“Zach?”

She reached out into the darkness and he captured her hands in his. “I’m right here. Just enjoying the view.”

She made a sound of surprise at the knowledge that he really could see her in the dark, even as her fingers threaded through his. Coming palm-to-palm with her was yet another moment of connection he hadn’t expected. One more to add to the all the rest that had already come.

Zach didn’t hold women’s hands. But he didn’t want to let go of Heather, so he moved onto the bed with her, straddling her thighs with his own to keep her right where he wanted her.

“You really can see me?”

Well enough to see the panic on her face at being naked when he was still fully dressed. Of course, he greatly enjoyed throwing her off kilter, especially when she tried so hard to be the steadiest woman on the planet.

“Sure can.”

She made a frustrated little sound that he had to cover with another kiss, a soft one this time. Not letting go of her hands in his, he put them on either side of the pillow and took his time exploring her sweet mouth.

God, he’d wanted to kiss her like this for so damn long, desire eating him up more with every second he spent with her. He loved the way she didn’t hold anything back, that she wasn’t trying to tease him or turn him on. She kissed the same way she did everything else, with sweet focus.

Zach had planned on seducing her, but as her tongue stroked against his, as her fingers tightened against his, and she lifted her hips up to try to find the release he was drawing out, he had to wonder if it was really the other way around...and Heather was the one seducing him.

He pulled back from her mouth on the crazy thought, determined to get back on track. The one where he was the one holding the cards, not the woman he hadn’t been able to resist from the first moment he’d set eyes on her.

Staring down at Heather in the shadowed room, he marveled again at just how beautiful she was. Other women with bodies like hers would have done whatever they could to showcase it to the world, not cover it up with faded shirts and shorts.

Only, hadn’t he been going crazier day by day, wondering exactly what was hiding beneath those shapeless clothes? Almost as if by not simply showing him her assets, she’d amped up his anticipation of the moment he finally got to see all of her.

“So?”

He could hear the bravado covering the insecurity, and the fact that she had any worries at all about her worth made that twinge come back in his chest again.

Knowing he wasn’t the kind of man who had words for moments like this, he decided to show her how beautiful she was in a way that she couldn’t possibly misunderstand.

He lowered his mouth to the tip of one breast and tugged it between his lips. Heather arched up into his hands and gasped out his name, but he was so focused on the sweet taste and feel of her aroused flesh against his tongue that he barely heard her. He swirled his tongue around the taut peak before letting it go to taste the other.

Using his hands on hers and his thighs on either side of her hips, Zach held Heather still as she tried to writhe against him while he loved her perfect br**sts, one to the other, again and again, until she was begging.

“Please, Zach, I need—”

He lightly scraped his teeth over the tip of one breast and her gasp of pleasure swallowed up the rest of her plea. He didn’t need her to tell him what she needed because he needed it, too, needed to taste every inch of her skin, needed to know the feel, the scent of her all over.

He moved up from her br**sts to her shoulders, then to the soft underside of one arm. But instead of turning even more into liquid, she stiffened as his lips and tongue trailed toward her elbow.

Of course, that only made him more intent on making her feel good. On helping her to forget anything but how good it was to finally be together like this.

His mouth found her softness again, only this time he realized the skin was slightly raised. When he tasted the crook of her elbow and then the underside of her forearm, each time he found more of the same. Slightly raised skin that came as a total surprise against the perfect smoothness of the rest of her.

“Heather,” he asked, his gut twisting at the pain she must have felt to have such scars now, “how did you get hurt?”

Even as he asked, he was trailing his fingers over her other arm, finding the same scars. They were faint, completely healed, but he couldn’t have missed them. Not in the dark when there was nothing to distract his senses from her.

And not when nothing seemed to matter more than Heather.

“They’re old scars,” she said softly. “From an accident when I was a teenager.”

Her voice had broken on those last words and he hated the way she’d gone from being so sensual, so open to him, to suddenly still. Stiff. As if she was scared...and regretting what they were doing.

“I’m glad they’ve healed,” he told her, before pressing another kiss to first one arm, then the other.

Her breath hitched as if she might cry. But then she said, “I am, too.”

He had to kiss her again, needed to turn their lovemaking back around, back to where it had been before he found the scars, and she’d gotten upset. He didn’t know how long they kissed, but he loved the way she threaded her fingers back through his, as if she needed him just as much as he needed her.

And Lord, how he needed her. Needed to taste more of her, needed to know if the scent of her arousal would be as sweet on his tongue.

Pulling her hands down with him, not willing to relinquish that connection with her for even a second, he lifted his mouth from hers to move lower, down over her stomach, and then lower still to the damp curls that drew him like a magnet.