He could be gentle.
He took a slow, raspy breath and blew it back out again.
Yeah, he could be gentle.
Hell, he wanted to be gentle.
For Katie.
****
That first evening after a light meal, Katie sat on the couch under the crook of Zach’s arm while they watched a movie.
Or at least, she was supposed to be watching the movie, but she wasn’t. With the muted sound of the ocean’s waves beyond the house, and Zach’s fingers playing with her hair, a pleasant feeling of somnolence crept up on her and her eyes slid closed. A feeling of such intense pleasure rushed through her veins as she saw a picture well into the future.
She saw the two of them, just as they were now, but thirty years or so into the future. They were in this house, sitting on a couch much like this one, and they were tired after a long day of playing on the beach with little grandchildren who she couldn’t quite picture, but knew she had an intense love for.
Her grandchildren. Zach’s grandchildren.
Her eyes flew open and she swallowed deeply. She wanted those grandchildren. She wanted her own babies and then she hoped that someday, she’d get those grandchildren.
She sat up straight and in the darkness, lit only from the screen of the television screen, she turned and placed her hands on Zach’s cheeks.
He looked into her eyes and jerked to attention at once. “Are you okay?”
She nodded her head because her throat wouldn’t work quite yet.
“Are you sure?”
She nodded her head again and finally got past the frog in her throat. “I love you.”
His eyes flared with a look of relief and happiness that soothed her, and his fingers slid from her hair to her scalp with a move so firm that Katie felt the intense, masculine strength behind it. “I love you, too, baby. I have for a long time.”
As they studied each other, Katie was aware of her heart banging against her chest and his pulse racing under her hands. He attempted to smile at her, but she continued to focus on him, and his lips dropped and the smile dissolved completely.
Katie rose to her knees and straddled Zach’s torso carefully, her palms falling to his shoulders. She was aware that his breathing was growing ragged as his fingers clenched around her hips. She inhaled nervously. “Will you kiss me?”
His nostrils flared. “I’d love to kiss you.”
Katie closed her eyes but he didn’t kiss her, he stayed completely still until finally, he spoke. “I think we should establish a few parameters, first, okay?”
Her eyes opened. “Okay.”
A large hand slid up and tangled in her hair again. “We won’t make love tonight.”
Katie sucked in a quivering breath. “All right.”
“We can play this two ways, whichever way you want. And I’m not talking about just tonight, but about how you want it to be so you can feel safe. If you want, I won’t make a single move that you don’t ask for first. You can ask verbally or you can make the first physical moves, either by putting your hand somewhere, or by putting my hand where you want it.”
Katie listened and felt a hot rush of anticipation that stunned her.
“Or—” Zach began again and then stopped.
“Or what?”
“Or, we can play it the other way.”
She licked her dry lips. “What other way?”
His eyes ran over her cheeks and lips and down to her neck. He slid his fingers to the pulse in her throat and let them linger there. “Or you can just say no.”
Temptation gripped Katie. “How would that work?” She pretty much understood what he meant, but his words were seductive and Katie wanted him to keep talking to her in his deep, rumbling voice.
His hands continued to caress her softly but firmly. “It means that I do what I want to do. But the second you feel uncomfortable or hesitant, you call a halt by either saying, no or stop.”
Katie was beginning to feel lightheaded. “And… and you’ll stop?”
His hand left her neck and began blazing a gentle trail down her chest with the single, rough pad of one finger until it landed on the top swell of her breast. He cleared his throat and a tic began beating in his cheek. “Yeah.” His finger moved down a centimeter toward her nipple and his eyes lifted to hers. “Any time at all. You say stop, and I’ll stop.”
Katie’s ears began ringing, her pulse began racing as their eyes caught and held. His finger swirled around her nipple, causing it to pebble into a hard knot. Her legs began shaking and could barely hold her up. When his fingers found her nipple and began strumming her, her eyes closed and her forehead fell to his.
Their breathing grew more ragged, racing in and out of their lungs at a pace that was almost synchronized.
His fingers continued to pluck at her nipple. “Are you all right?”
Katie began nodding her head frantically and when she did, his hand left her breast and dropped to the juncture of her thighs where he palmed her in a firm grasp. She gasped and jumped and lifted her head from his and her eyes flew open. “Stop.”
His hand lifted away from her immediately. “Good girl,” he rumbled from the back of his throat.
“Was that a test?”
“Yeah.”
Katie shook her head. “I don’t understand. Did you not know if you could stop?”
Zach frowned. “My restraint isn’t what I was testing. I was just trying to prove that you can trust me.”
“I trust you.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
“So which way do you want this to go?”
Katie thought about her choices and knew immediately she didn’t want to be the one leading every physical encounter between them. “You’ll stop when I tell you to.”
A look of relief appeared in his eyes, only a second before he wrapped his hands around her face. “I’m going to hold you to that, baby.” His lips brushed across hers, once, twice, and then settled on her mouth.
Sweet sensation screamed through Katie’s veins as Zach plunged his tongue into her mouth. His fingers were wrapped around her cheekbones, and her hands fell to his shoulders for stability. As he swirled his tongue with hers, a ribbon of emotional need gripped Katie, her blood pounding through her veins.
Zach kissed her as if he were a dying man and she was his last meal, and in the hazy part of Katie’s mind, she knew she wasn’t scared. Sexual heat was what she was feeling, and as he lifted his mouth from hers and scattered kisses along her cheek and down her throat, she felt a heartrending tenderness for him.
Her love-starved body ached for his touch, and as he came back to her lips and began nipping them with his teeth, she was carried away by her own response.
A response that she was thrilled to the bone she was able to feel.
They kissed for many long minutes, her heart jolting and her pulse pounding. She began to experience an ache between her legs, an urge to bump her hips against his, and when she began undulating softly against his torso, his head lifted and his eyes opened to stare into hers.
Fire streamed from the dark brown beauty of Zach’s irises as they breathed deeply, watching each other. His voice was harsh as it rattled from his chest, “I want you to go up to bed now, okay?”
She couldn’t believe what he just said. Go to bed? “Why?”
“Because that’s enough for one night. I want you to know … I need you to understand that I’m capable of stopping at any point, okay? And we need to take this slow.”