“And if I want you to make love to me?” she whispered.

Savage satisfaction such as he’d never known gripped him.

“Then I’ll make love to you,” he said in a low growl.

“Please,” she said sweetly. “Make love to me, Zack. We’ve both waited so very long for this.”

He fused his mouth to hers, cutting off anything further she might say. This time he allowed his restraint to slip and he put every ounce of feeling, of love, into his kiss.

Their tongues met and slid hotly over each other. He tasted her, devoured her, then went back for more.

He let one hand fall gently down the side of her neck and to her shoulder where his fingers caught on the thin string holding her gown up. With infinite care, he pulled it over her shoulder and down her bare arm.

Goose bumps danced beneath his touch. She shivered even as she deepened their kiss and let out a low moan of desire—of need. Need that matched his own desperate desire for her, for this. For him to finally, finally make her his.

“Don’t let me hurt you,” he ground out as he slid her gown further down her body.

“You won’t,” she denied.

God, she was so beautiful. So perfectly formed. He paused when the gown was at her waist to stare at the supple curves of her breasts. Then, unable to wait a second longer, he lowered his mouth to taste them.

She gasped and arched upward when he sucked one turgid peak between his teeth. He licked and sucked until she was writhing beneath him. Then he turned his attention to the other, coaxing it to rigidity like he had done to the first.

Her hands flew over his arms, his shoulders, his back, up and down. When he hit a particularly sensitive spot, her hands would still and her fingers would dig into his flesh as if the pleasure was nearly unbearable. It certainly was for him.

He ached to slide into her welcoming body. His dick had never ached so bad in his life. Never had he wanted someone with the desperation he wanted Gracie. His Gracie. But he forced himself to go slowly, not wanting the moment over too soon. Instead he stoked and built the fire burning between them until it was an inferno of desire and need consuming them both.

He let out a groan when her mouth slid hotly over his neck and then up to his ear where she nibbled and teased. He was panting, so desperate was he for breath. But she did that to him. All he had to do was look at her and he was breathless. And he knew that would never change.

His mouth covered every inch of her skin, from head to her pretty pink toes. And just as he’d fantasized, he kissed every single toe.

After the last toe, he nudged her legs farther apart and began kissing his way up the inside of her leg, pausing when he got to the sensitive skin around her knee. He smiled when she flinched. Her knees were definitely her weakness.

But he was determined to find new weaknesses. New places he could drive her mindless with pleasure. She tensed when his mouth traveled up the inside of her thigh. Her fingers slid through his hair and curled just as he placed a tender kiss on her soft mound.

With a gentle touch, he parted the ultra soft lips between her legs and exposed her satiny opening and the tiny, pulsing center of her pleasure.

He laved his tongue over her clit first, stroking, enjoying each and every sigh of pleasure wrung from her. Then he grew bolder, sucking ever so gently until her hips bucked upward to meet his demands.

He was shaking with so much pent up need as he eased one finger inside her opening. The velvet walls closed around the tip, sucking him further inside and his eyes nearly rolled to the back of his head as he imagined his aching erection bathed in such plushness.

Gracie’s legs trembled and shook. Her entire body was shaking. Her eyes burned brightly when he lifted his head to meet her gaze. The question was unspoken and yet she responded by nodding. Then as if to further convince him she put both hands on his shoulders.

“Please, Zack,” she begged softly. “Please, I need you.”

The hell she’d ever beg for anything he could give her.

He rose up and settled himself between her splayed thighs and he stared down at the beautiful feast of naked woman spread out before him.

“I’ll never ask for another thing as long as I live,” he said in a hoarse voice. “All I ever wanted was you.”

A tear slid from the corner of Gracie’s eye and over her temple to disappear into her hair.

Using every ounce of restraint he owned, he positioned himself at the mouth of her sweet, silken dampness and nudged forward, just enough that the head of his dick was bathed in her heat.

He closed his eyes and let out an agonized cry, one that sounded like pain but was the most exquisite of pleasures he’d ever experienced in his life.

Gracie’s hands curled around his shoulders, her fingernails digging into his skin, urging him forward. And he needed no further urging.

He pushed, inch by delicious inch, carefully studying her for any sign of pain or discomfort. Her eyes widened as he gained depth, but they were glazed with pleasure and so he pressed on.

His skin was on fire. The flames licked over him, threatening to utterly consume him and push him over the edge. He could feel the sweat on his forehead from the toll of restraining himself.

“Zack, I’m okay,” she whispered close to his ear. “You aren’t hurting me. Let go now. Love me.”

Her sweetly worded plea snapped the last strings of control he had in place. With a harsh groan, he wrapped his arms around her and plunged the remaining distance, completely uniting them as one.

Her taste was on his tongue as her heat enveloped him and pulled him in, again and again. Her legs came up and wrapped around the backs of his thighs and she arched upward to meet every thrust.

Then her eyes popped open and her fingernails dug into his skin with enough force to break it. “Oh God, Zack. Don’t stop. Please don’t stop!”

It was the final push he needed. With a roar he began to drive into her, over and over, deeper, wetter, harder.

Their hips met, their bodies jostling with the force of each of his plunges.

Gracie’s mouth opened in a soundless cry and her eyes went cloudy as if she lost all awareness of time and place. He felt her spasm and tighten around his erection and he felt the sudden explosion of wetness, signaling her orgasm.

It was the catalyst for his own.

Bathed in her silken depths, and with a sense of homecoming he’d never felt before, he let go. Her name on his lips, his whispered “I love you” over and over, he poured himself into her.