The silence throbbed between them for a long while until—finally—she dropped her hands from her chest...and the hit of lust that knocked into him nearly took him down to his knees on the carpeted floor of her penthouse suite.

But even as he was on the verge of losing his mind over her beautiful body, he realized that she was shaking.

“You’re not scared of me, are you?”

She shook her head. “No.” But the way she dropped her gaze from his and lowered her head gave him an entirely different answer.

“You and I,” he said as he moved closer to tip her chin up with his fingertips so that she had to look at him, “we won’t ever lie to each other."

Again, it wasn’t a question. It was simply a truth that had to be.

When she nodded her agreement, he asked again, “Are you afraid of what’s happening between us tonight?”

“I’m not afraid of you. I just—” She made a move to re-cover her br**sts with her hands and when he took them in his to stop her once again, she only shook harder.

“Tell me why you’re scared, kitten.”

But instead of telling him, she said, “Why do you keep calling me that?”

Despite how badly he wanted her, despite the fact that he was working like hell to rein in the caveman inside, he found himself smiling. “Because that’s how you slept on my lap. Like a contented kitten.”

Her eyes softened and her trembling stopped. “I want to rub myself all over you like one,” she whispered shyly.

Oh yes, he wanted to feel all those soft, smooth curves sliding against him. But if she did that he’d be a goner. And she hadn’t yet told him why she’d been trembling.

“I want you to do that, too,” he told her, “but first I want you to tell me what’s wrong.”

“I haven’t—” She stopped, took a deep breath before admitting, “It’s been a while for me.”

Ah, that explained why she was so nervous. “We’ll take it slow,” he promised her in a husky voice. “Slow and easy.”

“Okay,” she said and the trust in her eyes nearly undid him. “But what if I want fast and hard, too?"

In an instant, the thin threads of his control snapped as he lifted her into his arms.

A bed. He just needed to get her to a bed and then he could stop, think, plan what he was going to do with her.

He was almost there when she shifted so that her face was softly pressing into his neck. He could feel her warm breath, and then her lips moving along the cords that ran down to his shoulders. But it was the soft lick of her tongue against his skin, followed by a nip of her teeth, that broke him.

Barely two feet from the bed, he bent his head and took one of her br**sts in his mouth.

She was so sweet, and so responsive. He felt his hold on sanity loosen as she moaned his name and he had to shift her weight so that her other breast was there for him to suckle on, too.

Knowing he’d never experienced anything as erotic as the way her body responded to his touch, Marcus made himself move those final feet to the bed, and lowered them both so that he was sitting on the edge of the mattress. Her fingers were in his hair now, her neck arched back so that she could give him better access to her br**sts. He knew if he left her there to squirm and wiggle around on his lap, he was going to explode before he was anywhere near getting inside her.

He lifted his mouth from Nicola’s soft skin just long enough to reposition her so that she was standing between his spread thighs. Her legs were unsteady and he held onto her hips, moving her small but curvy frame into just the right place.

Her hands stayed in his hair, and the desperate little sounds she was making as he licked and sucked and nipped at her sensitive flesh had him suddenly wanting the night to be so much longer than just a handful of hours.

Chapter Ten

Nicola had never felt this out of control. Her brain, her body, none of it was connected together anymore. Between Marcus’s kisses and his hands on her skin...she lost hold of everything that held her down to earth as in one smooth move he slid her shorts and thong off so that she was completely naked.

As he dragged her mouth down to his for another soul-changing kiss, her hands automatically went to his pants to start unbuttoning and unzipping so that she could get him naked, too.

One of his big hands covered both of hers. “Not yet. Not until you come for me."

Still holding her hand, she was more than a little shocked when he slid both of their fingers between her thighs.

“Tell me how it feels,” he said in a low voice.

“Good.” She could barely breathe. “So good.”

Her thighs were shaking and he held her steady with his free hand as he had them rub their combined fingers over her aroused flesh.

“Marcus."

She gasped out his name as jolts of pleasure zipped through her. His eyes flared with lust a split second before he leaned forward and captured one of her br**sts in his mouth again. She whimpered her pleasure as he had them pressing harder and harder circles with their fingers. She was right there, she was so close, she held her breath as—

“Just my hand now.”

She barely registered his words before he was letting her hand go.

“Come for me. I want to see it. I want to feel you explode.”

Oh God, she wanted to, and his naughty words had her clenching on him in a mini-orgasm. She was so close, but the closer she got the more her legs shook. She wanted to relax all the way, to stop being so shy, to fully give in to all the wonderful things Marcus was making her feel, but one thought kept stopping her.