Seven

      She was limp in his grasp and Nathan had never felt more alive. His body hard and aching, his pulse scrambling, he continued to stroke her intimately, loving the feel of her slick flesh beneath his fingers. Her breath hitched and she jerked in his arms as her still-sensitive body reacted to his touch.

      No woman in the world affected him like this one did. With just a sigh, she could inflame him or bring him to his knees. Which is why he was here, he reminded himself. This was the plan. To have sex with her again so that he could walk away. He looked down into her face and saw a soft, satisfied smile. Saw her meadow-green eyes glazed with passion. Saw the rapid pulse beat at the base of her throat and he wasn’t thinking about walking away. He was thinking only of burying himself inside her. Feeling her body close around his again.

      “Nathan…that was …”

      “Foreplay,” he groaned past the hard knot of need lodged in his throat and waited for her reaction. He touched her again and she trembled. In his arms, she felt vulnerable, soft, and every protective instinct he had roared to life. In that moment, he wanted to stand between her and the rest of the world. He wanted to always see her like this, looking up at him with stars in her eyes and a breathless plea on her lips.

      Seconds ticked past as she looked into his eyes. He held perfectly still. He wouldn’t touch her again until she said yes. Until she admitted that sex was the one thing they both could agree on. That they both needed. He hoped to hell she’d say it. If she still said no, it just might kill him.

      She lifted one hand to cup his cheek and stroked her thumb along his cheekbone. “I’m tired of being sensible,” she said. “I don’t want to think about tomorrow. I only want tonight. With you.”

      He waited a beat or two, letting her words sink in. Then, for his own sanity, he demanded, “You’re sure?”

      She smiled and linked her arms behind his neck. “About this, yes.”

      “Thank God,” he muttered and spun her around in a quick circle before lowering her to the quilt spread beneath the gnarled, twisted arms of the oaks surrounding them.

      Quickly, they worked to clear the quilt, setting the wine aside and shifting the cooler off into the thick grass. The radio played on, music shifting now to a low, throbbing beat that seemed to echo what each of them was feeling.

      They turned to each other, tearing at clothing, needing to touch only skin. Needing to feel the heat that flesh against flesh created. The summer wind slid over them as hands and mouths rediscovered the magic that pulsed between them.

      Nathan couldn’t seem to touch her enough. The feel of her soft, smooth skin beneath his fingers fed the fire inside that was engulfing him. His brain hazed out, his vision narrowed until all he saw was her. The woman who had haunted him for years. The woman he’d lost and never forgotten.

      He eased back, taking a moment to just look at her, enjoy this moment when she was his again. Her hair spilled across the quilt beneath her. Her long, tanned limbs were lean and smooth and her breasts were high and full. His hands itched to cup them, to tease those pebbled nipples until she was moaning and arching into his touch.

      Shaking his head, he murmured, “Been thinking about this since that first day I saw you in the diner.”

      She laughed a little and the sound rose over the roar of the river to become part of the music of the night. “You mean when you walked in all fiery-eyed, wanting me to leave town?”

      “Yeah, only I didn’t want you out of town as much as I just wanted you,” Nathan told her, dipping his head to taste first one dark nipple and then the other.

      She gasped, then sighed, a slow exhalation of breath that seemed to slide right into the heart of him. When he lifted his head again, she looked up into his eyes and said, “You hid it really well, being all crabby.”

      He gave her a quick grin. “Couldn’t let the town gossips know what I was thinking. Hell, I didn’t want you to know what I was thinking.”

      “Oh, me neither,” she admitted, holding his head to her breast. Her fingers threaded through his short hair, her nails dragging across his scalp.

      He was on fire. His whole damn body felt as if it were lit up from the flames about to swallow him. “Shoulda done this days ago.”

      “Oh, yeah,” she whispered and arched into him as he moved down her body, trailing damp kisses along her skin…down her chest, along the line of her stomach and across her abdomen. She tasted of summer and smelled like a spring meadow. He was surrounded by her taste, scent, touch. And still it wasn’t enough. His body ached like a bad tooth. He needed her and damned if he wanted to need. Being sucked into a maelstrom of emotions hadn’t been the plan. The plan was simply to bed her, so he could get her out of his system once and for all.

      The plan. He fought to hold on to it. To remember why it was important. Nathan Battle didn’t do anything without a damn plan and once it was made, it was golden.

      And yet…his brain shied away from thinking at all. Nathan wanted to concentrate solely on this moment, not what had led to it or what might come after. All he wanted right now was to revel in finally having her here, beneath his hands again.

      Her body was long and slim with just the right amount of curves to tempt a man. In the starlight, her skin seemed like warm honey. He dragged the tips of his fingers across her flat belly and smiled to himself when she sucked in a gulp of air. He traced the tan lines that striped over her breasts and then along the narrow strip of paler skin that lay across the triangle of light brown curls at the juncture of her thighs.

      “You wear a tiny bikini,” he murmured and wished he’d seen her in it.

      She smiled. “No point in wearing a big one, is there?”

      “Nope, guess not,” he agreed, sliding one hand down to cup her heat. “What color is it?”

      She gasped and rocked her hips into his hand. “What? Color? What?”

      “Your bikini, Amanda,” he whispered, “what color is it?”

      He dipped a finger into her heat and she hissed a breath. “Is that really important right now?”

      “Humor me,” he told her and swirled the tip of his finger around an already sensitive spot.

      “Okay, okay, just don’t stop,” she ordered, then swallowed hard. “It’s white. With red …” She broke off and shuddered, as he continued to stroke her with slow deliberation.

      “Red what?”

      “Huh? Red? Right.” She nodded, licked her lips and wiggled her hips into his touch. “Red, um, dots. Polka dots.”

      “Sounds nice.”

      “Uh-huh,” she whispered. “I’ll be sure to show you sometime. But for right now could we …”

      “You want more?” he asked, knowing she did, drawing out the suspense, the waiting,