I released a little yelp at the suddenness of the movement, but it was quickly swallowed by his mouth.

His mouth on mine.

His mouth mouthlesting me.

At first, I melted into the kiss, which was very easy to do given the fact that his hands were hot and moving all over my body, and I’d been aching for him. He was squeezing, caressing me through the thin fabric of the red dress. But when his hands skimmed the hem with unequivocal intent to lift my skirt, I pushed away and stumbled backward, my hand raised between us to ward him off.

Well, ward him off until I had satisfactory answers. Then, hopefully, I’d be warding him on.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“What do you think I’m doing?” He stalked toward me, a single eyebrow raised.

“I don’t know. If I knew I wouldn’t be asking.”

Despite my hand between us, he pushed his chest against it, forced me to walk backwards until my bottom connected with the wall behind me. He also stopped, glanced down at my hand, then brought my palm to his lips and kissed it. Then he kissed the inside of my wrist. Then he licked the sensitive skin with the tip of his tongue.

My knees shook.

“Whoa…seriously, what are you doing?”

Just his eyes lifted, and he peered at me from underneath his eyebrows, his tongue still on my wrist. “I’m taking what I want.”

“Which is?” I’m not ashamed to admit, my voice was unsteady like a wooden lean-to during an earthquake.

“You.” Alex stepped forward again, crowding me. I had to lift my chin to maintain eye contact.

“I want you. I’m taking you.”

What? Since when?

He lowered his face, his intentions clear as a Texas summer sky, and I turned my head the split second before his mouth seized mine. This was all happening too fast.

He recovered easily and left wet kisses on my cheek, jaw, neck. Then his tongue was in my ear. He was an expert ear-tonguer; likely a fast learner too.

“Alex, wait, wait—ah!” My hands fluttered around his shoulders like I was fanning the air, then finally they succumbed to pushing…his jacket off his shoulders, which was the opposite of pushing him away….

…Which had been my intent, because we hadn’t talked about anything of consequence, and I hadn’t seen him in days. Because I still didn’t know anything. Because all his very valid reasons from weeks ago were still very valid.

The jacket fell, discarded and forgotten, in a pile behind him.

“Oh, Alex. Wait. Please wait. Oh, God, Alex….”

His hands returned to the hem of my dress, teased the bared skin above my thigh-high stockings, and continued northward.

“No more waiting.” I wondered if he was speaking to me or to himself.

“Alex.” His name was a whispered plea on my lips.

He must’ve heard the helplessness and edge to my voice, because he lifted his head from my neck to meet my eyes, though his hands continued their assault.

“I missed you. I missed you so much.” He kissed my cheek and pressed his body against mine, and I shuddered—wicked, wicked man. “Tell me you need me,” he growl-hummed.

“I need you….”

Gah! Not exactly what I meant to say, but a good—albeit misleading—start.

I shut my eyes tight, grabbed fistfuls of his shirt, pressed my legs together, and said, “I need you to tell me the truth! Because you’re scaring me, and I don’t want you to regret anything tomorrow.”

His hands slowed but didn’t stop. Instead, they reached into the tops of my stockings. “Don’t be scared. I’ll have no regrets,” he whispered.

“I can’t help it. I’m scared because I’m obsessed with someone I know nothing about.”

“Obsessed?” He kissed my collarbone, neck, jaw, like he couldn’t help himself, and he hummed, “I like how that sounds.”

“It’s not healthy.”

His response was fierce. “I don’t care. I love you.”

Uh….

Um….

WHAT?!

I tensed, and this time I did push him away. “Alex, stop. Stop and explain yourself.”

He didn’t exactly stop. Instead, he brought me with him, away from the wall, by wrapping his arms around my back and legs and lifting me from the ground like I weighed less than nothing.

Must not zing at caveman display.

Must Not Zing At Caveman Display.

Must. Not. Zing. At. Caveman. Display.

ZING!

