But she was already shaking her head, getting onto her knees to come after him and pull him back on to the bed with her.

“You already know.” And it would be so much easier, so much safer if he just touched her, instead.

But he wasn’t coming back toward her outstretched hand. “Let me watch this first time. Let me see you come apart with your hands on yourself.”

This was crazy. She shouldn’t even be considering doing this, should never have told him about her fantasy. Heck, she shouldn’t have had the fantasy at all!

But how long had she pushed away her own reckless urges? How many years had she forced herself to turn from adrenaline, to focus on always being safe, always taking the sure but slightly boring path before her. She wished she didn’t know the answer, wished she didn’t have to admit that even before she’d lost her husband, as a young mother she’d been playing it way too safe.

For one night, could all rules be off?

For a handful of hours, could the sky be the limit?

And could she trust not only Gabe, but herself enough to take off the reins and run free for just a little while?

The answers came from somewhere deep inside—three yeses that actually seemed to come with more relief than fear—and she found herself moving back onto the bed while Gabe watched her from across the small room.

“You still have all your clothes on,” ended up being her only remaining protest as she settled back against the pillows.

“You belong naked,” he told her.

“You do, too,” she said in a hoarse voice, knowing without having to guess just how beautiful he was going to be without his clothes on.

His mouth moved up into a smile at her words, but the smile never reached his eyes, couldn’t do a thing to extinguish the fire in them.

She tried to be comfortable with her nudity, tried to act as if lying there on the bed before him with one hand over the curve of her breast and the other on her stomach was a normal thing for her to be doing.

But it wasn’t. Not at all.

Utterly unable to hold anything back from Gabe until now, she found this moment was no different. “I don’t know how to do this.”

“Yes, you do,” he said in that low voice that never failed to send shivers through her. “You were fantasizing about it just a few minutes ago. Go back to that fantasy and let yourself live it. Give us both the pleasure of you touching yourself, Megan.”

He was right. She’d had plenty of practice masturbating in the past few years. Not with toys that she would have been afraid one particular curious little mind would find in her drawer, but with her own hands, her own fingers.

Just like Gabe wanted her to do right now.

While he watched.

What they were doing was so forbidden—so far outside the realm of the “normal” sex she’d ever permitted herself to have—that despite her nerves, she could feel herself growing even more aroused.

Maybe if she closed her eyes, maybe if she pretended she was alone, then she could—

“Megan.”

She opened her eyes and looked at him, only to find him shaking his head.

“Watch me watch you.”

Another flood of arousal poured through her at his softly spoken command and the force of her desire was actually strong enough in that moment for one of her hands to find its way between her legs, the other to cup her own breast, just as he’d done precious minutes ago.

She was so turned on that even though she would have sworn before a judge and jury she could never climax like this, in pure exhibition, in front of a man—any man—she knew it wouldn’t take more than a few well-placed presses of her fingers against herself for her to fall over the edge.

But when she noted Gabe’s intense concentration as he watched her through half-lowered lids, as a muscle jumped in his jaw and the bulge in his jeans threatened to break the zipper in two, suddenly she didn’t want to rush it.

She slid two fingers between her lower lips and found her own wetness. She purposefully teased herself. But she couldn’t stop her hips from rocking into her hand, didn’t have any control over the hand on her breast, either, as she pulled at her nipple and brought the delicious sensations to a fever pitch within herself. Feeling lost to reality, as if she was floating apart from the world she’d lived in for twenty-seven years, she began to buck up into her fingers.

“Megan.” Gabe’s groan came from across the room. “God, this is hot, but I can’t keep doing this. Not this time.”

A split second later, the bed was dipping and his big hands were on her thighs, holding her open for his mouth to take over where her right hand had been playing across her body.

The pleasure of his fingertips moving across her slick, aroused flesh—and then, oh Lord, his tongue, those lips, the slightest scratch of his teeth—shoved her over the edge before she was ready for it to happen.

Her hips took on a life of their own as she pressed herself into him, as she gasped out his name over and over again. She was never going to survive this orgasm, knew that she couldn’t handle this kind of pleasure, only to find herself being driven higher as he slid two fingers inside, sucked her clitoris in between his lips, and sent her reeling all over again.

Fireworks across her line of vision gave way to a split-second of darkness as the pleasure peaked again, then finally began to let her out of its grip. And yet, even though she’d just had two senselessly great orgasms, one after the other, Gabe’s tongue was still softly stroking over her. She should have been too sensitive for the intimate caress, but she was amazed to find he knew just how to touch her, just where to lick to make her feel good.

And to start her thinking—already!—about doing it all over again.

Exhausted from the combination of extreme pleasure and her day on the mountain, she found herself relaxed enough on the bed with Gabe to lie back and let him continue to taste her, his mouth intermittently roving across the tender skin at the inside of her thighs, but always coming back to her core, a slow post-climax seduction clearly intended to ratchet up her arousal, minute by minute.

In the end, it took all the energy she could muster to push herself up and reach for his hands. She tugged at him and even though she could never be strong enough to pull him over her, he understood what she wanted and came willingly.

And yet, even as he made his way up her body, he continued to keep his promise not to rush a thing. He kissed every inch of her hips, her stomach, her ribs, her br**sts, her shoulders, on the way to finding her mouth again.