“There’s not a lot that you did or said that I can’t remember,” he told her.
“How was I so oblivious to your feelings for all those years?” she asked, shaking her head. “I must have been so careless with you. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I wasn’t about to say anything about how I felt back then. I knew you had a lot of things to do, and even more things to figure out, before you’d be ready for me. I was just terrified all that thinking and doing would happen while I was off getting my own degrees.”
“Then I guess it’s a good thing I took my time growing up,” she said, a smile playing on her lips. She looked up from her soup and captured his gaze. “I have it all together now, Will. At least I think I do.”
“Meaning what?”
She kept her gaze steady. “I want you to make love to me tonight,” she said softly. “It’s not just about the sex and getting it out of the way. I want to take this next step. I think we need to. I mean, it would be crazy if we fell in love and then found out we were totally incompatible in bed, right?”
Will laughed. “So this would be a purely practical test?”
“Something like that.” She kept her gaze on his. “Please.”
Will had about a thousand reservations, but he also had the same driving need to hold her in his arms that he’d lived with for years. He didn’t think he could deny it yet again, not with her looking at him the way she was.
“You’re sure, Jess? Really sure? I don’t want this to be nothing more than an experiment to you.”
“It won’t be,” she assured him, her expression solemn. “And I am a hundred percent sure.”
“You do know that after this, there is no way in hell I will ever let you go,” he warned.
“I kind of figured that,” she said, looking surprisingly content with that.
He reached across the table and touched a finger to her lips. “I’m not kidding, Jess. This is it for me. There won’t be any turning back. I’ll still give you all the time you need, but you will be mine.”
For just an instant, she looked a little shaken by the vehemence of his claim, but then she sighed. “Okay, then.” She held out her hand. “I’m ready. More than ready, in fact. Lately this is all I’ve been able to think about, you and me together. What it would be like.”
Will ignored her hand. He stood slowly and scooped her into his arms, then headed for his room, grateful that he’d had the foresight to straighten the bed and toss his dirty clothes into the closet earlier. He’d left a low light glowing on his dresser.
Jess curled against his chest as if they’d done this a thousand times. He felt her smile against the curve of his neck when she saw the king-size bed.
“I should have known,” she murmured.
“I was planning ahead,” he told her. “But just so you know, this bed is awfully big and lonely when there’s no one to share it.”
Tonight, though, he intended to make use of every square inch of it.
On some level Jess had known when she came over to Will’s tonight that there was a chance they would wind up here, in his bed. Of course, he’d been so adamantly opposed to it in the past she hadn’t been certain she could persuade him it was time. The man had an astonishing ability to resist temptation.
He stripped back the covers, settled her gently onto soft-as-silk cream-colored sheets, then lowered himself beside her, his face level with hers. His fingers skimmed her cheek as he moved a wayward curl off her face.
“Have I mentioned how beautiful you are?” he asked, a breathless quality to his voice.
She smiled. “Actually you haven’t.”
“Then let me rectify that at once,” he said with a grin. “You have the most amazingly expressive face, eyes as blue as the bay on a summer day, and hair that’s been lit by the sun.”
“Not bad for a guy who writes terrible poetry,” she murmured.
He blinked at that. “Poetry?”
“It came with the flowers.”
He laughed. “Ah, the sappy, romantic poem Bree insisted was necessary. She messed it up, huh? Some writer she is.”
“She tried, but believe me, this was proof positive she should concentrate on writing plays. She is no Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Still, it was sweet that you let her try.”
“Anything to put a smile on your face.”
A tremor washed through her, along with a hunger that was startling in its intensity. “Um, Will, are we going to get on with this anytime soon? I’m getting a little anxious here.”
He laughed. “I was taking my time, wooing you.”
“I don’t need wooing right now,” she assured him. “I need your lips on mine, your body.”
She sighed with pleasure as he covered her mouth with his, then slipped a hand under her shirt to find her breasts and tease the nipples into sensitive little buds.
“Better,” she murmured against his lips, then moaned as his hands went roving over hips and thighs before sliding down the zipper of her jeans and dipping inside. “Oh, sweet heaven!”
He took such care of her, amazingly attentive care, making her body hum like the strings of a well-loved guitar.
“I had no idea,” she whispered against his neck, bucking as he finally touched the most intimate core of her, his fingers wickedly talented. It might be true that she wasn’t a virgin, but she’d never been treated with such tenderness.
She started to reach for him, but he held her hands away from him. “This is all about you,” he told her, continuing to find ways to pleasure her until she gasped and lost control, clinging to his shoulders as she rode out the remarkable sensations.
He was smiling when she finally caught her breath and opened her eyes.
“Now let’s see what happens when we take this ride together,” he
