Which meant that everything from here on out would be all her...and she simply couldn’t afford to feel too much with Ryan while they were naked and kissing, above and beyond simple physical pleasure.

He took a step toward her. “I’ll have to work harder on making sure you stay awake, won’t I?”

For all that she wanted to act like what they were doing—and what they had already done—was no big deal, she couldn’t manage to lie still and wait for him to come to her. Feeling suddenly vulnerable, she scooted back on the bed.

Ryan’s hand on her ankle stopped her from moving any further away from him.

She swallowed hard as she looked down at where he was holding her, his hand so tan against her pale skin.

He had her other ankle in his other hand a moment later and before she could remember how to breathe, he was dragging her toward him, the soft bed cover rubbing against her naked back and bottom.

He didn’t stop pulling until he had her at the edge of the mattress and had positioned them so that he was standing with his legs between hers. He pulled her legs around him, made her ankles cross behind the small of his back. The bed frame was high enough that his groin was barely higher than hers without his needing to bend his legs.

She didn’t know what to reach for, how to respond, felt lost and completely out of her element. They’d crossed a lot of lines tonight, but none of them had been that big, had they? Yes, she came like a rocket from his barest touch, but she was sure he was used to that kind of reaction from women.

But she’d never live down begging...most likely because he’d never let her forget that she had.

Only, the way he was looking down at her, like he owned her body and soul and was beyond pleased with that fact, had her wondering if he knew exactly what she was feeling without her having to say a word.

“This is how I want you, Vicki. Open to me. Ready for me. Always.”

His eyes were dark with pleasure as he ran them over her naked body, then back up to her eyes, where she was trying so hard to keep from giving herself away.

Instinctively, she recognized his words as a command. Reminding herself that if she didn’t want to follow them, she could simply unwind her legs from his body and get off the bed, as he began the slow slide of his hands from her ankles up her calves and then to her thighs, she left her legs right where he put them.

And then he was leaning down over her, his sinfully talented mouth a press of heat on the upper swell of her breasts.

She had to touch him, had to put her hands on his chest, then over to the broad muscles of his back. She wanted to memorize every inch of him by touch alone, but her concentration was immediately shot when his erection pressed thick and hard against her belly. He gave her one kiss after another over her collarbone, and then her pulse point, before he found that spot just below her earlobe that made her shiver every time.

“Feeling more awake now?”

He didn’t give her time to answer before he was covering her mouth with his. She gave herself fully over to his kiss, loving the way he devoured her, and letting herself devour him right back. She tightened her ankles around his hips at the same time that he ground himself against her lower belly.

His hands were in her hair as they continued to ravage each other’s mouths, and then he was shifting so that his hips were lower and—oh God!—she could feel the thick, hot length of him slide over her.

She gasped at the extreme pleasure of it and he swallowed her gasp with his own groan as he slid up, then back through the slickness of her arousal.

“I want so badly to love you, Vicki.”

His words were a rumble against her lips and she was so lost in desire she could hardly make sense of them. But then, he lifted his head to look into her eyes. She’d never seen them so dark, so intense. There was no trace of the laughing, easy man the rest of the world knew.

It was, she suddenly realized, just the way he’d looked when he’d come to rescue her from James. Like she was the only thing that mattered in the entire world, and he would do whatever he needed to do to protect her and keep her safe from harm.

“Tell me you want that, too.”

His voice was raw with desire, but in that moment she could have sworn there was more than just lust behind his request.

“Yes, I want you,” she said as she felt the muscles of his back and shoulders flexing beneath her fingers as he worked to hold himself steady over her. “You already know how much I want you.”

She needed him closer, needed more than just this tease. But even though she’d just told him what she thought he wanted to hear, he hadn’t moved, hadn’t taken her the way she so badly needed to be taken.

He simply stroked her face with his hand, his fingertips brushing over her lips, her jaw line. She shivered at the gentle, loving touch. She recognized what he was doing, knew it from the way her own hands had to caress a truly beautiful sculpture. She needed to touch it, needed to feel it beneath her hands to let the emotion of it course through her, and let herself become a part of it, too.

All night long, she’d been trying to hold back something, anything. But she just couldn’t do it anymore. She had to mirror his actions, had to give in to the instinctive urge to memorize him with her hands as well as she was memorizing his kisses with her mouth.

Vicki slid her hands from his shoulders to his face and when she put her hands on him, he closed his eyes and let out a ragged breath.

Was this what he had been waiting for, for her to give herself over to him fully, completely?

She ran her hands over his face, falling deeper in love with him with every new stroke of her fingertips over stubble and bone and cartilage. All the while, his eyes were closed as he simply let her feel him.

His beauty shook her all over again, just as it had day in and day out from the first day she’d set eyes on him. But to know him like this, for him to not only let her feel him so intimately, but also to practically beg her for it, was beyond anything she’d ever hoped for.

Finally, when her hands rested on his jaw and he opened his eyes again, what she saw in them had those pleas she’d planned on holding back forever spilling from her lips.

