She wanted to touch him everywhere, wanted proof that this moment was real and not just a dream she was going to wake up from, frustrated and alone. He was holding her so tightly against him that her forearms were pressed up against his rock-hard chest, but she could splay her hands against him, could rub the pads of her fingers over his chest through the fine cotton of his dress shirt.

But it wasn’t enough for her. Sophie was desperate for more of him, for more of this kiss and the chance to slide her hands up over his shoulders, up his neck, to cup the planes of his beautiful face. When he began to rain kisses over her cheeks, her chin, and then into the hollow of her neck, she threaded her fingers into his hair, then arched her head back and pressed her br**sts harder into his chest as he pressed kisses to her skin.

And then—oh God, how long had she waited for this moment?—she felt his mouth move lower, and lower still, until his tongue curled over the tip of one breast.

She’d never felt anything like this, had never known what it was to step inside a bolt of lightning and become light and flames. The explosions started deep in her belly, down low where everything was throbbing with arousal, waiting for Jake’s savage possession.

She gasped his name and he answered her by moving one of his hands from her hip to cup and tease the other breast, just as he slid his other hand over her sex. She dropped her gaze down to his dark head, only to find that he was looking up at her, too, and in that instant that their gazes connected, Sophie lost hold of the thin thread that had been holding her together.

Her eyes fluttered closed as she came apart against him, her hips instinctively rocking into his hand as she rode the shockingly unexpected climax. His sensual touch, the warmth of his fingers in her most intimate place even as he moved his mouth to her other breast, his stubble scratching against her chest in the most deliciously rough way, sent her spiraling off even higher, from a prelude of pleasure to an encore that came out of nowhere and seemed to just go on and on.

Her legs would have buckled if not for Jake slipping one arm beneath her knees and the other around her rib cage as he lifted her off the floor. He didn’t give her any time to think as his mouth came down over hers again, his tongue thrusting against hers. And as he carried her through the living room and down the hall, she felt so incredibly sexy, naked with only her heels on in his strong arms.

She heard him kick open a door and the next thing she knew he was lowering her onto a soft velvet bed covering. His mouth still over hers, she realized he wasn’t kissing her anymore, that he was taking her wrists in one of his large hands and lifting her arms above her head, holding them firmly in place. Holding her right where he wanted her.

She’d been bluffing out on the front steps, of course. She hadn’t ever been blindfolded, hadn’t had public sex. Not because she was afraid to do those things, but because she’d never had the right man to do them with.

Until tonight.

Until Jake.

She tried to wrap her legs around him, wanted him to take her, to make her his, but he wouldn’t let her lead, instead using his body to still hers beneath his.

Held deliciously captive beneath his strong muscles, she watched his beautiful mouth say the words, “Let me love you.” His mouth moved to her earlobe as he licked at the skin behind it before biting into the sensitive flesh. “I just want to love you.”

Love.

He wanted to love her.

Her muscles melted like butter beneath the sweet stroke of his free hand down the side of her body, from breast to waist and hips to thigh and she opened up for him again, for the sweet slide of his hand over her sex.

He raised his head to look down at her as he cupped her, his heat melding with hers until she didn’t know where she ended and he began. Sophie had to arch her hips up into his hand, searching all over again for that pleasure he’d given to her mere minutes ago.

“That’s it,” he urged her as she rocked against his hand as she tried so desperately to take herself back over that incredibly high peak. Her inner muscles clenched and pulled at his fingers as he thrust them into her, sometimes fast, sometimes excruciatingly slow.

“Please, Jake,” she begged him, the plea falling from her lips unbidden.

“Anything,” he vowed. “Anything for you.”

And then his mouth was back on her br**sts oh-too-briefly before he was moving lower, kissing and biting at the skin stretched taut over her stomach. Somewhere in her head she knew what was going to happen, that he was going to put his mouth between her legs and taste her. Of course she’d fantasized about what it would be like to be with Jake so intimately, but she’d never actually believed it would happen.

His hands moved to her inner thighs, gently pushing them apart. “Show me how beautiful you are. Let me taste your sweetness.”

No one had ever talked to her like this during sex, like he was a starving man and she was a feast laid out before him.

“Beautiful.” He breathed out against her aroused flesh and a shiver took her over. “So damned beautiful.” And then he was lowering his head down, then down further still, until he was covering her, breaking her apart one slow swipe of his tongue at a time.

She should have been prepared for her climax this time, should have known it would send her reeling, should have been able to take it in and hold onto the feelings of extreme pleasure to mine later in her memories. But she didn’t have a prayer as his stubble rubbed against her folds, over her slick and damp curls. He sucked her aroused flesh between his lips and as he tugged at the incredibly sensitive ball of nerves, her limbs shook and her heart pounded so hard it nearly jumped through her ribs and skin, as she came for him. Her cry of pleasure sounded through the bedroom, the tall ceilings and floor-to-ceiling glass windows echoing it back.

When the currents of pleasure finally subsided, never leaving her completely, Sophie knew a deeper exhaustion—and satisfaction—than she’d ever had in her life. Her eyes were heavy, so heavy that even as the mattress shifted beneath Jake’s weight, she couldn’t quite manage to open them to see what he was doing.

Soon, she felt the bed move again and knew he was back with her. She reached for him, her eyes still closed. But when he grabbed her hands in his and lowered his mouth to them instead of letting her touch him, she had to push her eyelids open.

The most beautiful sight in the world awaited her.

Jake was a bronzed, perfectly formed god, kneeling between her thighs, his head bowed down to her hands as if in prayer. A tattooed tail of an animal she guessed was a dragon travelled across his rib cage from his back. She’d seen the band around his arms when he’d worn short sleeves, but she’d never had the chance to appreciate the artistry that shifted and pulsed with the tightening of his muscles.