“I’m sorry,” she mumbled when he began to unfasten her skirt a few seconds later.
“Why? You’re cold. I’m the one who should be sorry for not warming you up before I dragged you to bed.”
“You hardly dragged me,” Colleen muttered. She tried to brush his hands away, feeling foolish. “I can undress myself, Eric.”
“I want to do it.” He speared her with his gaze and Colleen dropped her hands. She’d thought him calm and collected in the past minute, but she’d thought wrong. Very wrong. His eyes told the true story. He was far, far from being unaffected by her partial nakedness.
He bent his head and resumed unfastening her skirt. It slid over her hips with his urging, falling in a pool around her ankles. He helped her step out of the fabric. She stood there wearing nothing but panties, thigh-highs and pumps. His gaze trailed over her, making her tingle wherever it touched. He placed his open hand over her belly and hip, the gesture blatantly possessive and intensely erotic. Colleen couldn’t breathe.
“I can’t think of what to say,” he muttered, his hand stroking her waist. “You’re so beautiful.” His fingertips skimmed the bottom curve of one of her breasts. “So incredibly soft.”
The pleasure wrought by his touch was sharp and concentrated. Her nipples pulled so tight as he caressed her, it made her hiss between a clenched jaw. He glanced into her face.
The next thing she knew, he was pulling down her panties and kneeling before her, working her thigh-highs down her legs. He held up a hand, and she grabbed it to steady herself while he removed her heels. Spikes of pleasure shot through her when he palmed her naked calf and then stroked her heel as he slipped off a shoe.
By the time he straightened, and she was naked, Colleen was trembling again from acute desire. She reached for the waistband of his sweats, but he grasped her hands, halting her.
“Get in,” he said, nodding toward the shower, his voice rough. “It’s nice and hot.”
She went hesitantly. The steam and heat felt delicious when he slid back the glass shower door. “Eric,” she called in protest when he shut the door between them.
“Just give me a second. Try to warm up,” she heard him say through the barrier of the door and the sound of the hot water pounding on the shower floor.
“I’m not that cold,” she said, but she turned into the inviting heat anyway, submersing herself in the steaming, jetting water. It dismayed her a little, to think she would look like a drowned rat when Eric next saw her, but she couldn’t resist the heat. She closed her eyes and put her head at the center of the spray, hastily wiping away the mascara she was quite sure was streaming down her face.
Heat and comfort coursed through her, soaking into flesh and then bone, erasing her tension.
She peered sideways, trying to discern what Eric was doing. Had he left the bathroom? The glass doors had already steamed up, obscuring her vision.
She barely had time to figure out her next move when he pulled the shower door open. Her gaze traveled over a long, muscular stretch of naked man. His male beauty and obvious desire for her left her mute. Her brain seemed to vibrate in her skull, freezing her muscles and tongue.
He stepped into the shower. The sound of the door shutting made her blink, breaking her trance.
All signs of hesitation gone, he took another step, joining her beneath the hot spray. He reached for her. The hot water, and more importantly, her desire for Eric, melted her nervousness into mist. He covered her mouth with his. She shuddered yet again at the distilled impact of his kiss combined with the delicious sensation of their naked bodies pressing close, but this was a convulsion of pure need. She felt his erection throb next to the sensitive skin of her lower belly. Her body responded of its own accord, her core clenching in desire. She gasped in protest when he lifted his head a moment later and stepped back a few inches. She clutched his shoulders, trying to draw him back, hungry for the feeling of hard male muscle pressing tight against her skin.
His smile was a little strained when he grabbed her wrist and turned her hand, kissing her palm. “Let me look at you,” he said quietly, his gaze entreating.
He looked with his eyes, but his hands traveled wherever his gaze went. He stroked her shoulders and slid his palm with rivulets of warm water along the sides of her ribs and waist. He caressed her hips and belly, and all along, Colleen was melting beneath his worshipping hands and hot stare. She, too, eagerly began to stroke him, squeezing his delightfully rounded, hard biceps in her palms, whisking her fingers across his smooth, muscular chest, running her fingertips over the discs of his flat, erect nipples.
“Don’t, Colleen.”
Her startled gaze leapt up to his face, his tone had been so hard. His expression turned a little contrite.
“I’m sorry,” he said. He grabbed both of her wrists with warm, wet hands and moved her hands to her back. “Do you mind?” he asked.
Colleen blinked, not really sure at first what he meant. When she realized he was asking her if it was all right if he kept her hands held at her back while he touched her, heat flooded her all the way to her toes.
“That doesn’t seem fair,” she whispered, her gaze stuck on his sexy mouth.
He chuckled and stroked her wet neck. “You’ll have your moment, trust me. Your hands are driving me nuts right now, though. I can’t think. I’m about ready to lose it, I want you so bad.”
Colleen glanced down the length of his aroused body and swallowed with difficulty. The admission of his vulnerability had given her strength.
“Okay,” she whispered.
She watched as the hand that wasn’t holding her wrists coasted through rivers of running water up her belly. He cradled a breast in his hand and shaped it to his palm.
“If you only knew how much I’ve fantasized about touching you,” he mumbled, watching his actions with a narrow focus. “You were so beautiful in my mind, but reality is much, much better. You’re exquisite,” he added before he sunk his head and pressed his lips to the slope of her breast. Colleen stared into billowing steam, biting her lower lip to stifle a plea as he kissed the sensitive skin and licked away droplets of water. He took her nipple into his warm mouth, and her pleasure mounted to a piercing ache. She arched her back into him as he suckled, laving her nipple with a warm, agile tongue.