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  “Unh,” he said, as she swept her tongue fiercely into his mouth. And then his hands were in her hair, on her throat, on her breasts. He was touching her everywhere, as if he wanted to feel all of her at once and didn’t know where to start. But then his hands slid down her back to her derriere, pressing her hips tightly against him, holding her in place as he slanted his head and kissed her even harder.

  She opened her legs, taking advantage of the slit up the side of her dress, and she rubbed the inside of her thigh against his. His hand caught her leg, and he pressed her still closer to him.

  Joe’s mouth slid down to her neck as his hand cupped her breast. The roughness of his callused fingers rasped against the silk as he stroked the hard bud of her nipple.

  “Oh, man,” Joe breathed between kisses, as he slipped his hand under the fabric of her top, and touched her, really touched her, with nothing between his fingers and her flesh. “For how many days have I been dying to touch you like this?”

  Veronica’s fingers fumbled with the buttons of his jacket. “Probably the same number of days I’ve been dying for you to touch me like that.”

  He lifted his head, looking into her eyes. “Really?” His gaze was so intense, so serious. “Maybe it was love at first sight, huh?”

  Veronica felt her own smile fade as her pulse kicked into overtime. “Love?” she whispered, hardly daring to hope that this incredible man could possibly love her, too.

  Joe looked away, down at his hand still cupping her breast. “Love…lust… Whatever.” He shrugged and kissed her again.

  Veronica tried to hide her disappointment. Whatever. Well, all right. “Whatever” was better than not being desired. “Whatever” was what she’d been expecting—what he’d told her to expect from him right from the start.

  But she didn’t want to think about that now. She didn’t want to think about anything but the way he was making her feel as he kissed and caressed her.

  Joe pulled back then, and looked into her eyes. Slowly he slid the dress’s narrow strap off her right shoulder. As it fell away, the silk covering her breast fell away, too.

  And still he gazed into her eyes.

  Veronica felt the coolness of the air as it touched her skin. And then she felt Joe, as he lightly ran one finger across the tip of her breast. She felt her body tighten, felt her nipples grow more taut, even more fully aroused.

  He held her gaze longer than she would have believed possible before his eyes dropped down to caress the bareness of her breast.

  “God,” he breathed, moistening his lips with the tip of his tongue. “You’re so beautiful.”

  They were frozen in place as if time had somehow stopped. But time hadn’t stopped. Her heart was still beating, and with every beat, every surge of blood through her veins, Veronica wanted him even more.

  But still he didn’t touch her; at least, no more than another of those light-as-a-feather brushes with one finger. And she wanted him to touch her. She wanted him, so very badly, to touch her.

  “If you don’t touch me, I’m going to scream,” she said from between clenched teeth.

  Joe’s smile turned hot. “Is that a threat or a promise?” he asked.

  “Both,” she said, lost in the heat of his eyes. She was begging now. “Touch me.”

  “Where?” he asked, his voice hoarse. “How?”

  “My breast, your mouth,” she said. “Now. Please.”

  He didn’t hesitate. He brought his mouth to her breast and swept his tongue across her sensitive nipple. Veronica cried out, and he drew her into his mouth, pulling hard.

  She reached for him, pushing his jacket off his shoulders. The buttons on his shirt were so tiny, so difficult to unfasten. But she wanted his shirt off. She wanted to run her hands against all those incredible muscles in his chest and shoulders and arms. She wanted to feel the satiny smoothness of his skin beneath her fingers.

  She could hear her voice moaning her pleasure as Joe suckled and kissed her again and again.

  But then he lifted his head and, stopping only to kiss her deeply on the mouth, he gazed into her eyes again. “What else do you want?” he demanded. “Tell me what you want.”

  “I want this bloody shirt off you,” she said, still worrying the buttons.

  He reached up with both hands and pulled. Buttons flew everywhere, but the shirt was open. He yanked it off his arms.

  Veronica touched his smooth, tanned muscles with the palms of her hands, closing her eyes at the sensation, running her fingers through the curly dark hair on his chest. Oh, yes. He was so beautiful, so solid.

  “Tell me what you want,” Joe said again. “Come on, Ronnie, tell me where you want me to touch you.”

  She opened her eyes. “I want you to touch every single inch of me with every single inch of you. I want you and me on that bed in the other room. I want to feel you between my legs, Joe—”

  Joe picked her up. He simply swept her effortlessly into his arms and carried her into the bedroom.

  Veronica had her hands on the button of his pants before he yanked back the bedcover and laid her on the clean white sheets.

  As she unfastened his sash, he found the zipper in the back of her dress. As he peeled her dress down toward her hips, she unzipped his pants and pushed them over his incredible rear end.

  Her dress landed with a hiss of silk on the carpet and Joe pulled back, nearly burning her with his eyes as he took her in, lying propped up on her elbows on the bed, wearing only her black lace panties and a pair of thigh-high stockings. Lord, when he looked at her like that, with that fire in his eyes, she felt like the sexiest woman in the world.

  She sat up, taking the last of the pins from her hair.

  Slowly, he pushed off his shoes and stepped out of his trousers, still watching her.

  Veronica was watching him, too. She rolled first one and then the other stocking from her legs as she let herself look at Joe. He was wearing only a pair of white briefs. She’d seen him in running shorts before, shorts that were nearly as brief, that exposed almost as much of his magnificent body. But this time she really let herself look.

  His shoulders were broad and solid as rock. His arms were powerful and so very big. She couldn’t have even begun to span his biceps with both of her hands, although she wanted rather desperately to try. His chest was wide and covered with thick dark hair. His muscles were clearly defined, and they rippled sensually when he so much as breathed. His stomach was a washboard of ridges and valleys, his hips narrow, his legs as strong as steel.

  Yes, when she’d seen him run, although she’d tried not to look, she’d managed to memorize his body in amazing, precise detail, down to the scars on his shoulder and left leg, and the anchor tattoo on his arm.

  But tonight there were some differences. She let her eyes linger on the enormous bulge straining the front of his briefs.

  Veronica looked up to find Joe watching her, a small smile playing across his lips.

  “Part of me wants to stand here and just look at you all night,” he said.

  She glanced down at his arousal, then smiled into his eyes. “Another part of you won’t be very happy if you do that.”

  “Damn straight,” he said with a laugh.

  “Do I really have to beg you to come over here?” Veronica asked.

  “No.”

  And then he was next to her on the bed and she was in his arms, and Lord, he was kissing her, touching her, running his hands across her body, filling her mouth with his tongue, tangling her legs with his.

  It was ecstasy. Veronica had never felt anything remotely like it before. It was the sweetest, purest, most powerful passion she had ever known.

  This was love, she thought. This incredible whirlwind of emotions and heightened sensations was love. It carried her higher, to an intellectual and emotional plane she’d never before imagined, and at the same time, it stripped her bare of every ounce of civility she had, leaving her ruled by ferocious passion, enslaved by the burning needs of