And then, to top it all off, he said as he carried me to the bedroom, “Sandra, I love you. I’m completely and hopelessly in love with you. And I’m not waiting anymore for what I want, for what’s mine.” And he kissed me all over, over and over.

When he broke the kiss, I interjected, “Alex, you don’t….”

He ignored me and lay me on the bed, pulling his shirttail out of his pants and unbuttoning it. “I love you, I’m in love with you, and you’re in love with me.”

“No.” I shook my head frantically even though my eyes devoured every inch of skin as he exposed it. My words were a rush. “This is just your penis having the feels for my vagina. You’re penis is making prank calls! And every single time your penis makes a prank call, my vagina answers the phone. And then you hang up. Or your penis claims wrong number or misdial or no hablo Ingles. It’s infuriating, and it’s called genital call me maybe.”

“You’re so wrong.”

“What do you know about love?”

He hesitated. Thankfully, he was standing at the edge of the bed with his shirt open, so I was allowed a giant eyeful while he considered my question. And—oh my dear heavenly hot body—this man was beyond all my dirty dreams. Heck yeah, I was staring. Heck yeah, I was storing this image for later. Heck yeah, I might ask him if I could take a picture.

And then he said, “Nothing.”

Something about his sudden answer made me flinch. It pulled me from my indecent perusal of his form. He’d spoken it with such finality, as though he were answering more than the question I asked, as though he were imparting something of great import with one word. I paused, gathered a deep breath, and studied him.

“You don’t know love?”

“No.”

“But you’re so certain that this is it, that what we have—what we’re doing—that this is us in love?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s what love should be.”

“What…who…how…when…what…?” I stumbled, stuttered, sputtered, and finally managed, as I scrambled backward on the bed away from him, to demand, “Explain yourself!”

He began crawling toward me on his hands and knees, and gripped my ankle. “I dream of you, and not just you naked, beneath me, submitting, sighing….”

“Gah!” I held my hands up to stop his progress, but he yanked me by the ankle and pulled me toward him as I said, “If this is another prank call to my vagina, I will tie you up and tweeze your chest hair!”

He batted my hands away as though they were nothing and hovered above me planting kisses on my skin between loving words. “I dream of your voice, daydream about it. I spend a good part of my day thinking up ways to make you laugh, counting the hours before I can hold you—just hold you—to feel you breathe, feel your heartbeat. I’ve memorized your walk. I even look forward to your butchering of the German language and discovering which T-shirt you’ll wear. I want to tell everyone about you, how brilliant you are, how generous and kind and amazing you are, and I will keep you safe.”

It was at this point I had difficulty drawing breath, and he’d stopped kissing me. He looked as if he wanted to take a part of me and keep it with him. I could lift my gaze no higher than the scar on his chin. His eyes were too disconcerting—too knowing, searching, seeing.

He continued. “I want to know everything about you so I can be what you need—give you what you need.”

His words succeeded in knocking the wind from my lungs, so. I assembled what wits I had left and decided to defend myself with righteous indignation. “What I need? You want to give me what I need, but you won’t even let me know who you are.”

“Sandra, look at me.” He waited until I did, then he kissed my lips very gently and whispered against them. “Do you think knowing about my childhood is going to make you want me more or less?”

I gritted my teeth, my temper flaring. “You’re asking the wrong question. How am I supposed to love you if I don’t even know who you are?”

“You do love me.”

“But I don’t know how you became the person you are.”

“And then what?” He kept his voice gentle as he lay beside me, turning my body toward him, rubbing my hip and inching his hand up my skirt. “And then you find out about all the ways I’m broken? All the ways you need to fix me?”

“It wouldn’t be like that.”

“It would be exactly like that.” An edge entered his voice and I knew my half-assed attempts to force him to see reason were starting to work. “You fix people. It’s what you do, it’s how you make a living, it’s your talent, your gift. You can’t turn it off.”