Rolling onto her side, she snaked her hand between their bodies to measure his dimensions with her hand. In response, he trembled.

  “Easy, tiger,” he said.

  “Let me feel you.”

  “I’ve wanted you a long time. I’m working with a hair trigger here.”

  “You said whatever came into my mind,” she said. “Naked. Now.”

  Lifting his hips, he pushed the pajama bottoms down and then squirmed out of them. Now, she could touch him directly, circle her fingers around his girth, and rub the velvet tip of him with her palm. His hand closed over hers, stilling its movement.

  “You can explore some other time, okay?” he said. “I seriously need to get inside you.”

  “Oh yes,” she whispered.

  “First, I’m going to make you ready.”

  Whatever that involved, it sounded good. She lay back and let him run his big hand over her body to the waistband of her pajamas. When he pushed it downward, she helped him remove the last bit of clothing that separated them. Now, he stretched out beside her, propped up on his elbow while his fingers went to the lips of her sex.

  “You’re already wet, baby,” he murmured.

  Burying her nose in his shoulder, she did her best to hide her face.

  “That’s a good thing,” he said. “It makes me proud you want me so much.”

  “I do.”

  “Look at me while I touch you,” he said.

  “Can’t.”

  “Sure, you can. Try it.”

  His finger landed on her most sensitive flesh, sending a current of fire through her sex. Her body jerked, and she found herself staring up into his face. He still wore the lazy smile of an aroused male.

  “That’s the spot, huh?” he said.

  “Ethan.” His name came out half a plea for mercy and the other half begging for more.

  He touched her again, stroking gently. “You’re hard.”

  “Yes, yes.” Now, she could only surrender. Shyness no longer mattered. Her imperfections didn’t count for anything. Even the fact that he wanted her retreated to the back of her mind somewhere. Nothing existed except for the movements of his finger. The flicking and rolling and . . . oh! . . . the constant press, press, press.

  “Hot. Sweet.” He dipped his finger inside her. It made a wet sound coming out, and then he went back to rubbing her in a maddening rhythm that promised to push her past the boundary but never quite got there.

  “Please,” she moaned. “Please. I need . . .”

  “Ready for me?”

  “God, yes. Now.”

  “I thought you’d never ask.” He positioned himself between her legs. Now, instead of his fingers, the smooth head of his shaft slid between her folds. When the time came, it took no effort to accept his bulk as he slid easily into her. When he’d embedded himself fully, he held himself still over her, supported on his upper arms.

  “Baby, you feel good.”

  She couldn’t have spoken to save her life. She could breathe in only shallow puffs of air against his neck. No man had ever filled her so completely, owned her body so totally with his own.

  Then, to top that miracle, he moved inside her—a slow surge and retreat that stroked her inner walls. In total bliss overload, she closed her eyes, shutting out everything but him. His scent, the stroke of his skin against hers, the passage of his sex inside her.

  “Ah, damn,” he breathed. “Too good.”

  She let her hands drift over his back, downward to where his muscles bunched to create those amazing thrusts. He moved faster now, going deeper and harder.

  “Not going to last,” he said. “Make it up to you.”

  Oh no. The mere thought that he might leave her was too much. That he could create this heaven and then take it away from her. She wrapped her legs around him, holding him against her. That made him even more frantic, his thrusting almost violent. It also brought him slamming against her hot button, and suddenly “not going to last” made all the sense in the world. The earlier fire he’d built came back even stronger. The flames licked at her, creating a buzzing, sparkling spiral inside her.

  Finally, she snapped, and the world exploded into shards of brilliance behind her eyelids. Her sex seized on him and then broke into powerful spasms. She sobbed and then cried out at its force.

  He stayed with her through the whole eruption and then roared as he pounded into her a few more times and stiffened in her arms. Inside her sex, he’d be spilling his lust. She could only pray that it was half as good as what he’d given her.

  Finally, moaning, he rolled off her, pulling her with him so that they lay side by side in each other’s arms. After tucking her head under his chin, he stroked her hair from her face.

  “Ethan,” she said.

  “Hmm?”

  “We’re going to get cold if we don’t pull the covers up.”

  “I know,” he said, as he took a deep breath. “In a minute.”

  “Ethan.”

  “Hmm?”

  “Was it . . .” She pressed a kiss to his chest rather than finish her question.

  “Good?” he said. “Baby, you know it was.”

  She didn’t say anything but lay, listening to his heart.

  “Don’t you?” he said.

  “Sure.” Why had she even asked the stupid question? She sat up, fumbled for the covers, and tugged them up to cover both of their bodies.

  He pulled back and looked into her eyes. “Laura, when a woman has an orgasm like that, it makes a guy feel like a superstud.”

  “I was asking about yours.”

  “It took the top of my head off.”

  Her innards felt all warm and runny for a minute. “I’m glad.”

  “Don’t ever worry about satisfying me,” he said. “That is not going to be a problem.”

  “I’m really glad,” she said and wormed her way back into his arms again, burying her face into the furrow between his pecs.