“Love me, Ryan. Please don’t wait any longer. Please.”

She didn’t know where he got the condom from and she didn’t care. All that mattered was that he had put it on and then he was kissing her again and she could feel him hot and hard and throbbing against her core.

He slid into her with a hiss of pleasure and she couldn’t keep her head from falling back, her mouth opening as she gasped for breath. One stroke of Ryan’s thick, hard heat inside of her and she was about to come apart again.

Her brain screamed for her to have more control. She couldn’t need him so much, shouldn’t be so pathetically responsive to every single touch.

Slowly, so damn slowly that she had to clench her teeth together to keep from crying out, he pulled from her before gripping her hips in his big hands and slamming back into her. She couldn’t look at him, keeping her eyes tightly closed rather than daring to see the dark fire in his eyes.

She needed to keep them closed until it was over and she could pretend that what they’d shared hadn’t been more than just sex between two horny friends.

His hands tightened on her hips. “Don’t hide from me, Vicki.”

Oh God, why did he have to talk to her like that? Like he was in charge of every cell in her body?

And, worse, why did it have to turn her insides to goo...and make her immediately respond with even more fire and need?

Angry with herself for having less than no control around him anymore, she closed her eyes tighter. Only, she knew that wouldn’t deter him from getting his way, and she was right when he leaned back over her and kissed each eyelid softly.

“Look at me. Please.”

His plea undid her. Completely.

Unable to resist him for a moment longer, she looked up at him, her inner muscles clenching even tighter around him as she let his dark gaze all the way inside her heart...and her soul.

“Oh baby,” he said on a whispered groan of pleasure as he pushed in even deeper, “I love the way you come apart when I touch you, when I’m inside of you. You’re so beautifully responsive. For me.” He pulled back, then thrust forward again, causing her to grip him even tighter with her legs, her nails digging into his back in her desperation. “Let go for me while I love you. Let me see you. All of you.”

Between the sweet movement of his body inside hers, his coaxing demands, and the intense desire on his face, Vicki had no choice but to obey.

His mouth captured her cries as she came harder than she ever had in her life, her orgasm going on and on and on, only to have Ryan catapult her back over again as he called out her name, as he told her again and again how good she felt, how much he wanted her, until he finally let his own control go too.

Chapter Nineteen

Vicki woke up curled into Ryan’s arms, the room dark, the covers up over them. His heart beat strong and steady beneath her open palm on his chest. Even in sleep, she’d needed to keep her hands on him, to make sure she didn’t lose that most elemental of connections.

Panic threatened to crash through the warmth, the remembered pleasures that still throbbed between her legs, at the tips of her breasts, on her tingling lips. Dawn would break soon and then they would have to face reality, cold and hard and awkward.

All she wanted was to luxuriate in her fantasy-made-real for a few more seconds. Vicki knew it wasn’t forever, that their lovemaking had been some crazy blip on the radar screen, but letting herself be held by the man she’d loved forever, breathing him in for just a few more seconds, was something she simply had to do.

Ryan shifted, a low sound rumbling up from his chest as he pulled her closer so that her cheek rested on his chest and her hands slid around his waist.

Vicki’s heart fluttered with the pleasure of the sweetest moment she’d experienced yet. Making love with Ryan had been extraordinary, but she felt this closeness way down deep in the farthest reaches of her heart.

A few more minutes. That was all she wanted with Ryan before she slipped from his arms and went back to her own bedroom. But right now it was good, so damned good just to be close to him.

Vicki closed her eyes and fell asleep again to the beautiful beat of Ryan’s heart.

* * *

The next time she woke, she was alone in Ryan’s bed and could smell bacon frying. Her stomach grumbled even as she realized that this morning wasn’t like the others they’d shared.

Instead of walking out of her own bedroom fully clothed, she was going to be making the walk of shame out of his.

Hating the way her heart was pounding so hard—It’s just Ryan, she reminded herself in a firm inner voice—she slid naked from his bed and saw that he’d laid a robe out for her. She loved the way it smelled like him as she slipped her arms into it. The sleeves were so long she had to roll them up several times, then wrap the robe nearly twice around herself before closing it. She was certain she must look ridiculous, but just then she couldn’t bring herself to care.

Not when it was almost as good as being wrapped in Ryan’s arms.

Besides, the only way to deal with this situation was head-on, she told herself as she opened the bedroom door and headed down the hall. And yet, she still couldn’t quite bring herself to walk into the kitchen. She needed a few more seconds to try to clear her head of the delicious memories of the way he’d touched and kissed and loved her the night before.

From where she was standing at the top of the stairs, she was able to watch him moving around in the kitchen below. Since he’d left his robe for her, all he had on was a pair of navy-blue cotton boxers.

She. Would. Not. Drool.

Okay, so she would. She was only human.

Really, she told herself, it was no different than those shirtless pictures of him working out she’d seen in the press. She’d gotten used to looking at those without having heart palpitations. She could survive this, too.