“So you finally have a coat on.” I couldn’t keep the humor out of my voice even if the timbre changed as she turned to look at me with heavy-lidded dark eyes.

The corner of her mouth kicked up in a sexy little smirk and I wondered if she would hurt me if I tackled her to the floor with zero finesse.

“Not for long.” She lifted her hands to the top button and watched me as she popped it open. I felt my breath freeze in my lungs, and every single thing in the world hinged on her moving down to the next button on that coat.

“Couldn’t sleep again?” I asked. She shook her head slowly from side to side and her fingers moved to the second button. She kept her eyes locked on mine as she slipped it from the hole.

“I was asleep. You woke me up.”

I wanted to put my hands in her hair and I wanted to put my mouth on that tantalizing trail of skin that she had bared on the top of her chest. I thought maybe it would hurry her little game along if I narrowed the playing field a bit. I was a master at playing games … and winning. I reached up and tugged my shirt off over my head in one move. I tossed it on the recliner and felt a swell of masculine pride when I saw the pulse at the base of her throat flutter in response. Her fingers moved on the third button and circled it. She also took a step back toward the bed, which had me automatically moving toward her.

“I woke you up?”

She took another step back on those crazy, sexy shoes and dipped her chin down and looked at me from under her long lashes. She was really the most remarkable thing I had ever seen in my life and I still couldn’t figure out why she was here wasting any of herself on me.

The third button pulled free and I really had to fight the urge to pounce on her. The coat split just enough that I caught a hint of pink areola and the curve of plump, high breasts.

“I woke up saying your name and touching myself. I was achy and figured why take care of it myself when you owe me anyways.” The spark of humor in her chocolate eyes really undid me. I couldn’t keep the space between us anymore.

She was playing with the bottom button on the coat and my patience was lost. Part of the reason I was so good at games was because I made my own rules, and more often than not cheated. I prowled toward her with long steps and had her toppled back on the bed with the coat splayed open behind her and had her laid out like a naked buffet all for me to gorge on in seconds. I braced my hands on either side of her head and gazed down at her with raw longing I could feel filling every part of me.

“What if you had gotten pulled over, or in an accident, or had car trouble on your way over here?” The idea of anyone else seeing those long legs with nothing covering them suddenly had murder seeming totally logical in my caveman mind. Not that I didn’t appreciate how easy she made getting into her pants—I mean, when she didn’t have any on, it was obvious what was going to go down. Beyond the lust and passion swallowing me up, I was worried about her, and that was a new sensation for me.

She wiggled her arms out of the coat sleeves, which had her breasts doing a shimmy and shake that made me groan out loud. Once she was free, she pulled her legs up where they were bracketing my hips as I leaned over her and curled her arms across my shoulders.

“If I had gotten pulled over I would have explained why I was mostly naked and probably gotten a high five from the cop. If I was in an accident the first responders would have gotten quite a show, but I’m sure they’ve seen it before. And if I had had car trouble I would’ve just called a cab.” She moved her hand and rubbed the pad of her thumb along the curve of my bottom lip. I snatched the digit between my teeth and caressed it with my tongue, which made her sigh. “With you, the only way to go is high risk, high reward.”

I had been a risk a lot of people had taken and lost. I had never been anyone’s reward. It made me want to make her promises I knew I could never keep. I wanted to tell her she would never regret taking a chance on me, but that just wasn’t the case. I bent my elbows a little so I could reach her mouth and told her, “I better make it worth the risk, then,” and then I kissed her like it was the only chance I was ever going to get.

I kissed her like I had to memorize every little taste, every little flick of her tongue, every nip of her teeth, every little whimper that escaped her as our lips pressed together with feverish intensity. One of her hands was in the back of my hair holding me close, the other was scratching across my shoulders, making my skin ripple in anticipation.

I was still dressed from the waist down, but I could feel her heat blazing between us where our hips were locked together as I hovered over her on the bed. Knowing not only that she was here with me, but that she really, really wanted to be here made me kiss her even more desperately. It felt like being with this woman was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that I needed to savor like a delicacy.

I let her mouth go when it felt like there wasn’t any air left in the room. We both gasped and I moved over to kiss her temple and to nibble on her earlobe. It was a hot spot because she gasped even louder and her hips arched up into mine—hard. I played around with her, kissed her behind her ear, licked across her collarbone, and swept one hand all the way down her side. She was soft and supple everywhere. I liked it that instead of just being pretty, she was also made up of lean muscle and strength. It was an intoxicating combination of beauty and feminine power. I liked that she could not only take care of me in a very delicate and feminine way, but she could also take care of herself.

I brushed my thumb along the curve in her bent leg where it dipped in toward her waiting center. The lights were still on, so this time I could see every pink and pretty part of her. There was something over-the-top sensual about the way she was laid out on the bed with her fuck-me shoes still on as she waited for me to pay up. Like going down on a girl that looked and felt as good as she did was any kind of chore. Sex with Royal was anything but going through the typical motions to get to the main event. I wanted to do every dirty, wicked thing I could think of when it came to taking this girl to bed and getting her off. Then I wanted to do all of those things again until she was screaming my name and tossing all that burnished hair around in mindless pleasure.

I followed the curve of her inner thigh and took a step back so that I could drop to my knees in front of her. I saw her chest heave up and her breath shudder as I used my thumb to lightly trace over her bare opening. She was already hot and wet. It had a hungry sound growling up the back of my throat. I saw her hands tangle in the comforter on either side of her restless hips and her eyes were almost black as she watched me. I picked up her ankles and put one of them on my shoulder. The spike of the heel hurt a little when it stabbed at me, but I was surprised that I liked the sting of it. I used the hand that wasn’t dancing playfully around her center to pull her hips closer to the edge of the bed and turned my head so I could kiss her taut thigh that was now resting right next to my face.