  “I hope that tow truck takes a long time getting here,” he said. “We have a lot of work to do on you, and I’m going to love every minute of it.”

  Chapter Three

  ETHAN CHECKED THE oven for probably the tenth time. What in hell was he worried about? Everything would stay warm, and the pancakes wouldn’t dry out unless Laura slept past noon. Only what kind of human being didn’t wake up to the smell of bacon frying?

  He ought to give up trying to kid himself. He didn’t have a breakfast-is-getting-cold problem. He had a missing-Laura problem. Every minute seemed like an hour that he couldn’t wrap his arms around her and kiss her and look into those gorgeous brown eyes. Thank God he’d thought to let the fire go out the night before.

  Why in hell wouldn’t she wake up?

  He poured himself a second mug of coffee and went to the floor-to-ceiling windows to stare out at the landscape. Snow covered everything. It even climbed so high up the pines that the lower branches met the piles on the ground, weighed down as they were by piles of white of their own. It looked magical.

  If he were a romantic kind of guy, he’d probably think up some comparison with a fairy tale or something. The princess isolated in her palace until the knight came to save her. Thank heaven, he wasn’t prone to that kind of silliness.

  Glancing up at the loft yet again accomplished nothing, so he cleared his throat loudly. When that didn’t produce results, he went to directly below where Laura still slept on and coughed a few times. Finally, something moved up there, and her head appeared over the edge.

  “Morning, sleepy head,” he called.

  She looked tousled and slightly disoriented, her eyes not focusing completely. She rubbed her face. “Wow, did I sleep.”

  “I noticed.”

  “Is that coffee?”

  “What else?” he asked, lifting his mug. “French roast.”

  “I’ll be right down.”

  “I put Jeff’s robe up there for you.” Fewer layers and easier to open than her pajamas. Heaven help him if she put both on. He’d scorned anything more than a robe himself, and for the same reason. Easier to strip.

  He smiled as he went back into the kitchen, allowing her to come down on her own. The eagerness for her ought to come as no surprise. He’d thought about her for six years, dragging out the memories to torment himself with what-ifs. What if he’d let her succeed in undoing his fly and taking out his cock? Would she have dropped to her knees to suck on the head and then slide her lips down the shaft? Would she have gotten him so hot he’d have to make a burrow for them under all the coats and jackets on the bed so that he could fuck her brains out with their whole graduating class just down the hall? Would she have come like a rocket taking off and blast him into the stratosphere with her?

  Now he knew the answers. Yes yes yes. Not only that, but she was even better than he’d imagined.

  As he got the food out of the oven and took it to the table he’d already set, the soft sound of footfalls came up behind him.

  “Just look at that,” she said.

  He turned to discover she’d gone to the windows and was gazing wide-eyed at the snowscape.

  “Good thing we didn’t end up stuck in it,” he said.

  “It’s beautiful.”

  “Jeff has snowshoes. We can tromp around outside if you have warm clothing.”

  “I’ll find something.” She went to her bag and got out a small travel case. “Breakfast smells great. Let me just wash up.”

  He nodded and watched as she went to the bathroom. She hadn’t bothered with her pj’s, and there wasn’t anything else in there for her to put on. He’d have her seminaked when she came back out. His plan was working. As soon as he’d eaten breakfast, he’d get some dessert. If he got through breakfast without his member giving his intentions away.

  While she did what women did in the bathroom first thing in the morning, he finished setting the table. He’d put it by the double-paned windows so that they could bask in the warm sunlight and stare out at the beauty of the snow-covered mountains in the distance. He didn’t have flowers or cloth napkins, but he did pour the maple syrup into a small pitcher. Once he’d set out the coffee carafe, everything looked pretty good.

  Not as good as Laura did, though. When she came back, she gave him a shy smile. It curved her lips in a particularly delicious way, so as soon as he had her seated, pushing in her chair for her, he took his own place across from her. The table could hide his member because the lesson he was about to give her, for sure, was going to make him stiff.

  He piled some pancakes on her plate and then served himself. Furrowing her brow, she looked down at the generous helping he’d given her. “After that huge steak last night, you expect me to eat all that?”

  “If it tastes good,” he said. “I want you to enjoy yourself in every physical way possible.”

  “I’ll blow up like a balloon.”

  To make his point, he slid several slices of bacon from the platter onto her plate. “We’re going to be here for only a few days.”

  “I’ll have to spend hours in the gym to work it all off.”

  “Women. Half of you want to look like porn stars,” he said. “And the other half want to look like sticks.”

  “You know porn stars?”

  He stopped with his fork halfway to his mouth. “Did I say I did?”

  “Then, how do you know what they look like?”

  He didn’t answer that dumb question, just stared back at her.

  “Oh,” she said.

  “Don’t tell me you’ve never watched an adult movie.”

  This time, she was the one who kept her mouth shut, but her cheeks flamed a hot pink.

  “You’re blushing again,” he said.

  “No one ever died of blushing, a wise man once said.”

  She remembered. How touching.

