Going All the Way

His gaze melted with hers, and he sucked in his own breath, his expression almost one of agony. Maybe he was afraid she’d push him away. As if that were even possible. Her entire body was starving for him.

She laced her fingers behind his neck and pulled him to her. His lips met hers eagerly, and the moment his tongue slid into her mouth, she felt dizzy with joy. This was what she’d longed for. This was what she’d remembered, what had kept her awake on nights she should’ve been missing Patrick but hadn’t.

A small voice trying to be heard over the rush of desire warned, this was what was going to break her heart.

4

DAVID’S FINGERS were tangled in the damp softness of Serena’s hair, and his thoughts were tangled in the overpowering desire that had snared him as soon as she’d opened the front door.

As sexually frustrated as he’d been when he got back to his hotel room last night, he’d known he’d handled dinner the right way, always retreating before his flirting went too far. Changing Serena’s mind about this platonic nonsense required finesse, which had clearly been shot to hell the moment he’d set foot in this apartment. There’d been no misinterpreting the way she’d looked at him with those hot brown eyes. He’d been overwhelmed by the need in her expression, the fresh, exotic scent of her, the memories of the last time he’d been here.

Winning her over slowly was overrated. New plan: kissing her passionately.

Her hands skimmed up and down his back, bunching the material of his shirt and raking over his tensed muscles. He slid his own hands along the curve of her spine past her waist, kneading her round hips with his fingers as he pulled her against him. Her tongue met his, and hunger reverberated through him with the force of a tsunami.

There was no way to deepen the already carnal kiss, but he could bring them closer together, eliminate the barriers between them. Gripping the hem, he shoved her pale purple shirt upward. He brushed over the delicate gold navel ring that had shimmered in his memories, and his erection swelled to almost painful proportions. Unlike in his memories, she was wearing a bra today, but the frothy scrap of lace could hardly be described as an obstacle. He ran his palm over her, and she moaned her approval, arching into his hand. He wanted to fill his hands with her, wanted to fill her, period.

He lifted her shirt, and she raised her arms so he could remove it. But with their kiss broken, she blinked up at him like someone waking from a trance. When he settled his arms back around her, she sighed his name.

“David.” It wasn’t so much rapturous desire as wistful regret.

Hell.

He stared into her eyes. “You don’t want me to kiss you?”

She bit her lip, her face flushed the same rosy pink as the bra he’d love to slide off of her. Though she didn’t answer, the tightness of her hold on him was encouraging.

“To touch you?” He traced his index finger in a slow circle around one silk-covered nipple. Maybe he wasn’t playing fair, but he was playing to win. They were fantastic together—he just had to persuade her of that.

“I, um…” She swallowed convulsively. “Damn, it’s hot in here.”

It wasn’t the room. It was all her. He reached behind her and cupped his hand under the ice-maker, then lifted a crescent-shaped cube to the back of her neck. Catching a handful of honey-blond curls and twisting them up off her nape, he drew the ice down over her skin. “Better?”

Not even the frigid droplets of water dripping between his fingers could quell the heat spreading in his body. Only Serena could put out that fire. He trailed a wet, shivery path across the top of her shoulder and down over her collarbone. She trembled, her eyes closing as her head tilted back. Tracing the rapidly melting piece of ice back and forth over the slopes of her small, perfect breasts, he fumbled one-handed with the clasp at her back. He’d seen her in his imagination a hundred times since August, but that only intensified his need for the reality.

The bra fluttered to the floor, but he didn’t touch her immediately. He made them both wait, drawing a cold, slippery, straight line down her flat abdomen. Then, he changed direction, traveling up the column of her throat, dipping the ice across her parted lips. He pitched what was left of the cube into the sink behind them and bent to kiss away the cold.

She whimpered into his mouth, meshing her hands in his hair, and sucked on his tongue, greedy for him in a way that decimated his self-control. All he wanted in the world was to bury himself inside her. He settled temporarily for stroking his thumbs over her hard nipples in quick, insistent caresses as he kissed her neck.

Shifting her weight for balance, she bent her right leg up around his hip. Serena’s flexibility was enough to make a grown man weep with joy. Cupping her backside, he pressed her closer as they kissed. He couldn’t stop himself from moving against her, and she ground her own hips to meet his. As he reached for the zipper on her pants, he realized she was tugging at his clothes, too. He didn’t have the remaining strength and coordination to support them both and explore her with the thoroughness he desired. Shrugging out of his shirt, he pulled her down to the smooth, cool surface of the linoleum floor with him.

Her capris remained on, but were loose around her waist as she lay on her side. With one arm around her, he nudged her to her back, finally in a position to lavish her breasts with hungry attention. He sucked on one engorged tip, then switched sides as he slid a hand down inside the silky confines of her panties. And then into the hot silky confines of her.

She was so wet. He brushed his fingers against her damp, swollen flesh, easily moving in and out of her, and the intimate knowledge of just how aroused she was spurred him to a more frantic pace. Before he fully comprehended what was happening, her soft, breathy murmurs became a wordless cry and she stiffened against his hand, her body bucking with small, silent ripples.

He’d had no idea she was so close. The intensity of her reaction was a marvel—making him feel powerful and humble and protective. He hugged her to him, partly to give her a moment to catch her breath, partly to express some of the wordless emotion that had swelled inside him.

She buried her face into his bare chest. “That…I don’t normally—It’s been a while.”

Hypocritically pleased as he was by the fact she hadn’t done this any time recently, his male pride was still a little pricked by her reasoning. Her exploding in his arms was not due to a dry spell, dammit, it was the chemistry between them. The perfect way to prove that would be to bring her to a second orgasm now, when she could no longer claim a sex-starved body.

But she didn’t give him that chance. She was already scooting away, her gaze darting around the kitchen, most likely seeking her discarded shirt. Damn, damn, damn.

“Serena.” Short of imploring her to change her mind, he wasn’t sure what to say. Not to mention his body was aroused to such a frustrating degree he was having a hard time speaking. Pun intended.

But along with the receding passion in her dazed expression, he saw confusion and vulnerability. The last thing he’d wanted was to upset her—he’d only been trying to convince her there was something between them. Something potent.

The tiny frown lines puckering her forehead sliced across his heart. She looked lost. He clenched his fists at his sides to keep himself from reaching for her again.

“I’m sorry.” Her words were almost a sob as she clutched her shirt to her front. “That was incredibly selfish of me. I shouldn’t have allowed things to get so carried away when I never intended to let them…I didn’t mean to do that to you.”

“It’s not that you owe me anything, Serena. I enjoyed that as much as you did.” He gritted his teeth against the discomfort of uneased need. “All right, maybe not as much, but I touched you because I wanted to. And because it was what you wanted.” For reasons he still didn’t get, she was reluctant to admit it.

She zipped her pants as she rose, then shrugged into her shirt. He wondered if it was pathetically simple-minded of him that for the rest of the day he’d be thinking about the fact she had no bra on underneath.