Chapter 18

He needed air and he broke away only long enough to pull oxygen into his starving lungs. She gasped along with him, and then he started at the corner of her mouth and licked and kissed his way across to the other corner.

Her small hands slid up his chest. It was like a heating element sliding over his skin. She left a blazing trail of fierce need in her wake. His entire body came alive, and all she’d done was touch him. Innocently.

They wound up around his neck and then her fingertips just delved into the hair at his nape. He shuddered, and it was all he could do to retain his tight hold on his control.

His body screamed at him to haul her over his shoulder and drag her caveman-style to the bedroom. He’d rip off her clothes and spend the night taking her over and over until they both succumbed to exhaustion.

His mind yelled at him to be careful. To take it slow. Not to push her so far away that she never returned.

It was that fear of driving her away pe