Whereas, once she crossed the “I like you as more than a friend” line with actual words, there was no taking them back...or trying to attribute them to one crazy night.

At the outset of this week, she’d made a vow to be calm and rational rather than too passionate for her own good. Okay, so she’d blown it last night, and clearly if she wanted it, there was tons more ridiculously good blowing it on her horizon.

But was the greatest sex in the world worth risking her heart—and her friendship with Ryan—over?

When they arrived home, they walked inside and she put their things down on his kitchen counter, the same way she had so many nights before that week. Only, tonight, everything felt different.

Different enough that she suddenly blurted, “You were going to ask me to the prom?”

“I had it bad for you even then.”

Slowly, she turned to face him. He stared at her and she stared back. Time stood still as she tried to read what was in his eyes.

“Ryan?” His name on her lips made them tingle. Made her want. Desperately.

“It won’t be weird this time.”

Vicki’s heart was pounding so hard she could barely hear her own voice over it.

“Promise?”

“I promise.”

Just that quickly, the fire that had been sparking and kindling between them all night long finally burst into flames as he cupped her hips and pulled her tightly against him, her palms grazing his jaw as she moved to thread her fingers into his hair.

Their mouths licked, sucked, even bit at each other as they made it over to the couch. Vicki clenched Ryan’s shirt in her fist and pulled him down, her core clenching with heat as he moved his heavy weight over her.

They’d gone so slow their first time, needing that pace to feed their discovery of each other. But she wouldn’t survive that tonight, not when she was already this desperate for him to take her, to make her his again.

The buttons of his dress shirt flew in every direction as she ripped open his shirt and pressed hungry kisses to his chest. She flicked her tongue over him and he groaned her name into her hair even as he yanked her dress off her shoulders.

She loved how rough his hands were as he shoved the fabric off her chest, her hips, then down her legs.

He pulled back to take in her nakedness. “I don’t think I’ll ever get over how good you look naked on my couch.” A moment later, his arms were lifting her and he was saying, “I can’t wait to see how you look in my shower.”

He kissed her all the way up the stairs and down the hall past the guest bedroom to his own bedroom. Her heart pounded as much from the arousal he so effortlessly built in her as it did from knowing she was going to be in the shower with him soon.

Quick and dirty sex on his couch would have been so much easier to write off as another crazy impulse.

Then again, when he didn’t even bother to do more than kick off his shoes and then slide hers off too before walking into the huge, glass-enclosed shower with her still in his arms and turning the water on over them, she knew he was doing exactly that—following his impulses.

Thank God.

He moved them so that he could watch the warm water pulse and flow over her chest, and then lowered his head to her br**sts. As his mouth covered one taut tip, she held onto his neck even as the sweet pleasure coursed through every cell in her body.

His skin was getting wet and so were her hands, but before she could slip, he put her back down on her feet and pressed her up against the one tiled wall. He pressed her legs wide open with his, and took her hands in his to hold them up against the tiles on either side of her head.

She felt owned.

Possessed.

Utterly, completely claimed by the heat in his eyes as his gaze ran down her body, then back up to her face.

“Every fantasy, Vicki. ” His words were raw. And so low she could barely hear them over the spray from the multiple showerheads. “You’re every single fantasy I've ever had.”

Her breath came fast as she let herself look at him, too. His chest was tanned and beautifully muscled. His wet button-down shirt clung to his shoulder and arm muscles in a shockingly sexy way. Not to mention the way his jeans cupped his enormous erection and his taut thigh muscles.

“You are, too,” she whispered, barely getting the words out before he captured her mouth in a kiss so searing the water could have been cold and she would still have been warm.

“You have no idea how many dirty things I want to do with you right now.”

The warmth coiled down low in her belly let go at his heated words. She was already risking so much with Ryan tonight.

Why not one more thing?

“Good thing we’re already in a shower, then.”

His eyes lit at the realization that she’d just given him permission to do whatever he wanted with her, and then his mouth covered hers again for a brief, intense kiss before he dropped to his knees in front of her.

He let go of her hands to cup her br**sts and she threaded her hands into his wet hair to hold him there against her as he laved and sucked and nipped at her sensitive flesh.

“God, I love your br**sts,” he murmured against her chest as he moved to taste the other one.

They’d always been big, ever since puberty, and more than once she’d wished she didn’t have to deal with them. But right in that moment, she’d never been so happy for her abundant flesh, if only because it meant more kisses from Ryan across every inch of them.

“You have no idea how many nights I dreamed of doing this when we were in high school.”

She could barely catch her breath enough to ask, “How many?”

“All of them.”

His thumbs and forefingers moved to replace his mouth as he kissed his way down her stomach. Vicki’s legs trembled as he moved lower and lower to where she was so wet, so ready for him, that the barest touch was going to send her over.

But instead of pressing his mouth to her, he pulled back and just stared at the wet curls between her legs. His hands moved from her br**sts to grip her inner thighs and open her more to him.

He’d gone down on her the night before, but being in the shower like this as he stared at her really did feel dirty...in the best possible sense of the word.

She could still hardly believe that it was Ryan between her naked legs, the best looking man in the world kneeling in front of her, ready to worship her with his mouth and hands.

“Gorgeous.” He pressed a soft kiss to her curls. “Absolutely gorgeous.” He slid two fingers into her and groaned the words, “So wet. And hot.”