Chase had told her he wasn’t going to give up. But she was just as firm in her position. So if he was going to try to make tonight about emotion, she was going to make sure they erred on the side of the physical.

Her resolve firmed just as he came at her with another one of those sinfully sweet kisses aimed straight at her heart. Pulling away before it could land, she led him to the French doors and out to the balcony off the bedroom. She didn’t need to hear his questions to know he was wondering what the heck she was up to.

Well, he’d just have to wait and see.

At the last second, she realized they were going to need one more thing before leaving the room. “Where are your condoms?”

Out of her peripheral vision, she could see his erection grow bigger, taller. “In my bag.”

“Get one.” She smiled at him, a smile that felt wicked and different. But not bad. Liberated. “At least one.”

His eyes narrowed, a muscle jumping in his jaw, at her command.

Another wicked smile, along with the brush of her hand across the stubble beginning to cover his jaw. “You don’t like me telling you what to do?”

“On the contrary,” he responded, his words raw and rough, “I like it a great deal.”

Darn it, she was trying to keep a handle on things here. He shouldn’t be able to turn everything on its ear with just a few words.

The night air still held some of the warmth of the day, but it was cold enough that she could feel it slide across her overheated skin. It felt good, like a splash of sense. Just enough sense to keep her purpose in place, but not enough to have her put a halt to being with Chase altogether.

When they were all the way outside, she turned back to Chase, plucking the condoms from his fingertips—he was clearly a hopeful man given the stack he’d brought out—and placing them on the rail within easy reach.

She let herself look at him for a long moment, the way he stood before her in the moonlight, utterly confident in his nudity. Of course he was. Any man—any person—this beautiful should be confident.

Her intention to keep things only physical slipping ever so slightly, she found herself saying, “You could have anyone. Why me?”

His thumb rubbing sensuous little circles against the inside of her palm, he replied, “I knew the instant I saw you.”

“What—” She should stop this, move back to playtime. But her mouth was a traitor with another question. “What could you have possibly known?”

“Nothing,” he replied with perfect honesty. Honesty that immediately cut through any protests she might have made. “And everything.”

She didn’t understand.

Or, rather, she didn’t want to understand.

She needed to keep things simple. Black and white. That’s what their connection was. That was all it could possibly be until she had her life figured out and back on track.

“We’re good in bed together,” she told him, and then, to make sure they stayed on the purely physical track, “That night at your brother’s house, out on his porch, what did you want to do to me?”

His eyes burned into hers, a whole new level of intense. “You know exactly what I wanted to do to you.”

“Show me, Chase.”

A second later, he had her backed into the porch rail, one hand in her hair, the other on her hip. They’d been like this enough for her to recognize the way he liked to hold her.

She liked it, too. So much. There was sizzling pleasure in his arms. But comfort found her there, too. A sense of safety that he would always hold her just right. Not too tight. Not too loosely, either.

Fortunately, his mouth descended on hers just then, sending her thoughts into flight.

She hadn’t thought he could kiss her better than he already had. Oh, how wrong she was.

This kiss was hotter, went so much deeper, was so much more dangerous than any that had come before.

She couldn’t breathe, didn’t even care that she was quickly losing her hold on reality as her sole focus centered on his mouth, to the way his tongue found her most sensitive spots, to the way his teeth knew just where to bite, just how hard to tease her. And then, oh God, he was doing just what he’d done before, running kisses across her cheek, then down to her neck, to the hollow of her collarbones.

The anticipation of what he was going to do had her trembling even before his tongue slid against her skin.

She held her breath, only to have it come gasping out as he made contact.

“Lovely, Chloe.” His seductive praise was a whisper just below her earlobe and she shivered with unrepressed delight as his teeth found her there and lightly pressed into the sensitive flesh.

“You didn’t bite me there.”

“I wanted to,” he finished.

A whimper escaped her as she realized that she was a fool to think she could lead Chase anywhere. His gentleness did not preclude his power over her emotions.

He laved the small bite before moving his attention back to her shoulders. She never would have thought that she’d be sensitive, reactive, on that part of her body.

How incredibly wrong she was.

Chase lifted his head. “Too many clothes.”

She was on the verge of opening her mouth to remind him that she was naked when it hit her: He was pretending. Pretending they were rewinding back two nights. Giving her the fantasy, per her request.

His fingertips moved to her shoulders where the silky straps of her dress had been. Slowly, deliberately, he slid those phantom straps aside. “Lift your arms for me.”

There was no reason for her to raise her arms. She didn’t have any clothes on, no dress to get off. Her br**sts were already there, bared—and aroused—before Chase.

It would have been enough for her if he’d laid her down and taken her on the wooden slats of the deck, right then and there. But, oh, wasn’t it so much sweeter to play this game?

To pretend.

And to lose herself in heady anticipation.

Moving her hands and arms as if she were trying to slip free from the straps of a dress, she lifted them up and shimmied, just as she had two nights ago.

She went to lower her hands when Chase said, “Just like that.”

She waited for panic to take over, for the urge to lower her hands. He’d promised not to hold them in place again, and he was keeping to that promise. But wasn’t asking her to do it almost the same? And shouldn’t she be feeling something other than the heady warmth that was moving through her, head to toe?

“Lovely.”

He ran the fingertips of his free hand over the swell of her br**sts and she arched into his touch. One broad fingertip began slow circles over her skin. Slowly, way too slowly, he came closer to the tightly puckered skin that was so desperate for his touch.