  “I think it’s time we got you over some of your shyness,” he said.

  “How do you plan to do that?”

  He stared into his coffee. “Let’s practice talking dirty.”

  “Dirty, like . . . um . . . how?”

  He glanced back up at her. “The way you talked to me before.”

  “I don’t remember much,” she said. “I was intoxicated at the time.”

  “Okay, we’ll start from the beginning and go from there?” he said. “What do you call your privates?”

  “Privates?” She hooted softly. “You call that talking dirty?”

  “I want to know what you call that place between your legs.”

  She nibbled on her bottom lip for a moment. “It’s my sex.”

  He hooted right back at her. “You call that talking dirty?”

  “Okay, vulva. Vagina.”

  “That’s medical, Laura. It’s not dirty.”

  She leaned back and crossed her arms over her chest. “What do you call it?”

  “Your pussy.”

  “That figures.” She picked up her fork and shoved a big slice of pancakes into her mouth.

  “Go ahead, say it,” he said. “I dare you. Say ‘my pussy.’ ”

  She mumbled something around her food.

  “Chew first,” he said. “I’ll wait.”

  Finally, she swallowed and then took a drink of her coffee. When she couldn’t escape the inevitable any longer, she set her mug back down. “It’s my pussy. Satisfied?”

  Oh brother. “It’s incredibly sexy when you put it that way.”

  “Come on. I said it, all right?”

  “All right. What did we do last night?”

  She stared at him out of the corner of her eye. “We had sex.”

  “Bzzzt. Wrong.”

  “We didn’t make love. It was a business deal.”

  Come to think of it, sex that good felt like making love to him, even if they weren’t ever likely to use the l word in serious conversation.

  “You must be able to think of another word.”

  “We balled. We screwed. We shtupped,” she said.

  “You’re getting warmer.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “I know what you want me to say.”

  Leaning across the table, he stuck his nose as close to hers as he could. “So, say it.”

  “We fucked,” she shouted. “Satisfied?”

  “Oh yeah, baby. We fucked. And it satisfied me for a while.” Not a whole lot longer though, because he was well on the way to requiring another good fucking.

  She groaned. “You’re impossible.”

  “So, what do you call the thing in my pants?” Or in his robe, in this case. Getting fully erect and sticking out of the gap between the halves.

  “I don’t suppose penis is the right answer.”

  “Only if you’re my doctor.”

  “It’s your member, your dick, your tool, your rod, your cock,” she said. “Should I go on?”

  “That’s enough,” he answered. “For now.”

  “I don’t think I’m done, though. Now that you’ve unlocked my inhibitions, let me tell you what I’d like to do with your instrument.”

  “Knock yourself out.”

  “Well, Mr. Gould, what I’d like to do is suck on your cock.”

  He took a drink of his coffee, smiling at her over the rim. “Good girl.”

  “I’d like to swallow your dick, but there’s probably too much of that, so maybe I’ll just run my tongue around the head until you squirm.”

  She had a hidden talent for dirty talk, obviously. If he weren’t already turned on in a major way, she’d accomplish that in no more than a few seconds. In a minute, he’d be bumping up against the underside of the table if she got any better.

  “In fact, I’d like to nibble on you,” she said. “Gently, of course. I wouldn’t want to do any damage to that huge erection.”

  “I’d lay off exaggeration, if I were you,” he said. “It makes the rest of your speech less believable.”

  “But it is huge.” She stroked the saltshaker, running her fingers up and down the way she might pump his shaft. Either the sun coming through the windows had gotten warmer somehow, or she was making him seriously hot.

  “You know what?” she went on, as she picked up the syrup pitcher. “I’d like to pour this all over you and suck it off.”

  “You want to pour that on my prick?”

  “Prick,” she declared. “I forgot that one.”

  “I’ll remind you if you forget again.”

  “Prick,” she repeated, rising from her chair with the pitcher still in her hand. “I’d like to use this to turn your prick into a lollipop.”

  His jaw dropped. “You’re kidding, right?”

  “Come on, Ethan, we both know you have major wood under the table.”

  “Major wood?” Great, now he was the one who sounded like an echo.

  “I know all the words. I just don’t use them.” She bent over and placed an innocent kiss on his lips. “Now, be a good boy and turn your chair around.”

  Good Lord, she meant it. “That stuff is sticky.”

  “I’m going to lick it all off. If I miss any, we can take a shower together, and I’ll wash you.” She gave him a wicked grin. “I can lather you up and fondle you all the way down to your balls.”

  “I think I’ve been punked,” he said. “You obviously know what you’re doing.”

  “Are you going to turn around, or do I have to operate under the table?”

  Put that way, his choice was obvious. If he didn’t cooperate, he wouldn’t get to watch her as her lips covered the tip of his cock and then slid down the shaft. She was going to give him a blow job, and if he had to put up with a little stickiness in the short hairs, so be it. Thank goodness he’d heated the pancakes, not the syrup.

  Finally, he obeyed her order and turned his chair outward. She took one look at him and grinned.