Even if he couldn’t find the right words to persuade her to see just how beautiful she was, he could do it with a kiss. Slowly, as he loved her mouth with his own, he felt her relax again beneath him and knew right when she forgot to be shy because she twined her arms around his neck and arched up into him.

It was a crime for Grace to believe, for any reason, that she was “shut down.” All Dylan wanted tonight was to make her feel good. So good that she’d never be able to question her innate sensuality again.

Of course he wanted to protect her. Of course he would never do anything to harm her. But at the same time, he respected her too much to treat her like porcelain. Grace had already proved again and again that she wasn’t breakable.

Remembering the way her breath had gone shallow and her pupils had dilated when he’d asked her to keep her hands above her head while he undressed her, he lifted his mouth from hers. “It’s time to move your hands back over your head.”

Again, her breath quickened and her eyes darkened. He could read the thoughts that crossed her beautiful face: Did she dare trust him? Not only with being her first after such a long drought…but with this?

But then, just as he’d expected, the brave and determined expression that he’d already come to know so well returned. Slowly—and so seductively that he knew it didn’t matter who was giving the sensual commands, she would always be the one in charge—she untwined her hands from around his neck and lifted them back up to the arm of the couch.

“Whenever I touch you, your skin flushes,” he murmured as he grazed his fingertips over her, teasing both of them. “Did you know that?”

Watching the path of his hands over her, she said in a slightly breathless voice, “All you have to do is look at me and I heat up all over.”

He had to kiss her again, then, so that she’d know how much he liked hearing it. Knowing it.

“It’s the same for me,” he told her, shifting just enough so that she could feel how much he wanted her. How hot, how fast his blood was pumping, all for her. “You have no idea. No idea how much I want you.”

“Then show me, Dylan. Please, show me now.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

Permission granted, Dylan didn’t let himself overthink his instincts or his fierce need for her—he simply took two handfuls of silk and tore. But in the end, she wasn’t the one left most stunned, he was...by the most perfect breasts he’d ever seen.

His hands beat his mouth to her by a split second, and then he was touching, stroking, kissing, licking. First at the sweet, soft flesh, and then the hardened tips again and again and again. He was starved for her, desperate for more, filled with a hunger that was like nothing he’d ever known.

Grace moaned his name as she arched her back so that he could have more of her. He had her jeans off within seconds and would have torn her panties in two just as he’d shredded her bra if he hadn’t needed to stop to take a mental picture of how pretty she looked. He covered the damp silk between her legs with his hand and let out a low curse as he realized how hot, how ready she was.

“Don’t stop,” she urged him. “Please don’t stop now. I need you to touch me, Dylan. I need it so badly. I’ve never needed like this. Never.”

“Neither have I.” It was the honest-to-God truth. Watching, feeling Grace come apart was going to destroy him.

Dylan was torn again between teasing and taking. But he also knew that the higher he took her before he let her go, the better she would feel, so he forced himself to shove back the animalistic urges that she stirred up in a way no one else ever had, and sway back toward building anticipation. So instead of shredding her panties, he stroked her through them instead.

“Dylan—” He loved hearing her breath hitch. “Oh God…just like that. Keep touching me just like that.”

She was gripping the arm of the couch behind her for dear life as she worked to push herself even harder against him, and it was hands-down the sexiest thing Dylan had ever seen in his life. Watching her get herself off against him, still wearing her panties, her full breasts bouncing with every breath, he grew so hard beneath the zipper of his jeans that he figured it would bust open soon.

She’d obviously loved it when he’d had her keep her hands above her head. Something told him a little dirty talk would go over just as well. “Come for me, Grace. Just like this, riding my hand. Let me see how beautiful you are when you let me help take you over the edge.”

Her lids finally fluttered shut, the wet lips she’d been licking opened slightly, and her body bowed in sweet surrender to pleasure.

Dylan had never seen anything so mind-blowingly beautiful in all his life as Grace shuddering against him in climax. How he’d gotten lucky enough to be the guy here with her, the guy she was trusting to give pleasure back to her, he’d never know. All he knew was that he would be thankful for it forever.

He didn’t wait for her to come down, couldn’t wait one more second to touch—and taste—her bare, wet, heated skin. Silently vowing to buy her new silk to replace this set, the animal inside of him finally came completely unleashed as he tore her panties off.

When he found her with his lips and tongue, she made a sound that he thought might have been his name, but he could barely hear over the roar of his pounding heartbeat in his ears. Where she’d been on the verge of going soft and boneless at the end of her first climax, as soon as he flicked his tongue over her, Dylan could feel her begin to rise again. Maybe it was too much to ask for tonight—for her to come out of a cold front straight into the burning heat of multiple orgasms—but Lord, he wanted it.