"Neither do I. I consider intimacy a serious business. And I'll have intimacy from you, Kate, in bed and out. That's bottom line."
"Look—" Her throat was burning dry, her hormones bouncing. "This isn't a business contract."
"No." He backed her easily through the kitchen. "It's a personal one. That's much more involved, much more important. You put the deal on the table." He swept her into his arms. "I'm defining the terms."
"I—Maybe I have terms of my own."
"Better put them out here then. This deal's about to close."
"We need to keep this simple."
"Not an option." At the top of the stairs, he turned left, carried her through a doorway and into a room washed with the last vivid light of the western sky.
"We're healthy, unattached adults," she began, talking fast now. "This is a mutual physical relationship."
"There's more to sex than the physical." He smiled as he laid her on the bed. "I guess I'll have to show you."
He kissed her, a long, slow, lazy meeting of lips that lingered until every nerve in her body was vibrating like the strings of a plucked harp. Eager for more, she dragged him closer so that all the heat swirling through her seemed to center on their mouths.
He could have taken her in one greedy gulp. Knowing it, he eased back. "Honey, where I come from, we pace ourselves." He linked his fingers with hers so that she couldn't tear down his defenses with those narrow, nervous hands. "Now relax." He lowered his head to trail nibbling kisses along her jawline. "And enjoy." Down her throat. "We've got all the time in the world."
She thought he would kill her with patience, rip her to shreds with gentleness. His lips were soft, smooth, deliciously, devastatingly slow as they cruised over her face. Each time they met hers, he took the kiss just a degree deeper, just a whisper warmer. Her muscles went from hot wires to soft wax.
The change aroused him mercilessly. The sound of her breathing, low and deep and slow, the thrill when a breath ended on a moan, a sigh. Her quivering impatience slipped into mindless pliancy. When he unbuttoned her shirt, revealing the simple white camisole beneath, she did nothing more than murmur her pleasure.
Fascinated by the simplicity of her form, he traced his fingertips over the soft cotton, then up over softer flesh. The most subtle of curves, he mused as her breath began to quicken again at his feathering touch. Linking fingers again, he nuzzled the cotton aside, flicked his tongue over her nipple.
She arched in response, biting back a groan. So small, he thought, so firm. So sensitive. He swept his tongue under the cotton, moistening her other breast, and felt her quake beneath him.
So he suckled slowly, gently, darkly pleased with the way she writhed under him, with the quick, helpless whimpers that sounded in her throat as he increased pressure and speed.
When he felt as if he might die if he didn't plunge into her, when her hips were pistoning as if she would explode if he didn't fill her, he drew back and slipped out of bed.
"What? What?" Dazed, desperate, she sat up.
"The light's going," he said quietly. "I can't see you. I want to see you." There was the abrasive scratch of a match striking, the flare of light that softened as flame was touched to the wick of a candle, then a second, a third. And the room was suddenly rich and romantic with wavering light.
She pressed a hand to her breast, shocked to realize that the hot, quivering nerves inside belonged to her. What was he doing to her? She wanted to ask, but was afraid of the answer.
Then he tugged the T-shirt over his head, tossed it aside. She let out a breath of relief. Now—it would be now. And all these twisting sensations would smooth out into the understandable.
He stepped out of his shoes. She was only mildly surprised when he slipped hers off as well, slid his hand up her leg to just under the hem of her rucked-up skirt.
"Would you take your top off?"
All but hypnotized, she blinked at him. "What? Oh."
"Slowly," he said, laying a hand on hers before she could yank it free. "No rush."
She did as he asked because her limbs were so heavy. His gaze took a lazy journey from her face, down her torso and back again, before he took the thin cotton from her, set it aside. His eyes stayed on hers as he eased her back.
"You keep looking at me," she murmured. Her skin trembled when he slid his hands further under her skirt, when he curled his fingers around the waistband of her panty hose and began to draw them down. "I don't know what you expect."
"Neither do I. I thought we'd find out together." He lowered his head and pressed his lips to her inner thigh. "Now I know why you always walk as if you were ten minutes late for a five-minute appointment. It's all this leg. All this long leg."
"Byron." She was burning up. Good God, couldn't he feel it? "I can't take this."
But she would, he thought, and unhooked her skirt. "I haven't even started yet." He slipped the skirt off and quivered himself at the sight of that slim, angular body in his bed. Resting a bent knee on the bed, he cupped her. She bowed back, pressing desperately against him.