In the heat of their passion, they’d moved so that he was pressing her back against the front door, and as he cupped her face to kiss her again, she lifted one leg around his hips to try to pull him even closer.

Sliding his hand from her hair back down her body, he realized he’d never lost control this fast. He could barely focus on anything but how sweet her lips were, how soft her skin was, how good her hair smelled, how much he loved her soft moans of pleasure as she kissed him back with a desire that matched his. He knew that if they didn’t get into her bedroom soon, he was bound to take her their first time right here against her front door. He gave her one last, hot kiss, then swept her up into his arms.

He should have known she wouldn’t miss a beat as she drew his mouth back down to hers. Somehow he made it through the living room and down the hall to the door at the end of the hall without just dropping with her to the floor like a wild animal. Pushing her bedroom door open with his foot, he carefully walked through with Mary in his arms and laid her gently on top of her coverlet.

Wanting to remember every moment of their first night together, he took a step back from the bed and gazed down at the beauty before him. Mary’s long dark hair was spread out across the pillows, and her dark green sweater and gorgeous flushed skin were utterly enticing as she lay atop the red velvet bedcover.

“Come be with me, Jack.” She shifted up on the bed to reach out for him. “Please, I need you.”

As he went back to her, he made a silent vow to give her everything she deserved—not only more pleasure than she’d ever known before, but also the love he’d been keeping deep inside just waiting for the moment when she appeared in his life.

Mary’s lips curved with joy as she pulled him down over her on the bed. He didn’t know how long they kissed, rolling over with each other on the soft velvet, hands stroking, mouths devouring in their hunger for each other. Her passion matched his, and he found himself wondering if a lifetime could possibly be long enough to fill such a deep well of need.

And then her hands were moving to the buttons of his shirt, and he didn’t stop kissing her as he captured them with his. Holding her captive against him, he gave a final nip to her lower lip before lifting his head to stare down at her.

Already a stunning woman, with her cheeks flushed and her eyes heavy with arousal, there wasn’t any painting, any vista, any wonder in the world that could match her beauty as she lay in bed beneath him.

Jack’s breath caught in his chest as he looked down at her. “What did I ever do right to deserve you?”

“Everything. Everything you do is exactly right.”

Shifting over her, he found the pulse point at the side of her neck again and let his teeth scrape gently over her sensitive skin. The way she arched against him put the silent vow he’d made to go slowly their first time almost out of reach.

Sliding his hands beneath her back, he lifted the hem of her sweater. Her breath came quickly, her chest rising and falling fast beneath the soft green wool as she shifted her shoulders so that he could slide the fabric up to reveal the swell of her br**sts above her lacy bra.

“Beautiful.”

Forgetting all about stripping her sweater the rest of the way off, he reached out and brushed his fingertips over her soft flesh.

“Jack.”

His name shook on her lips as he lowered his head to trace over her skin with his mouth. Her scent made his head spin, her soft sounds of pleasure sending his heart racing faster than it ever had before.

When he’d been stealing kisses from her, he’d always been gentle. But now, as he gripped the softness of her sweater in his fists, Jack couldn’t stop himself from roughly dragging it all the way off. Excitement glittered in her eyes as she stripped away her slacks from her legs so that they landed on the colorful rug beside her bed.

If he’d been stunned by the flash of lace at her br**sts, the lace at her hips knocked every last bit of oxygen from his lungs.

For a long moment he couldn’t think, couldn’t move, couldn’t do anything but marvel. Lost in the wonder of her, he didn’t realize Mary had taken his hands in hers until she lifted them to her lips. One quick kiss to his knuckles and then she was slowly opening his hands to slide them down over her jaw, her neck, her collarbones, and then—sweet Lord, he wasn’t sure he’d manage to make it through tonight in one piece—she placed them over her br**sts.

As she let him feel the hard beat of her heart, then lifted her hands from his so that he was the only one still touching her, Jack knew she wasn’t just silently telling him she wanted him to make love to her…she was also saying she trusted him enough, for tonight at least, to put her heart in his hands.

Notorious for his steady hands as he soldered the wires on a circuit board, Jack couldn’t keep his fingers from shaking as he moved to slide the straps of her bra down off her shoulders. She trembled beneath him, just as unsteady but with him all the way as he finally uncovered one perfect breast and then the other.

It was pure instinct to cup Mary’s soft flesh with his hands and lower his head to take first one peak and then the other into his mouth. She tasted even better than she looked, and as he drew on her with lips and tongue, she arched into his hands and mouth to let him have even more of her.

Reaching behind her, he flipped open the latch on her bra and tossed it to the floor to join her clothes. Her skin was rosy and damp from where he’d been kissing her, and when he brushed his jaw across her aroused ni**les, her hips came up against him in a silent plea for more. Her stomach muscles quivered beneath his lips as he ran kisses down the center of her body. When bare skin was replaced with lace, he drove both of them crazy by tracing the edges of her panties with both his fingertips and tongue. She was even softer here, her scent spinning through him.