She smelled like rain and red wine and woman and his head spun with wanting her. Maybe if he were a better man, he could have held back longer, could have been more patient, could have given her more reasons to trust him.

But right now all that mattered was making her his.

He moved his hands to her shoulders and ran them over her silky shirt until he found three little buttons just behind her neck and undid them. A moment later, she was raising her arms for him so that he could slip the shirt over her head. Every inch of skin that he uncovered he had to cover with his mouth. As he slowly drew her shirt up and off and discovered the places that made her gasp with pleasure—the upper swell of her br**sts, the indentation of her belly button, the hollow of her shoulder—he lingered there and there and there to please them both.

When he finally let her shirt fall to the floor and lifted his mouth from her skin, his breath caught in his throat again. She was wearing a pink lace and silk bra that was so fine it was nearly translucent. He wanted to leave it on her so that he could memorize her beauty...but primal need was urging him to rip it off her, too.

He lowered his mouth and flicked one taut peak with his tongue, and when she moaned and arched into him, her hands threading into his hair so that she could hold him close, he had to close his lips over her nipple on a moan of his own. She moved against him, pure sensual woman, and he drank in the sound of her shuddering breaths, the way she trembled with need. Unable to resist, he drew down the cups of the bra with rougher hands than he would have if he’d been less desperate for her, if he hadn’t spent the last week wishing for this moment.

Just looking at her like this had Noah forgetting every other woman he’d ever been with. Colbie’s skin was lightly flushed, and her full, rose-tipped br**sts beckoned him. He cupped them in his large hands, stroking the soft flesh reverently...until his greed and boundless hunger for her took him over again.

With a harsh yank on delicate fabric, he pulled the bra completely off and let it fall. He lowered his mouth to her again, only this time there was no silk, no lace between them while he teased her, and himself, with long strokes of his tongue and the gentle slide of his teeth over sensitive flesh.

Noah wanted her so damn much, a wanting that went so far beyond desire that it could only mean one thing.

He was falling head over heels for her, had started falling the second she’d lifted her head from the snow in Lake Tahoe and looked into his eyes. One look was all it had taken for him to see not only how beautiful she was, but also how sweet.

With his hands, he cupped her exquisite br**sts and when she arched into his hands and mouth, he couldn’t stifle a groan of pleasure. He moved his mouth away so that her ni**les beaded against his palm. He couldn’t wait for other nights when he’d spend hours on her br**sts, where he’d taste and tease her with his lips and tongue and teeth, when he could let the greed rest for long enough to play. But as she whispered, "I love the way you touch me," he knew savoring her, teasing and tempting her until she was begging for release, would have to come later.

Her lush curves had driven him crazy even on the ski slopes when he’d caught her as they fell and he’d held her against him to keep her safe. Noah wasn’t an ass man. He wasn’t a breast man. He wasn’t a leg man.

He was an everything man.

With lips and hands, he caressed every inch of her skin as he continued to undress her, sliding the zipper of her skirt down so that it, too, could drop onto his bedroom floor with her blouse.

"You look like an angel," he said when she stood before him in nothing but the sexiest lingerie he’d ever seen. "A naughty angel."

"I was wearing the same thing when we were making snow angels," she told him, "underneath my ski clothes."

"If I had known that—" He took her all the way to the bed and laid her on it, her hair spread out across the pillow, her body lush, her skin soft, his every dream come true. "—I wouldn’t have let you go."

* * *

Colbie knew her body wasn’t perfect. Her hips were a little too big. Her legs would never be long and lean like a model’s. But she also knew how responsive she was to touch.

And she knew how much desire there was in Noah’s eyes whenever he looked at her. Lust flared so powerfully from him that heat flowed all across her skin.

From that first moment up on the snowy mountain, he’d looked at her like that. Whether she was covered in a down jacket or was naked except for her panties and heels, he desired her.

And for the first time in her life, she felt absolutely perfect. As beautiful as he’d—repeatedly—told her she was.

She didn’t know how long he simply stared before he finally put his hands on her. All she knew was that it was too long. But whatever she’d expected from him, it wasn’t this slow movement of his hands over her face, his fingertips caressing the curve of her eyebrows, the arch of her cheekbones, the thrust of her chin. And then down her neck to the curve of her shoulders, the soft edges of her br**sts, the bones of her rib cage, until he reached the soft swell of her stomach and hips.

She tried to keep her eyes open, tried to hold onto rational thought, but oh, it felt so good, and ultimately she had no choice but to sink into the pleasure of his touch, her eyes fluttering closed as she drank in the shocking sweetness of his hands on her. Slowly, he ran his hands down her thighs, skirting past the extremely sensitive skin at the backs of her knees, to press his fingertips into her calves so perfectly that she groaned aloud at the pleasure of his touch. He slipped off her heels and when her feet were bare, he stroked them, too, with the pads of his thumbs, as if he wanted to give every part of her pleasure, leaving nothing out. And then, finally, he drew her panties from her body, too.

"Beautiful." The one word from Noah’s lips was more of a caress than any other’s man’s touch. "So beautiful."

She opened her eyes just in time to see him lick his lips at the sight of her sex, slick and wet and completely bared to his gaze...and she finally realized he still had all of his clothes on. Immediately, she reached for his jacket and slid it from his broad shoulders.

She could feel the heat of him, the barely leashed strength beneath the pressed dress shirt, as her hand moved to the buttons that ran down his chest. She wanted him naked, wanted to see all that power without anything covering it up. He could take off his clothes much faster than she could do it for him, but there was something so sensually satisfying about her being the one to uncover him, about being able to run her fingertips over his skin, his bones, his muscles, the dark hairs on his chest that curled against her knuckles as she undid one button and then another.