“I want you, too,” she whispered against his lips when they pulled apart an inch. “So much I can’t stand it.”

He backed her up against a smooth rock face, and as he ran kisses down her neck, from her earlobe to the hollow of her shoulder, she shuddered in his arms. His hands found the gap between her shirt and pants, and as he brushed his fingers over her belly, she moaned softly.

And then he kissed her mouth again and she slid her tongue against his. His fingers went higher and higher, and when he finally found the edge of her bra, she heard herself begging, “Please touch me.”

Slipping his fingers under the thin fabric, he curved his palm over her breast, her nipple hard against his hand.

She cried out and he covered her sound of pleasure with his mouth as he gently squeezed her tingling flesh. With painstaking slowness, he slid her shirt up over her skin, his lips nipping at hers, drawing out a low moan from her throat. And then he was pulling his mouth away and going to his knees and she could feel his warm breath on the exposed skin of her stomach. He pressed his lips to her belly once, twice, and then he was moving up the center of her rib cage, finally sucking one hard nipple into his mouth, then the other, cupping both br**sts with his hands, rubbing his lightly stubbled chin against her skin.

Another moan escaped her, this time around his name, and then he was undoing the button at the top of her pants and sliding down the zipper, pulling the fabric down her hips to pool at her ankles.

He stopped laving her br**sts with his tongue and lifted his head to watch her face as he slipped a finger into her panties. She pushed her pelvis into his hand, more aroused than she could ever remember being.

Knowing he wanted her as badly as she wanted him made her even wetter, even more aroused.

Circling the spot she so desperately wanted him to touch, he finally made contact—oh yes, right there!—and she gasped as exquisite sensations moved through her, from her core outward. Again and again his fingers slid between her slick folds. Up, then down, they moved between her labia, bumping over the hard nub of her arousal. His mouth found her next, his warm breath and soft lips covering her mound, his tongue probing, tasting as she cried out with pleasure.

She’d never felt so ripe, so ready to explode. She’d waited ten long years to feel this good again, and now that she was here with Sam, and his hands and mouth were on her, she wanted to make the incredible sensations last forever.

But she was so ready, too ready, and she couldn’t stop herself from grasping the back of his head and pushing her pelvis into his tongue and teeth. And then his fingers joined his mouth, stretching her open.

Even this wet, it had been so long since she’d been with a man that his touch felt brand-new and she panted, “Oh God, Sam,” against his shoulder as he kept the rhythm of his fingers and tongue steady.

“You feel so good,” she groaned as she closed her eyes and tilted her head back, sucking in a hard breath in the same moment that her inner muscles clamped down hard on his fingers.

Her entire body shuddered into a powerful orgasm and Dianna felt like she had bypassed death and gone straight to heaven.

In the past decade, she hadn’t forgotten how potent Sam’s touch was. Forgetting something so wonderful would have been impossible.

But this all-encompassing pleasure was a shock to her system, nonetheless.

If she could, she’d stay like this forever, but they were far from done, and she wanted to tear his pants off and take him deep inside.

She sank to her knees in front of him and cupped his face in her hands as she leaned in to kiss him. Their tongues mated, a salty-sweet dance that was unbearably exciting. Dying to relearn his beautiful body, the hard planes of muscle and the deep indentations in between, she ran her hands over his damp shirt, awed by his broad shoulders, his hard chest, his impressive abdominal muscles.

“Dianna,” he said, the low rumble of his voice making her want him more than ever. “I’ve never had a problem controlling myself. Only with you.”

It was the same for her and all she wanted was to give him the same pleasure he’d given her. But even as she ripped at the buttons on his shirt, she knew loving him was as much for herself as it was for him.

At last, the buttons came undone and she stilled as she took in his magnificent bare chest. Tanned, with only the lightest sprinkling of hair between his pectoral muscles.

“You’re so beautiful,” she murmured. “I’ve dreamed of this a hundred times. Tell me this isn’t a dream.”

“It couldn’t be more real,” he said before threading his fingers through her hair and kissing her.

She was blown away by the passion and desire that radiated from his mouth and hands and body. Second by second he was sweeping her farther and farther downriver, heading straight for a waterfall, and even though she knew there was no way to be prepared for the drop, she didn’t care.

All that mattered was the way she felt right here, right now, in Sam’s arms.

When the kiss finally ended, she lay her cheek on his chest and closed her eyes to listen to the rapid drumbeat of his heart. His arms were wonderfully strong around her as he held her close and it was only the insistent throbbing between her thighs that made her shift away from his heat so that she could kiss his chest.

He groaned with pleasure when she found his nipple with her tongue. It had always driven him crazy when she circled it, then flicked it lightly. His excitement fed hers and she fumbled for the waistband of his jeans. The edge of her palm brushed against his erection and even with two layers of fabric between his shaft and her hand, her need was so intense that she couldn’t stop herself from palming the long, thick length through his clothes.

He twitched once, then twice against her palm, and she was reaching for his zipper to set him loose, when his hand came over hers and squeezed.

Wait. Something was wrong. Something had changed.

It took longer than it should have for her brain to send out the alert that this wasn’t a warm, loving touch; it was a warning.

“We can’t do this, Dianna.”

Alarm shot through her, fast and furious, embarrassment close on its heels. With fumbling hands, she pushed away from him and fixed her pants, her bra, her shirt.

Despite his previous warnings about staying away from their past, despite her own strong misgivings, he’d seemed to want her as much as she wanted him. And on the heels of her thoughts about second chances, she’d jumped at the chance to be intimate with him.