.
Oh. My. God.
“We’re taking this upstairs.”
He scooped her up and carried her inside, using his foot to shut the door. She was hopelessly glad for the efficient mode of transportation, because she was sorely worried her legs weren’t working at all. Through the dark, quiet house they went, up the stairs to Gabe’s airy, masculine master bedroom at the end of the hall.
It was dark in the suite, moonlight flooding in through the windows. Gabe set her down by the big, four-poster bed and flicked on a lamp. Her legs supported her, but just barely, weak at the knees as she drank in the raw, masculine power of him—broad shoulders, muscular tanned forearms where he’d rolled his sleeves up, trim waist and powerful thighs encased in dark trousers that hugged every delectable inch of him. Her gaze shifted up to his face. There was an indomitable strength about him that underlay it all that had nothing to do with finely honed muscle. It radiated from him, a force that drew her in. As if anyone and anything he touched was protected by association. Her lashes lowered. A woman could want that. A woman could find that intoxicating if she let herself believe she could have it.
He took her jaw in his fingers. “What?”
She shook her head, disabusing herself of that silly notion. One night, Alex. Savor it for what it is. Nothing is forever. Hadn’t she learned that from the past?
She set her fingers to the top button of his shirt. “You have too many clothes on.”
“Liar,” he said softly. “What were you thinking about?”
“That.” She slipped the first button from its hole and started on the second. Wondered why taking a man’s shirt off seemed like the most intimate activity of all. He let her take control. She finished the buttons, slipped the smooth material off his shoulders and pushed it to the floor. Her stomach tightened at the beauty of him. His torso was a work of art—bronzed by long hours in the sun, with a set of abs that made the drool pool in her mouth. She put her lips to all that smooth, delicious muscle, trailing her tongue across his nipples in a game of fair turnabout. His indrawn breath made her smile. “One of your erogenous zones?”
“I have many.”
She took hold of his belt and slipped the leather from its loop. Yanked on the buckle so it worked free. Her fingers brushed against the aroused length of him as she pulled down the zipper and everything inside her went tight. He felt big and hard and the magnitude of what she was about to do slammed into her with the force of hurricane winds.
Focus, she told herself. She slid the pants down his long legs and he obliged her by stepping out of them. The beauty of him wrapped itself around her, stealing her breath. His calves and thighs were lean, perfectly hewn muscle. Her gaze slid upward. And as for his...gear, enclosed in tight white boxers that showcased it to perfection, she’d been right. She most definitely wasn’t going to be disappointed.
He curved a hand around her waist and pulled her to him. Laid a kiss on her that turned every bone in her body to mush. Lord, this man could kiss.
“That’s your secret weapon, isn’t it?” she murmured when he dragged his mouth from hers and turned her around.
“What?” She heard the rasp of her zipper.
“The kisses.”
The dress hit the floor in a whisper of silk. “You like them?” he asked, pressing one against her shoulder blade.
She arched into his mouth. “I like them.”
He worked his way down her back, paying homage to every inch of her skin. Alex had never thought of her back as a particularly sensual thing, but the way he worshipped her, she couldn’t imagine anything hotter. He went for her shoes next. He was good with feet, she remembered, and he didn’t let her down, sliding her foot out of the first and pressing a kiss to the arch. Oh. She lifted her other foot to let him take that shoe off, too.
He stood. She pushed a hand against his chest and sent him back into the bed, his knees hitting the edge. She pushed again and he sat down. The expression on his face as he took her in, clad only in tiny panties, made her light-headed.
“You are every man’s fantasy, Alexandra Anderson.”
Her chest tightened with an emotion she didn’t want to identify. “Fantasies aren’t reality.”
He reached for her, lifted her up and wrapped her legs around him. “This one is,” he murmured softly, teasing the corner of her mouth with his lips. “No place to hide here, Lex. Only the truth.”
No need to tell him she never told anyone the complete truth. Not about herself. This was just sex. But then he brushed his mouth over hers in another of those soul-baring kisses and suddenly this didn’t seem like sex at all. It felt like the plundering of her psyche.
It would have been easy to reach for terror. She reached for him instead. Wrapped her legs tighter around his hips and met him kiss for kiss until they were both breathing hard and she could feel his thick, hard length pulsing insistently against her.