She smiled. “I don’t know. I don’t count.”
“Twelve,” Liam said a moment later as he deposited the last bobby pin on the table.
“Thank you for solving that little mystery for me,” she said shakily. The flicker of amusement she experienced faded when she saw his face as he ran his fingers through her unbound hair.
He tried to smile at her comment, but he looked strained as he gazed down at her wearing nothing but a bra and low-riding shorts, her hair spread across the pillow. He extended one long finger and traced the curve of her hip to her waist. She shivered when he touched the side of her ribs. Her nipples prickled with pleasure. She’d had no idea she had so many sensitive spots on her body until Liam showed them to her.
“You were made by a true artist, Natalie Reyes.”
“So were you,” she whispered.
“You got some extra attention.” The muscles of his face were so tense with desire that he looked almost grim in the dim light as he reached behind her to unfasten her bra. As he slid it from her body, the combination of the cool air and Liam’s heated stare made her bare breasts tingle. She didn’t shrink from his gaze. Why would she, when he looked at her as he did at that moment?
“You’re so pretty.”
The hint of awe in his tone made her reach for him. She brought him down to her, wincing in pleasure when he placed his mouth at the upper curve of her left breast. His moving, caressing lips seemed to create a trail of fire as he explored her contours.
“So soft,” he murmured.
His palm came up to cradle her right breast, as if testing the weight of it. She knew how strong Liam was; she sensed his power like a tightly coiled spring. The gentleness of his touch contrasting with all that strength made her heart seem to swell in her rib cage. His hands were large, and his fingertips blunt, but they became precise instruments for evoking pleasure when touching her.
She shivered when he gently scraped his teeth over a rib just below her breast. Her nipples puckered tight at the sensation. As if Liam had known precisely the effect his caress would have, he slipped the sensitized crest of her breast between his lips.
Natalie’s breath caught at the feeling of being enclosed in his warm mouth. He applied a soft suction and laved his tongue over the beading nipple and Natalie forgot how to breathe, the pleasure that coursed through her was so sharp…so imperative.
She whimpered with need. As if desire connected them, Liam growled deep in his throat at the same moment, the sound vibrating into her breast and down to her heart.
She called his name in a plaintive plea, and he lifted his head reluctantly.
“You taste so good,” he muttered, sounding a little incredulous. Natalie moaned when he pressed his entire face to her abdomen and nuzzled her belly button with his nose. His whiskers scraping gently against the skin should have sent her into a fit of ticklish laughter, but instead, his actions created a hot, thick sensation in her lower belly. The sensation only increased when he opened his mouth and she felt the heat of his mouth penetrating her.
He rose over her and took her mouth heatedly. It was a wild kiss, a torrid one. It told Natalie loud and clear how much he wanted her.
She treasured that knowledge.
The tips of her breasts ached. She pressed closer to his chest, desperate to alleviate the prickling sensation. He groaned into her mouth and reached between them, his fingers finding the fastenings of her shorts. Then his fingers were touching her—gentle and knowing.
Natalie stared blindly at the ceiling fan, poised on a precipice of bliss, listening to Liam whisper an anthem of desire to her, overwhelmed by sensation. She clung to his shoulders as if she thought they were the only things saving her from falling. “You’re even sweeter than I thought you’d be…and I imagined plenty.”
It suddenly struck her through a thick haze of arousal what was happening. She was supposed to let go…surrender to this hot, building need. Surrender to Liam.
The realization felt huge in that moment…frightening. If she gave herself in this physical way, she doubted she could ever go back. Her soul, too, would be his. And Liam didn’t know this about her; that she was a novice when it came to love. For him, this was just the inevitable conclusion of two people desiring each other. He could give of himself in just a physical sense, while Natalie couldn’t.
Not with Liam, she couldn’t.
Despite her doubts, however, his hand kept moving, creating a wild tempest in her body, his mouth kept burning her lips and neck and breasts, and she was falling…falling. She struggled for a thread of reason in the midst of flooding pleasure.
“No, Liam…wait,” she managed to whisper next to his mouth. Despite her words, she shaped his lips to hers feverishly.
“I don’t care about our families, Natalie. I don’t care about the past. Nothing matters right now but this.”
“No…it’s not that,” she whispered. She clutched desperately to his shoulders and arched against his hand. The need for release from this delicious, mounting pressure nearly ruled her in that moment. It would rule her. She couldn’t seem to stop it—
“It’s just…I’ve never really done this before.”
She barely noticed his mouth pausing against the throbbing pulse at her neck. Pleasure loomed like a wave about to crash over her.
It did.