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 br**sts.

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.