He lifted his head, the air suddenly cool on her nipple. “Soon, baby. Try to relax.”

“I can’t!”

“Sure you can.” He touched her cheek. “Try.” Then he dipped his head and gently bit her other nipple.

It was no contest; it never was.

He could make her feel so fine it didn’t matter if she was needy or self-willed, free or not, when the pleasure was so flat-out wondrous.

He teased first one nipple then the other, carefully gauging her response as he deftly brought her to the explosive brink before releasing the pressure of his mouth and letting her hysteria slowly wane. Then beginning again, sucking gently at first then not gently at all, masterfully restoking her arousal.

Saturated with prodigal sensation, wallowing in bliss, dizzy with pleasure, Kate forgave Dominic all his transgressions. She forgave him for all her weeks of misery because only he had the gift to make her feel this good: glowing, insatiable, deep in love. She didn’t even care that he flinched at the word love. She was beyond reason and logic, her body tingling, pulsing, melting inside, slick, liquid, desperate. “Dominic, please,” she said on a suffocated breath, pushing his head away. “You win. I want you, I need you. Now, this instant.”

He took her face between his hands, his gaze close. “We need each other, baby. Give me a few seconds. Okay?”

She nodded, or tried, his fingers unyielding.

“I don’t want to miss this. So hang on. Please?”

She loved him contrite, although she loved him every possible way. “Maybe, probably, hurry…”

His fingers slid away from her face and he pulled off her shoes, slacks, and panties in one fell swoop. Coming to his feet, he picked her up as though she were weightless and carried her to a chaise, where he deposited her with a super polite, “I’ll be right with you.”

He stripped off his clothes with astonishing speed. Then he took the condom he’d pulled from his pants pocket and put between his teeth, ripped the foil open, and rolled the condom down his erection. He was like a fucking professional, she thought. “You’re awfully good at that,” she said, grudging irritation in her voice.

He looked up at the umbrage in her tone. “At what?”

“Putting on that condom.”

“Is there some reason I shouldn’t be? Don’t answer that. I don’t have time to argue.” Suddenly he was towering over her. “Would you like to spread your legs or should I do it? You’re not the only one in a hurry.”

“Do I have a choice?”

He suddenly laughed. “You don’t really want a choice do you?”

“I suppose not, with that really fabulous dick about to make me happy.”

“Smart girl.” He put one knee on the chaise, she opened her thighs, and a moment later, he was positioning himself between her legs. “A word of warning. This first time isn’t going to break any records for endurance. As soon as you start coming, I’m right behind you.” He didn’t wait for an answer; she was panting and so slick with longing, he glided in with only the slightest resistance.

She climaxed almost instantly, he quickly followed, and after an oppressive thirty-six days of estrangement the brute force of their tempestuous orgasms, the sheer, blinding pleasure, left them momentarily stunned.

Was it possible to actually have an out-of-body experience? Empirical evidence was making Dominic a believer.

Was it possible to fall hopelessly, head over heels in love again, with a man who didn’t want to be loved, because of an outrageously grandiose orgasm? Kate wondered.

The mind-boggling affirmation was direct, razor sharp, and terrifying to them both.

He should withdraw, he thought with alarm—to Paris or beyond.

She should politely say “thank you” as if none of this were out of the ordinary, she nervously reflected, and take the first plane home.

But neither one moved. “I’m losing it,” he said half under his breath, his eyes slits as though to contain the raging turbulence within.

“We should—stop,” she said, gasping.

“Later.”

“When?” Someone had to be rational.

“Talk to me in a year.”

She went rigid in his arms despite the heady mix of wistful, fervent devotion. “Impossible!”

“Try me,” he growled.

“Damn it, Dominic, you can’t just—”

He covered her mouth with his, defiant of reason, heedless to all but his own selfish desire, his ravaging kiss ignoring her resistance, the brute force marking her with an inexplicable stamp of ownership—like Attila the Hun with a new concubine.

As rash as he, she shamelessly capitulated, gave herself up to his plundering mouth and tongue, wanting what he wanted, wanting more. Wanting his love; wanting what she could never have.

As her resistance melted away, she responded with her familiar tempestuous passion, recklessly matched his fevered kisses with a wildness of her own, impulsively bit his lip. He sucked in a breath, then bit her back with the same seething fury. They were both out of control, their nerve endings on fire, their cravings so intense they could taste it, their need for each other irrepressible.

And where Dominic had been uncertain about his plans—actually, he’d had no plans—suddenly his roadmap to the future was clear. He lifted his head marginally and smiled at her, feeling as though truth and goodness and all the virtues of the world were within his grasp. “You make me insanely happy, baby, but bite me that hard again,” he said with a grin, licking the blood off his bottom lip, “and you’ll get the spanking of your life.”