Using Lissa’s key, Shane let them into Willow Lodge, then closing and locking the door behind them, took her into his arms. He nibbled kisses from her neck up to her delicate earlobe.
“I’ve been wanting to have you all to myself all evening.” Used to being alone with her, he’d had the devil of a time keeping his hands to himself.
“The dinner party did seem to drag on, didn’t it?” She put her arms around his waist and snuggled close. “Thank you, Shane.”
He leaned back to gaze down at her. “For what?”
“For taking charge tonight when we told my family about us.” She kissed his chin. “I wasn’t quite sure how to go about it.”
“I never said I hadn’t rehearsed a few dozen different speeches before I settled on one.” He grinned. “When you’re in a room full of men who just might take your head off and shout down your neck because you got their little sister pregnant, it inspires you to think things through.”
“You did just fine,” she said, unknotting his necktie. He loved the feel of her fingers brushing his throat as she removed the silk tie.
Placing his hands on her shoulders, he turned her around. “As good as you look in this dress, I think you’ll look much better out of it.”
Slowly sliding the zipper down from her neck to her lower back, he sucked in a sharp breath. “Good thing I didn’t know earlier that you weren’t wearing a bra,” he said, kissing the back of her neck. “I’d have never made it through the evening.”
When he started to slide the black dress from her shoulders, she caught the front to her and shaking her head, stepped away from him. “Why don’t you build a fire in the fireplace while I change?”
As she walked from the room, Shane blew out a frustrated breath and slipping off his suit coat, unbuttoned and rolled up the sleeves of his dress shirt. Building a fire hadn’t been high on the list of things he’d had planned for the evening. In fact, it hadn’t been anywhere on it. But it was something Lissa wanted, and he was finding more and more that he was willing to do whatever it took to make her happy and see her pretty smile.
A nice fire had just started crackling in the stone fireplace when the lights in the great room went out. A moment later, Lissa walked up and knelt down beside him in front of the hearth.
“I thought these might be nice to snuggle up with,” she said, setting a stack of pillows and a couple of fluffy blankets on the floor beside him.
Glancing over at her, he did a double take. She was wearing the sexiest black satin robe he had ever seen. One side of the slinky little number had slipped down over her bare shoulder and he knew as surely as he knew his own name, she didn’t have a stitch of clothes on beneath it.
“Do you want me to make some hot cocoa?” she asked before he could find his voice.
Shane swallowed hard and shook his head. The shimmering light cast by the fire seemed to bathe her in gold, and he knew for certain he had never seen her look more beautiful.
“The only thing I want is right here beside me,” he said, pulling her to him. He brushed his mouth over hers. “Do you have any idea how sexy and desirable you are?”
“I haven’t really thought about it,” she said, toying with the top button of his shirt. “I’ve been too busy thinking about how much I think you deserve a good, relaxing massage.”
His mouth went as dry as a desert in a drought. What man in his right mind would turn down having a beautiful woman run her hands over every inch of his body?
Without a word he stood up, and while she arranged the blankets and pillows on the hardwood floor in front of the fireplace, he made short work of taking off his clothes. It was only after he lay facedown on the soft blankets that she slipped the robe off. Dropping it beside him, she picked up a bottle of oil that he hadn’t noticed before. He felt her pour several drops of the warm liquid onto the middle of his back.
At the first touch of Lissa’s palms on his bare skin, Shane felt as if he had died and gone to heaven. Her gentle, soothing touch was driving him crazy and his reaction was not only completely predictable, it was immediate.
By the time she worked her way down the back of his thighs and calves, then told him to turn over, he felt as if the temperature in the room had gone up several degrees. Never in his entire life had he experienced anything as exciting and arousing as having Lissa’s hands gliding over his body.
Their eyes met and, holding his gaze with hers, she drizzled a small amount of the oil onto the middle of his abdomen. As she caressed his shoulders and pectoral muscles, Shane ached with the need to hold her, to touch and excite her as she was doing to him.