Love by Association

But more than hearing himself making a statement he’d never come close to making before—the whole exclusive thing—Colin’s tension while he awaited her response took him most by surprise.

Those full, moist lips tilted in a tiny bit of a smile. “I’d like that,” she said. But he hadn’t needed the words. Her look had told him what he’d been waiting to hear.

Lowering his lips to hers was the next natural course of events. Colin probably couldn’t have fought nature if he’d tried.

He didn’t try.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

YOU HAVE TO keep him interested. The thought scored across Chantel’s mind as Colin’s lips lowered toward hers. She wasn’t just letting him kiss her because she was hungry for the physical connection. She was serving those she was out to protect.

The action was justified.

It was the last coherent thought she could remember Harris having. His touch was not consuming. He didn’t take or demand. He just touched his lips to hers, almost tenderly.

Yet, to her battered senses, his kiss seemed to be saying hello. Not good-night.

She increased the pressure of her lips against his, opening her mouth. And when he responded, she found his tongue with hers. She was aggressive. Too aggressive.

His arms wrapped around her, pulling her up against his body so tightly she could feel the buttons of his coat pressing into her flesh. And the hard length of him against her pelvis.

She slid her hands up his chest and around his neck, never breaking contact with his lips, pulling his head more firmly against her. Running her fingers through the thick hair she’d been wanting to touch for more than a week.

Shoving his tongue deeper into her mouth, he groaned. She stumbled backward but didn’t fall. His arms held her up, and he moved until the backs of her knees were against the bed. His hand came around then, cupping her breast, and he broke their kiss to look her straight in the eye.

“I need you,” he said. “To see you naked, to touch every inch of you and come inside you.”

His words started an inferno raging through her. A sensation she didn’t recognize. Couldn’t control.

“Are you okay with that?” he asked while his thumb rubbed against her nipple, which had hardened beneath her dress and the thin piece of nylon bra.

Mesmerized—maybe as much by the intensity of his gaze as by the crazy way her body was reacting to his touch—she could only nod.

Pleasing him became paramount.

She’d never, ever even come close to feeling like he was making her feel. Like she was missing something elemental, something vital, something only he could give her. Getting it was the only thing that mattered.

She reached for the lapels of his jacket to hold herself upright. And then to shove them down over his shoulders. The heavy fabric dropped to the floor. She felt its weight on the top of one foot.

Adrenaline rushed through her, driving her to get what her body needed and to give him anything he wanted.

As she fumbled with his buttons, he unzipped her dress. Cool air met the heated flesh of her back, and she shivered.

His breath uneven, he slid the dress off her shoulders. Caressing her skin. And then stood there, watching, as slowly, she was able to get his buttons to give way. He wasn’t rushing her. Wasn’t letting impatience interfere.

He could have done it himself. But he didn’t. And her flame shot up another notch.

Shaking, she struggled to hold on. And to find a way to let go. Tears sprang to her eyes for no apparent reason.

He froze. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” she told him, working at the rest of those buttons.

“You’re crying.”

She shook her head and smiled. “I’m not a crier. Can’t remember the last time I cried. I just... This... You’re so... I don’t know.”

With a tender touch, he drew his fingers down her jaw from ear to chin. “I think I know,” he told her. “It’s the same for me.”

“You’re going to cry, too?” She chuckled, trying to find her center, to come back to a bit of herself. And freed the last of his buttons.

She was still shaking. But there was no stopping this...this...power that had a hold of her.

Colin set the pace. A slow, adoring, absorbing pace. Time passed, but she had no idea how little. Or how much. Noises sounded—the room’s heat coming on, her breathing. His. The whisper of clothing leaving skin. Little sounds that weaved in and out of the sensations bombarding her. The taste of wine on his tongue as he kissed her again. The musky scent of his cologne mixing with sex.

It overwhelmed her. Deliciously.

With her still standing on the floor at the end of the mattress, he laid down before her. Completely naked. Open to her perusal. And peruse she did. From the smattering of dark hair across his chest, the small line of it drawn down his stomach, to the darker curls at the bed of his penis.