He was being honest with her and she could be no less with herself.

She wanted and needed this man and all he would give her.

He lifted his head. “I feel like you’re not with me on this, Beth.”

She’d been responding, but he’d sensed her mind was elsewhere. He was so in tune with her, it was scary.

She smiled. “I was thinking.”

“About us?”

“Yes?”

“Good thoughts or bad thoughts?”

“Mostly good.”

He brushed his lips over her eyes, closing them. “I’m an overachiever, Beth.”

“I noticed that about you.”

“I’m not going to settle for anything less than great thoughts…” He slid his lips along her cheek and bit her earlobe gently. “Spectacular thoughts…” He licked her ear, sending shivers along her nerve endings. “Deeply erotic and pleasurable thoughts.”

“You aren’t?” she asked on a breathy whisper, concentrating on the feel of his mouth on her and keeping her eyes shut so the world she knew was only where their bodies connected.

“No.” His lips were back to playing with hers. “Now, think about this.”

This kiss was pure carnality. He wanted her thinking about nothing but the passion igniting between them and used his considerable expertise to guarantee it. His tongue was hot and tantalizing against hers, taking possession of her mouth with a marauder’s confidence. She’d never kissed a man who could make her feel the things Ethan did with his mouth.

It went beyond the physical response of her body to something deep inside her that responded to him as if he was the other half of herself.

As the kiss went on and on and on…she did what she’d been aching to do since he took his shirt off. She smoothed her hands over the hair-roughened contours of his chest, memorizing every indentation and muscular formation with her mind as well as her fingertips. He was so perfectly, utterly masculine. And she loved that. She felt like Eternal Woman simply from touching him.

He shuddered, making a very male sound of appreciation against her lips as she caressed him. His skin was hot satin against her hands. It had only been a couple of days since they’d made love, but she felt like it had been forever. She was so hungry for him. Ravenous. Starving. Her nerve endings each craving the food of their mutual passion.

She pushed him backward, straddling his hard hips and aggressively responding to his kiss, all the while her fingers kneading him like a cat establishing its territory. His body shook with laughter as if he found her assertiveness funny, but she didn’t care. He wasn’t pulling away and this was what she needed.

She rubbed herself over the hard bulge straining against the seam of his trousers and his laughter abruptly ceased-to be replaced by a low, feral groan. He gripped her hips and surged up toward her, caressing her sweet spot through the layers of fabric with a long glide. She rode him like that, fighting the guide of his hands, wanting to set her own pace.

He let her go and she rocked zealously against him. She was dimly aware of his hands on the zip of her dress and then she was naked from the waist up, her bodice bunched up around her hips. Air cooler than her body brushed breasts swollen with desire and nipples beaded with almost painful desire.

She stopped moving and allowed the sensation to wash over her as goose bumps formed on her sensitive skin.

His big hands cupped her, the shocking difference between their warmth and the air sending pleasure arcing through her to be expelled in a tiny cry against his mouth. She pressed herself into his hold, moving side to side and up and down, reveling in the friction of his rougher hands against such soft flesh. He shifted his hold so her nipples were between his fingers and then squeezed them together, sending sensation zipping straight from the hard buds to her clitoris.

Another scream rose from her throat, but no sound emerged. She could do nothing but begin rocking her hips again in an anguished attempt to assuage the need exploding inside her womb and throughout her body. But it wasn’t enough. She needed to have him inside of her, filling her until she thought she could not take any more.

The desire was so strong, she tore her mouth from his and leapt off his lap, her dress falling to the floor with her violent movements. She stepped out of it and stripped her tiny panties down her hips, kicking them off with an urgent flick.

He didn’t say a word, but yanked off his pants and shorts, grabbing a condom from the pocket before he let the clothes fall to the floor.

“Thought you were going to get lucky?” she asked, panting.

He shook his head in a single hard denial as he ripped the packet open. “Afraid I wasn’t going to be able to keep my hands off you.”

“You were right.”

“Yes, I was.” She went to unhook her suspenders while he donned the condom, but he shook his head. “Don’t. Leave them on. Please.”

She looked down at herself. The suspender belt and stockings outlined her feminine mound like an erotic picture frame. Lifting her gaze, she smiled at him, feeling sexier than she ever had. “All right.”

“Come here, baby.” He put his hands out to her, his erection jutting from his body, thick, hard, and intimidating.

A sensual thrill ran down her spine and she reached for his hand, letting him pull her close. When that big shaft rubbed against her stomach, she moaned and leaned forward to bite him softly right beside his nipple. “I need you, Stud.”

He laughed, the sound low and sexy. “For the first time, I don’t feel like you’re calling me that in an uncomplimentary way.”

He was right. She wasn’t. “You are the ultimate stud to me.”

“Good. Because, baby, you are the quintessential woman to me.”

Her body trembled against him. “You use big words for being so turned on.”

“They’re coming from someplace other than my brain, because right now, you’ve got that part of my anatomy fried with pleasure.”

Something in the region of her heart went on meltdown. “I need you, Ethan.”

And she wasn’t sure she was just talking about making love.

But he took the words as an express invitation and lifted her. Happy to let the disturbing thought go, she spread her legs and wrapped them around him, whimpering when his penis pressed against the entrance to her body. She pushed down, taking more of him inside her, while he surged up with a tortured groan. He was moving, but she was too busy trying to increase the level of his penetration to care where he was taking her.

Her back landed against the wall. He pinned her there with his big body and with the leverage was able to thrust hard, filling her. “You’re so tight, baby.”

“You’re big.” She was stretched beyond comfort, but not to the point of pain. It felt so right.

“Is that an accusation?”

“A compliment. I like it.”

“Only like?” He thrust into her heavily.

She moaned and moved to enhance the feelings arcing through her like lightning. But there was no question about which of them was in control at the moment. Ethan made love to her, his hands on her hips, holding her against the wall as he pounded in and out, driving her higher and higher until she couldn’t think and could barely breathe.

“Just like, Beth? You only like this?”

“I love it!” she screamed, her body convulsing with the cataclysm of pleasure she only knew with him. “I love it…I love it…I love it…I lov…”

The chanting trailed off into a snaking moan as Ethan pinned her to the wall with a final, hard thrust and came. He yelled her name in a hoarse shout, his head thrown back like an ancient warrior, muscles corded along his neck.

Afterward, his head fell forward, nuzzling into the curve of her shoulder. They stayed that way a long time, Beth’s arms locked around his neck, her legs locked around his waist.

“We have to move,” he said in a gravelly voice that made her smile.