Lauren opened the screen door and stepped onto the porch. Wade cast a frantic look toward the main house, praying that neither Grady nor Karen had the same clear, backlit view he was getting. He bolted to his feet.
“Maybe we should go inside,” he said, getting between her and the main house to block any view.
Her lips curved up in the smile of a pure seductress who knew she’d won the battle. Not even a saint could have resisted that smile. “For a minute there, you had me worried,” she said as she stepped back across the threshold.
“I doubt that,” he muttered. “You’ve had this under control from the minute you got here.”
Inside, even with only one lamp lit, he could still see the satisfaction in her eyes at his words. He dared a step closer, so that he could risk a touch to see if she was as warm and inviting as she appeared. It was like touching a flame, far more dangerous to him than to her.
“You still haven’t answered my question,” he noted.
Her gaze locked with his. “Which was?”
“Why now?”
“It seemed like the right time. If we waited any longer, we’d just end up analyzing it to death. I’m a big believer in spontaneity.”
“So you decided on action,” he concluded, finally permitting himself a full-fledged grin.
“Do you object?”
Wade was surprised by the hint of vulnerability behind her words. How could she not know that she took his breath away, that he wanted her so much he physically ached from it?
“Not a chance,” he assured her, lowering his mouth to cover hers.
This time there was no holding back. They both knew the kiss was a prelude to more. Much more. Wade took his time with it, tasting, savoring, even as he deliberately kept his hands off her. Once he felt that heated skin again, once his caresses began to roam with nothing but filmy material between him and her exquisite body, the fire would rage out of control in no time. Better to take things slowly, to concentrate on making this kiss so memorable neither of them would ever forget it.
Just the kiss.
For now.
Time stood still. It was amazing, he thought when he could think at all, how many nuances there were to a kiss. Dark and dangerous. Sweet and heady. Languid, lazy matings of tongue and teeth. Dizzying, breath-stealing brandings. Quick, tantalizing pecks. They tried them all. No one was better than the others. They were all mind-numbingly spectacular. Cumulatively, they made his heart pound and his blood roar.
Lauren made soft little whimpers of sound deep in her throat that drove him crazy. When she swayed toward him, he caught her, his fingers skimming silky skin and slippery, felt-like-nothing fabric. Restraint flew out the window.
His hands were everywhere then, exploring curves, searching for secret heat and moistness, turning her quiet moans to shuddering demands. She was the most giving lover he’d ever met, opening herself eagerly to him, sharing her pleasure with delight, taunting him with desperate touches of her own that shook him to his very core.
And here they were, still in the living room, still on their feet, though Lauren had sagged against him in weak-kneed surrender more than once. He held her steady and gazed into her eyes.
“I guess we’re not going to call it quits this time, are we?” he asked seriously, his gaze searching hers.
“If you do, I’d have to kill you,” she said with such fervent desperation that it made him grin.
“We can’t have that,” he said, scooping her into his arms and heading for the house’s tiny bedroom, grateful that for once he’d done more than haphazardly toss the bedspread over the tangled sheets before he left in the morning.
There wasn’t much to the room—a double bed, a pine dresser, an overstuffed chair beside an ancient floor lamp, impersonal furnishings for a room that had had its share of occupants through the years. It suited him just fine, but it was hardly the romantic setting the impending event deserved. It would have to do, he thought as he crossed the threshold and gently placed Lauren on the bed.
She looked like a temptress or a mythical goddess against the dark blue bedspread, her red hair spilled across the pillow. The filmy, barely there fabric of her gown was more temptation than covering for a body made for loving.
And she was his, all his, Wade thought with a sense of awe as he stripped off his clothes and joined her.
The heat between them was fanned alive by his first touch, then escalated by hers until there was nothing between them but need and urgency and demanding pleas. He slid off the scraps of lace, tossed them aside and watched, mesmerized, as the gown floated to the floor.
But then the only thing mesmerizing him was Lauren, her gaze dark with desire as he knelt above her, her perfect bow of a mouth parted with a sigh of fulfillment as he slowly slid into her.
This, he thought as the tight, velvet moistness surrounded him, must be what all the books were written about. Not the hasty unions he’d enjoyed in the past, but this sweet mating that began with the quick flame of kindling, built into something urgent and then exploded into a conflagration that could wipe out thoughts and consume a man.
He covered Lauren’s mouth with his to capture a scream just as her body shuddered with a violent release that triggered his own. Clinging together, they let the waves of pleasure ebb slowly.
Reluctant to let it end, Wade stayed where he was until he could feel himself growing hard again inside her, the urgency every bit as powerful as the first time, the release—when it finally came—every bit as satisfying. The amazement and delight in Lauren’s eyes was as rewarding as any gift he’d ever received.
He rolled onto his back, carrying her with
