Pato shook his head impatiently. “I care. There are things you need to understand, things that are bigger than—”
“Later,” she interrupted.
He frowned at her. So she reached down and grabbed the hem of her sweater herself, then pulled it up and off. She met his gaze as she tossed it aside, smiling slightly at the instant flash of heat there, and the way his hands tightened on her skin, as if he wasn’t so controlled himself.
“Pato,” she whispered. “I don’t want to talk anymore.”
He looked torn for a split second. Then that mouth of his curved into pure, male wickedness, and she knew the fire won. She felt it burn ever higher inside her, the flames licking all over her skin.
Pato stepped away from her and then reached back with one arm to tug that tight black T-shirt off his chest, throwing it on the floor near her sweater. This time, she could touch. Taste. This time she could lose herself in the sheer masculine perfection of that lean torso. She couldn’t wait.
“Keep your eyes on me,” he ordered when she reached for him, his golden gaze amused as it seared into her. “And no touching until I say otherwise.”
The air inside the cottage seemed too tight, too hot. How could she keep from touching him? And why—? Pato only smiled.
“Surely,” she managed to say, “the point is to touch. I feel certain that one of your ninety thousand supermodel lovers must have taught you that in all these years of your celebrated promiscuity.”
“If there were ninety thousand supermodels,” he said, grinning lazily at her, “they couldn’t all be super, could they? I do have standards.”
He laughed when she rolled her eyes. But when he looked at her, everything got gold and hot and desperate, and that ache in her bloomed into an open flame.
“The point,” he murmured in that silken voice of his, making that flame reach higher and higher, “is to want this so badly you think you might die from it.”
“Pato...”
She didn’t know she’d said his name again until she saw the way his eyes darkened, then tracked over her body, resting on her breasts and the lilac bra she wore. She felt heavy. Desperate for his touch. Any touch at all.
“I want to know if you match again. I want you to show me.” Slowly, so slowly, he lifted his gaze back to hers, and what she saw there made her pulse heat. “And then I want you naked, and if I do it myself I’ll be inside you before I get those jeans over your hips and then we’ll be done and Adriana?” She stared at him, so wild with heat she thought she might explode. Or die. Or both. His smile was dark and dangerous and she felt it in her toes. “We want this to last a little while.”
Her throat was dry. Her heart was pounding. The things she wanted whirled inside her, making her skin pull tight as if she might burst out of it.
“But what if I want to undress you?” she asked. Because she did. Almost more than she could bear. Because if she never had him again, she wanted to have this. As much of him as she could.
He touched her then, and she shuddered at the sheer joy of it. He ran his hand over her cheek, into her hair, and then held her there. Simply held her, and it made the need inside her turn into a white-hot surge of lightning.
“I told you this a long time ago,” he said in that same darkly thrilling tone. “But I meant it. I like things my way.”
He leaned closer then and brushed his mouth over hers, making goose bumps rise all over her body. She whispered a soft curse and Pato laughed against her mouth.
“And so will you,” he promised.
She believed him.
He released her, then raised a dark, imperious brow.
Adriana hurriedly kicked off her shoes, grinning when he did the same. Then she unbuttoned her jeans and peeled them down her legs, feeling awkward until she saw the way he watched her, as if every millimeter of skin she revealed was a revelation.
And then she stood there before him, once again in nothing but her bra and panties. In matching lilac-colored lace.
Pato’s smile had a dangerous edge to it. It worked its way into her pulse, making her shift restlessly from foot to foot. He stripped off his own jeans with a minimum of fuss, leaving him in nothing but another pair of those tight briefs that made him look edible.
And she wanted to taste him so badly it began to hurt.
Need made her clumsy. She forgot to be shy. She forgot she was inexperienced. She forgot everything but the man watching her, his gaze getting harder and more intense by the second.
Adriana unhooked her bra. When she pulled it away from her breasts, her nipples were already taut, and she heard Pato let out a sigh. Then she bent and tugged off her panties, and she heard him mutter something beneath his breath. And when she straightened she was naked, and he was looking at her as if she was something holy.