Total pages in book: 92
Estimated words: 86020 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 430(@200wpm)___ 344(@250wpm)___ 287(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 86020 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 430(@200wpm)___ 344(@250wpm)___ 287(@300wpm)
Staring at his cotton-clad chest, she murmured, “I decree that you shall never wear a T-shirt under your dress shirt ever again.”
He raised one eyebrow, Fernsby-like. “Why not, pray tell?”
She ran her fingers over the soft cotton undershirt. “Because I don’t want any more impediments than necessary when I undress you.”
He picked her up then, swinging her around the room until she giggled. Then he set her back on her feet and dragged the T-shirt over his head. “I don’t intend to let you be dressed at all.” He went at the buttons of her silk blouse with gusto.
“You want me to work in my robe?”
“In your robe with nothing underneath.” His heart leaped with all the needs and desires racing through his body. “Or your workout clothes. Don’t you know that’s why I never worked out with you? Those tight leggings of yours damn near drove me insane.”
She laughed, a low, husky tone that made him twitch. “And here I was dying to see you get all sweaty and sexy while you lifted weights.”
“I can see a lot of workouts in our future.” He kissed the tip of her nose. “Here’s another idea for office attire. One of those sexy sundresses you always wear on the island. Those little dresses haunted my dreams.”
She ran her finger down his chest to the waistband of his slacks. “Did you know you have this sexy line of hair that goes right down here? I saw it every time you raced into the ocean for a swim.” She trailed her fingers over the outside of his slacks.
At her touch, he surged to full strength.
“Oh, that deserves payback,” he growled, pushing aside the lapels of her blouse to stroke her breasts through the tantalizing lacy bra.
She moaned as he unsnapped the front clasp. Then he did what he craved, bending to take a tight pearl into his mouth.
His name fell from her lips on a groan. “Dane.” Then she pushed him to a standing position once more, her skin glistening where he’d licked her.
“Do you know how many times I’ve cried out your name in the night?” she whispered.
And here he’d thought she had her emotions under lock and key. “I never heard you.”
“I was very quiet. But I never stopped thinking about that night. I never stopped wanting it again.”
He framed her beautiful face with his hands, her skin smooth against his palms. “I thought about you every night. I wish now we hadn’t waited so long.”
She swirled his chest hair beneath her finger. “We needed to know each other inside and out.” And Lochlan had needed to be her priority.
“We needed everything that happened in the last twelve years to teach us there’s no one else in the world for us but each other.” He whispered, “I love you.”
Then, as if every minute of all those years had just caught up with him, he kissed her with all the passion inside him, all the lost nights, all the fantasies that filled his dreams, all the moments he’d looked at her across the office and wanted her, needed her.
Even with his lips locked to hers, he reached behind her and unzipped her sexy pencil skirt, letting it fall to the carpet. And she worked his belt buckle, unzipping and pushing his slacks over his hips. Her bra fluttered to the bed as he slid the straps down her arms.
Then he toed out of his shoes and socks, never letting her lips slip from beneath his as he plundered her mouth. As she plundered his. Finally, even the last scraps of fabric that kept them apart—his boxer shorts, her silk panties—fell to the floor.
And he dove on her.
* * *
She’d waited so long to feel Dane’s weight on her. He’d made love to her at the manor, and that had been beautiful and perfect. But he hadn’t said he loved her. And she hadn’t been able to confess she loved him.
Now, there was nothing between them, nothing held back. He kissed her with the passion of her dreams. He kissed her with the memory of that night so long ago, when it had been so good she’d needed rules to make sure it didn’t happen again. He kissed her with the love they shared.
Pulling back slightly, he dazzled her with the laser blue of his eyes. “I need to taste every bit of you, like I’ve never tasted you before.”
To beg was a delight. “Please.”
He helped her back onto the rose petals Fernsby had scattered across the sheets, the sweet scent rising up to mesmerize her. Or maybe that was the feel of Dane’s silky dark waves beneath her fingers as he kissed his way down her body. His tongue on her throat made her tremble, his mouth on the tight bead of her breast dragged a moan from her lips, his fingers trailing down her abdomen drew a shiver of need from deep inside. Then he fell into the vee of her legs, looking up, his gaze so hot it scorched her flesh.