“Very good. Want a taste?”
“Um, no, thanks.”
“Mind if I taste yours?”
“Go ahead.” She held her cone out to him.
Ignoring it, he turned and lowered his mouth to hers, kissing her for the first time that evening. Autumn closed her eyes and clung to him with her free hand, feeling as if she were melting faster than the ice cream still clutched in her other hand. Chocolate mint and cherry vanilla combined in the most exotically erotic taste she’d ever experienced as Jeff deepened the kiss. “Mmm,” he murmured when he finally released her mouth. “Delicious.”
It took her a full minute to catch her breath. By that time Jeff had already turned her in the crook of his arm and begun to walk again. Spotting a trash can, Autumn tossed the remains of her ice-cream cone into it. It seemed to have lost its flavor. Without a word Jeff followed her example. She looked up to find him staring down at her. Her head tilted back, her eyelids closed, and he was kissing her again, thoroughly, hungrily, as if he’d been wanting to do so for hours, for days, for a week.
Jeff tightened his arms around her, his body hardening, his mind beginning to whirl. He’d long since accepted that kissing her had these effects on him; each time was more wondrous, more necessary than the last. He dimly realized that he’d held off kissing her earlier because he’d known he wouldn’t want to stop when he did. The past week had been hell, wanting to be with her, wanting to hold her. The past few hours had been heaven, touching her, laughing with her.
Six weeks earlier he’d looked into emerald green eyes and fallen in love. Now he acknowledged that his love was real, lasting, deep. Forever. He’d found his mate, the other half of himself, and he would do whatever he had to do to make her his. Fight whatever battles were necessary. Even if Autumn herself were the opponent. And she would be.
Tearing his mouth from hers, he gasped for breath and buried his face in her throat. “I want you,” he muttered. “I didn’t know it was possible to want anyone this much.”
“Shouldn’t we go someplace more private?” Autumn asked softly, her voice a husky siren’s lure.
“Yes,” he whispered in response, raising his head to look down at her. He could read her desire for him in her eyes and he shuddered. She wanted him. She didn’t love him—yet—but she wanted him. Maybe—just for tonight—that would be enough. Maybe.
They talked little during the drive. Jeff guided his silver BMW with one hand, keeping Autumn’s hand in the other. Occasionally he raised her hand to brush her knuckles with his lips. By the time he pulled into her driveway, she was trembling with need for him.
She didn’t have to ask him in. Without a word he opened his door and climbed out of the car, meeting her on the other side. She could feel the slight unsteadiness in his arm when it slipped around her waist, the hint of vulnerability increasing her own uncharacteristic shyness. It took her three tries to fit the key into the lock of her front door.
The door had barely closed behind them before she was in his arms again, his mouth slanting hungrily over hers. Rising on her tiptoes to press closer against him, Autumn abandoned herself wholly to sensation, shutting off all thought of consequences. She wanted him. And this time she was going to have him.
Jeff’s first impulse was to lift her into his arms and carry her into the bedroom. A soft chuckle left his throat as he realized that his fiery love probably wouldn’t appreciate such a gesture. She’d want to walk beside him, if not actually lead him.
Autumn tilted her head back to look up at him, her eyes quizzical. “You’re laughing?” she inquired curiously, her voice disturbed.
“I’m happy,” he answered simply, smiling down at her. He wanted so desperately to add that he loved her. But he couldn’t. Not yet. His smile dimmed.
Autumn lifted a hand to his cheek, her own smile misty. “So am I,” she told him softly. “It’s been a wonderful evening.”
He caught her hand in his fiercely, gripped by needs too powerful to control. He ached for her, the desire all too close to pain. He could lose himself in her, pretend that she was his for eternity. But, dammit, he didn’t want to have to pretend. He wanted it to be true. “I need you,” he whispered rawly, turning his face into her palm. “God, I need you.”
As he’d known she would, she interpreted his words to mean that he wanted to make love with her. She could not—or would not—read the deeper meaning hidden within them. Her full red lips curving into a smile that no man could resist, she twined her fingers around his and turned to guide him to her bedroom.
She snapped on a small bedside lamp, illuminating the room with soft golden light. Jeff’s eyes turned swiftly to examine her bedroom and what he saw made him smile. Like Autumn, her room was an intriguing combination of the defiantly modern and the sweetly old-fashioned. It was perfect for her. Just as she was perfect for him. He turned back to her in time to watch her sweep the borrowed red sweater over her head. Her sultry gaze holding his, she removed the clip from her hair, allowing the wind-tangled auburn tresses to fall around her shoulders. He swallowed hard.
No one else in the world would have known she was nervous as she reached for the top button of her blouse, Jeff thought in a sudden surge of fierce possessiveness. Surely no one else could have seen beyond that cool, seductive exterior to find the trace of uncertainty in her eyes, in the almost imperceptible tremor of her fingers as they loosened that button and then the next. He took the two steps that separated them and caught her hands in his, raising them tenderly to his lips. And then he finished unbuttoning her blouse, sliding the crisp fabric off her shoulders to expose full, creamy breasts spilling over the lacy top of a scrap of a bra. He groaned and lowered his lips to the tempting, gold-dusted flesh.
Autumn quivered when his mouth touched her skin. Glorying in her response, Jeff lowered her to the bed, following to stretch out beside her. Still without removing her bra, he cupped one swollen breast in his hand, his lips and teeth tracing the line of lace that covered her. “You’re so beautiful. So very beautiful.” He barely recognized his own voice.
“Jeff,” she whispered, arching up to him.
His name on her lips was the most erotic sound he’d ever heard. He had to taste it. “My name,” he muttered roughly. “Say it again.”
“Jeff,” she moaned as his fingers found her straining nipple through thin lace. “Je—”
And then his mouth was on hers, his tongue deep inside to claim the sound. Rolling to lie on top of her, he arched into her softness, the clothing between them unwanted barriers to total intimacy. Burying his hands deep in her hair, he kissed her with all the unleashed passion inside him, his control almost completely shattered. And she kissed him back with a heat that equaled his, her silky, work-strong arms going around him to clutch him to her. Her pant-clad legs tangled with his, the feminine juncture of her thighs willingly cradling his straining hardness.
“How do you do this to me, Autumn Reed?” he whispered between hot, stinging kisses. “What kind of a spell have you cast on me with those green sorceress eyes?”
Her laugh was thin, breathless. “And I thought I was the one who’d been bewitched,” she accused him, her hands stroking the strong line of his back.
Holding her still beneath him, Jeff lifted his head and stared down at her. “Tell me you want me, Autumn. I need to hear it.”