She’d make sure she kept at least a small piece of herself secret. Private.

Another little bite of Ryan’s teeth against her belly brought her out of her dark thoughts and she couldn’t help but wonder if he was doing it on purpose to keep her from spinning off too long, too far, while they were together.

“If I had champagne I’d drink it from you,” he said right before he licked a decadent path down to her belly button. “Right here.” He moved lower and slightly to the side to lave her hipbone. “And just below here.” With obvious intent, he moved to the other side of her hip. “Here, too.”

How, she wondered helplessly as he played with her all-too-willing body, was she possibly going to make good on the silent vow she’d just made?

“Tell me, Vicki, would you like that?”

His voice was low. Raw with desire. And so damn sensual that she was practically coming apart again at nothing more than the way he was stringing words together.

“Would you want me to pour it between your br**sts and make you lie still until you’re all clean again with nothing but my tongue?”

Seriously, was he trying to kill her?

When she didn’t answer quickly enough, he nipped at her again, this time just below her belly button.

“Yes,” she gasped, “I’d like it.”

She caught the flash of his smile, heard him say, “Good, because I’d love it,” before he lowered his head again.

All the while his mouth had been torturing her, his big, strong hands stroked down the undersides of her arms, and then her back, before moving beneath her hips and cradling her. He turned his head and pressed his cheek against her stomach, holding her like that for several long moments.

Vicki felt beyond precious—and so incredibly safe. And then, in a split second, one small shift of his thumbs against the insides of her thighs replaced safety with a spike of arousal so intense she was almost afraid of the power of it.

A heartbeat later, his mouth was on her and as he slicked over her with his tongue, slow and sure and so wonderful, all thoughts of fear or safety disappeared as if they’d never been there at all. She heard herself cry out as if from far, far away and her hands slipped from the couch arm as she came apart again, falling down deeper into pleasure with every pass of his tongue, with every wave that wracked her, radiating from her core and over her br**sts, then down her limbs to the tips of every finger, to her toes.

The pleasure was sweet and heady and she felt better than she’d ever thought possible.

A moment later, Ryan was lifting her off the couch and heading for the stairs. She wrapped her arms around him and buried her face in the crook of his neck. He smelled like sex and sweat and Ryan.

If she could have bottled his scent, she thought with a sleepy satisfaction, she’d surely make millions.

“Good?”

She could hear the hint of laughter in his voice as he quizzed her on whether she’d enjoyed herself, and she smiled back even as she licked at his salty skin.

Oh, but he was yummy. She took another taste before finally answering him. “Really good.”

“It was really good for me, too,” he told her as he kicked open his bedroom door, laid her down on the big bed in the middle of the room, and quickly stripped the rest of his clothes off.

For the past week, every time she went to sleep in his guest room, she’d dreamed of being here instead. Only, even in her dreams she hadn’t come close to the reality of just how gorgeous he was completely naked.

“Great,” she said without thinking, “you’ve just ruined me for anyone else.”

He looked down at his groin—erect in all his aroused male glory—then back up to her with raised eyebrows, looking far too pleased with himself. “Good.”

No, she thought, it wasn’t good. It was horrible, because after this ridiculous fantasy came to an end and she had to rejoin the real world, she really was screwed. And not in a good way.

She’d already been a goner for his humor. His kindness. His talent. The way he loved his family and always put them first.

And now this?

If she hadn’t been so darn relaxed after those two screamingly great orgasms, she would have been mad about it.

Still, he hadn’t exactly launched himself at her since they’d come into his bedroom. Pushing away the slight disappointment at that fact, as a wave of exhaustion hit her while she stretched out on the bed, she told herself she was glad that the crazy fog of lust that had been clouding their brains finally seemed to be dissipating.

For one, she could speak to him normally again without all of the blushing and shyness that kept coming over her. He’d join her on the bed soon and they’d finish having sex and then she’d go back to her guest room and they’d both chalk it up to a few hours of momentary madness.

They’d end up laughing about it all in the morning, she thought with an exhausted yawn. Because if she lost him as a friend—

“Sleepy?”

The first hint that she was off base with all her assumptions of fading passion was the easiness of his voice. So dangerously easy, in fact, that the one word sent a shiver through her.

“You wore me out,” she teased, trying to keep things light between them.

Didn’t he understand that they needed to finish things up in such a way that they could write it off as water under the bridge in the morning?

Besides, she wasn’t the least bit tipsy anymore, so she couldn’t possibly blame anything she did—or felt—from this moment forward on the alcohol.

Which meant that everything from here on out would be all her...and she simply couldn’t afford to feel too much with Ryan while they were naked and kissing, above and beyond simple physical pleasure.

He took a step toward her. “I’ll have to work harder on making sure you stay awake, won’t I?”

For all that she wanted to act like what they were doing—and what they had already done—was no big deal, she couldn’t manage to lie still and wait for him to come to her. Feeling suddenly vulnerable, she scooted back on the bed.

Ryan’s hand on her ankle stopped her from moving any further away from him.

She swallowed hard as she looked down at where he was holding her, his hand so tan against her pale skin.

He had her other ankle in his other hand a moment later and before she could remember how to breathe, he was dragging her toward him, the soft bed cover rubbing against her naked back and bottom.

He didn’t stop pulling until he had her at the edge of the mattress and had positioned them so that he was standing with his legs between hers. He pulled her legs around him, made her ankles cross behind the small of his back. The bed frame was high enough that his groin was barely higher than hers without his needing to bend his legs.