Ryan throbbed hard behind his zipper and he quickly punched in the security code and led them up the steps to his front door, then inside the house they’d shared for the past few days as friends.

Together, they went to the couch where they’d been watching the movie together just the night before. Even for the five minutes they’d seen of the movie, it had been torture not to reach for her, not to lay her down on the leather and strip her naked so that he could taste every inch of her body.

What a difference forty-eight hours had made.

Thank God.

It was the most natural thing in the world to put his arms around her and pull her right where he wanted her. Her green eyes were big and so damned beautiful as she blinked up at him when he came over her. She was so much smaller than he was that he wanted to be careful, didn’t want to put too much of his weight over her, even though it killed him not to get even closer.

She took advantage of the small distance he’d put between them to push his jacket from his shoulders. He helped her get it off and then she was using those incredibly gifted and clever hands of hers to undo the buttons of his dress shirt.

Ryan’s breath was coming faster and faster, his control slipping more and more with each brush of Vicki’s fingertips over his chest as she worked her way down the front of his shirt.

He needed to rein himself in, enough at least that he wouldn’t scare her with all that he wanted from her.

Everything.

She lifted her eyes to his again just as the word resounded inside his brain.

“You’re so beautiful, Ryan,” she said, and then she laid her hands on the chest she’d bared, palms flat, fingers splayed.

He wanted to see her, too, needed to strip the sexy dress from her gorgeous curves and find out if all of his fantasies about her naked body were, in fact, real. But then her eyes were closing again and she began to move her fingers over his skin.

Her fingernails scraped slowly through the dark hairs that curled over his pecs and he was powerless to control a rumbling groan at the sweetness of her touch. Another smile tipped her lips as she played with him some more.

“I love the way you’re vibrating through my hands,” she whispered as she moved her hands higher, up toward his shoulders.

He’d thought he wanted her hands lower, but the way she traced each line of muscle and sinew over his shoulders, then up onto his neck, was hands-down the sexiest thing any woman had ever done to him.

If she wanted to just keep touching him like this, he would happily let her for as long as she wanted.

But then she moved her hands down from his neck, over his shoulders, to his upper arms. Shoving the fabric of his shirt down so that she could touch his skin, she wrapped her hands over his biceps and triceps, which were bulging from holding himself up over her, and gave a happy sigh.

Her eyes fluttered open, stunning him all over again with their beauty as she said, “You’re so perfect. I love touching you.”

He couldn’t resist dropping his mouth to hers then and taking her lips in a kiss that told her he thought she was absolutely perfect, too. She gripped his arms as he deepened the kiss, her hips arching up into his. Her legs were pinned between his, and he took advantage of the position by pressing himself hard into her. This time she was the one groaning as pleasure took them both over.

Ryan hadn’t lain on a couch fully clothed, grinding against a girl, since high school. It occurred to him through the fog of lust in his brain that it was fitting they should be here like this, almost as if they were revisiting all those lost opportunities when they were teenagers.

If he had ever gotten her like this in high school, he would have lost his freaking mind, he’d wanted her so bad. All the years between then and now had only amped up that want and he had to fight not to just rip her clothes off and take her.

Hell, who was he kidding? That was exactly what he needed to do. A second later, he was shrugging off his shirt and reaching for one of the zippers on the front of her dress.

“I’ve wanted to do this all night long.”

He finally unzipped her a couple of inches, baring perfect soft skin. He would have kept going all the way if surprise hadn’t lit her eyes.

“You did?”

He’d thought she knew exactly what she was doing with the dress, that she’d intentionally created the ultimate fantasy for every single guy at the party of undoing each zipper one by one, from her br**sts, her hips, and up each thigh.

“We all did.”

Her eyes widened and she licked her lips as if concerned. “We?”

He adored Vicki, and trusted her in a way he didn’t trust any other woman but the ones he was related to, but he had a hard time believing she was surprised by the way she’d looked tonight.

He lowered his mouth to the spot on her neck just below her ear and after giving it a sharp nip, then licking over the skin, he said, “You had to know what all those zippers would do to a bunch of horny ballplayers.”

“No,” she swore even as shivers wracked her sweet, soft frame at the next touch of his teeth, then tongue on the other side of her neck. “My friend Anne is so talented that I had to wear her dress. And I didn’t have anything else to wear.”

Ryan lifted his head to gaze down at the surprisingly innocent beauty below him. She’d lived for over a decade with artists who, he guessed, partied harder than even the biggest sports stars, that probably slept in kinky groupings even a guy like him had no interest in at all.

How had she kept herself apart from all of it?

“Remind me to thank her next time I see her for the pleasure of unwrapping you like this.” He pulled the zipper down again, all the way this time, so that her br**sts spilled free.

Ryan froze as he looked down at her.

“Jesus, Vicki.” He swallowed hard, tried to grab hold of what was left of his frayed control. “You aren’t wearing a bra. And your br**sts are—”

There weren’t any words for them. Nothing that would even come close to doing them justice.

Against her creamy skin, her ni**les were a dark, rosy flush. The tips hardened even further as he stared down at her in wonder.

Vicki was every fantasy he’d ever had come to life beneath him, her body made for sex in its purest, sweetest form, with curves to fit his hands, his mouth, his—

“Ryan?”

He could hear the panic just starting to bubble up in her voice at the crazy way he was acting, but he didn’t have the lucidity anymore to deal with it. All he could do was reach for her with a trembling hand and cup the softest flesh he’d ever touched.