And his hand on her back was turning her into marshmallow.
She stifled a sigh and swayed to the strains of romantic music, memorizing the feel of his chest pressed lightly against her breasts, his thighs brushing hers, his arms around her, his breath on her forehead. No, she couldn’t allow herself to become too deeply involved with him. It wouldn’t work. He deserved someone who could give more, who wanted to give more.
But, Lord, she wanted him! The sensual side of herself that she’d sternly repressed for the past few years responded to him in a way that she’d responded to no man before him, not even Steven. She was tormented by images, images that had formed in her mind the moment she’d met him. His head bent to hers, his hand on her thigh, his mouth at her breast. Her hands buried deep in his luxurious ebony hair, her lips tasting the firm, glistening skin of his chest. She groaned softly.
“Did you say something?” Jeff asked, still moving in a slow, tantalizing dance.
“No,” she assured him without looking up.
An affair. The modern, sophisticated thing to do would be to have an affair with him. An affair that she controlled—taken at her own speed, ended when she was ready. The ultimate in liberation. She wanted him, he’d indicated that he wanted her. Why not? She’d learned years before that sex and marriage—even sex and love—did not necessarily have to go together. Consenting adults did it every day—met, acknowledged mutual attraction, slept together and parted, unscarred by the experience. She was twenty-five, no longer an innocent small-town girl in the throes of infatuation. She could handle it.
Couldn’t she?
Of course she could.
The music ended. Jeff stepped back and smiled at her. Her heart jumped into her throat.
Then again, maybe she couldn’t.
“WOULD YOU LIKE to come in?”
“Um, I don’t think so. It’s late.” Autumn had the oddest sense of postponing the inevitable as she declined Jeff’s invitation, but she still felt compelled to try.
“Could you spare just a minute? I’d like your advice on something.”
She looked at him suspiciously, finding his expression blandly innocent in the murky light inside her car. “What?”
“Pool lights, remember?” He sounded surprised that she hadn’t known. “I told you that I’d like your advice on redoing them.”
“At—” she squinted at the lighted clock on her dashboard “—one o’clock in the morning?”
He lifted one shoulder in a half shrug. “If you’re too tired, it’s okay. I understand. We’ll do it another time.”
With an inward sigh at her own lack of judgment. Autumn reached for her door handle. “All right, I’ll look at it,” she told him, swinging her legs out from under the steering wheel. Of course she didn’t believe that Jeff had invited her in only to look at his pool, but then, that wasn’t her purpose for going in with him, either.
It might be the dumbest thing she’d ever done, she decided, but the past couple of hours spent dancing in Jeff’s arms had left her hungry for more of him. She’d made her token protest to salve her own conscience later; now she was giving in to desire and curiosity. After five years of caution and control she figured she owed herself one evening of impulsive pleasure.
Without speaking, Jeff led her straight through his house—as immaculate as she remembered it—and then through double glass doors to the screened-in patio containing his pool. Glancing almost indifferently around her, Autumn briefly noted the romantically subdued lighting, tastefully contemporary patio furniture and lush profusion of tropical plants before turning immediately back to Jeff. At that moment she had no interest in anything but him.
Jeff stared back at her, his hands in his pockets, his face carefully shuttered, but his eyes glowing with what could only be interpreted as hunger. A hunger to equal hers. Autumn locked suddenly icy fingers in front of her, her heart beginning to pound.
“So, uh—” he strengthened his voice with a visible effort“—what do you think?”
“About what?” she asked in little more than a whisper. Even that small sound seemed to reverberate in the middle-of-the-night stillness surrounding them, isolating them.
“The lights.” He gestured awkwardly with one hand, the movement meant to include the entire patio.
“I think they’re perfect.” For just this little while, Autumn thought, everything was perfect. The evening, the setting, the mood. The man. She ached for him to touch her.
His gaze holding hers, Jeff took a slow step forward. And then another. And then s
he was in his arms, and finally he was kissing her as she’d longed for him to kiss her, as she’d dreaded for him to kiss her. Even as she gave herself up to the devastating effects of the embrace, she tried to convince herself that one kiss could not change her entire life.
Jeff swallowed a groan as his hold tightened convulsively around the beautiful woman in his arms. He told himself that her passionate response shouldn’t come as a surprise, but it did. He hadn’t expected such glorious enthusiasm.
Her arms were around his neck, her full breasts crushed against his chest. Her bare back was warm and yielding beneath his eager palms, making him ravenous for more of her. He swept the depths of her mouth, savoring the sweet taste of her. Her tongue welcomed his, and this time he couldn’t hold back his groan of pleasure.
Desire had never come so swiftly, need so powerfully. Jeff wanted her so desperately that he thought he would shatter into dust if he couldn’t have her. He ached, he throbbed with desire for her. Inside his head, his chest. His arms, his legs. The painfully swollen part of him that was even now pressing into her stomach. He groaned again when she moved closer, her body undulating sinuously against him.