Thomas roared with laughter. "But I want to talk about it. That bundle of yours is the only topic I'm interested in right now. So what did he say?"

Emma's mouth fell open, then she slammed it shut in defiance.

"What size do you wear?"

She nearly jumped out of her skin. "What? I'm not going to tell you that!"

Thomas laughed softly and let a finger brush along the curve of her waist, the fullness of her hip. "Well, sweet-cheeks, you're sitting here in front of me and I can see it all, so what does it matter if you tell me the number?"

She flashed him a doubtful look.

"I'm going somewhere with this, Emma. Trust me."

She hissed in surrender and turned her face away. "Twelve."

"And?"

Her head swiveled back. "And what?"

"And what's wrong with that? I spend half my life studying people, taking mental measurements for descriptions, and I know for a fact that the average American woman is a size fourteen. So you're smaller than average."

She frowned at him.

"How much do you weigh?"

"For God's sake!" Emma tried to get up off the bed but Thomas clamped down on her thighs. She looked at him, incredulous. "Really, Thomas-if this is your idea of foreplay, it's not getting me hot, just bothered."

Laughing, Thomas dropped his head and planted little kisses on her kneecaps. "I'm just trying to understand," he said, nuzzling her knee. "If you tell me how much you weigh, then you won't feel like you've got anything to hide, right?"

She groaned.

He waited. "I'll go first: I'm six-three and two twenty."

Emma gulped. Yowzah! And it was nothing but muscle, power, and grace. In comparison, her stats sounded downright diminutive.

"Okay." She took a breath. "I'm five-five and about one forty-five. Aaron always said my butt was too big. Happy now?"

Thomas leaned back and reached up to run his fingers through her hair, looking into her blue eyes for a long, quiet moment. Aaron had done a number on her, no question about it, and it was now his job to correct the math.

"People can be exceptionally cruel, Emma," he said softly. "And people can be power-hungry and people can be stupid. Apparently, your ex-husband was cruel, power-hungry, and stupid."

Without warning, he rose up on his knees, grabbed a handful of her hair, and tipped her head back, then kissed her thoroughly. He slid his lips over her and his tongue into her, and bit down on that carnal lower lip of hers, sucking it into his mouth, all to illustrate the extent of Aaron's idiocy.

Then he whispered in her ear, "I think you are the sexiest woman I've ever known-especially your butt." His fingers slid down around her bottom, working their way beneath her, cupping her, holding her. He pulled her like that to the very edge of the bed and held her there, tight in his hands. He nibbled on her neck as he continued to murmur in her ear.

"Your butt is like a neon sign that flashes the word SEX over and over in my brain. Your butt is like all the perfect forms in nature wrapped up into one little pair of lacy underwear. Your butt is my reason for being."

She snorted again. "Stop it. There's such a thing as overkill."

"Oh, I disagree." He kissed and suckled at her throat, her collarbone. "I think we're just getting started on our relaxation exercises, Dr. Jenkins." He pulled back enough for her to see his face, and he hitched up his lips mischievously.

"Roll over," he commanded.

Her eyes flew wide. "Pardon me?"

Before she could protest, he'd flipped her over onto her stomach and stretched her legs down and apart, her feet dangling off the bed. She felt completely exposed, the air hitting her bare back and shoulders and the inside of her thighs. She sensed Thomas hovering over her, close, his breath warm on the small of her back. She began to tremble.

"Stay." His command was deep and serious, but his voice shook with laughter.

Emma giggled, but a spark of real fear flared inside her. It seemed there was always a touch of fear in her response to Thomas, because it was too intense, too fast, and all unexplored territory.

What was he going to do to her?

She craned her neck to look over her shoulder. "Is this where you tell me to bark like a dog for you?"

Thomas laughed again, then leaned down and kissed the side of her cheek. "Maybe later. Right now, I'm going to redirect your attention-you're going to get so interested in what I'm doing that you won't remember what upset you in the first place."

Emma started to giggle-realizing she was about to get a taste of her own medicine-but abruptly stopped when Thomas slapped his two big hands down on her rump and ripped off her underwear in one quick swipe. She felt the fabric drag along the back of her legs and fall off the end of her toes.

His hands came back to her bottom, raising her until she was a few inches off the bed and her knees slightly bent. He held her there, his touch firm and unmoving. And hot-so wonderfully hot where he grasped her.

Then he moved his palms in delicious, rhythmic circles, caressing, then pulling apart, pushing together, and Emma could hear his breath coming as fast as her own. She could hear him make little noises in the back of his throat that were part grunt and part murmur, and she tried not to imagine what she must look like in this position. She tried not to worry. She simply tried to feel.

"I'm an ass man, Emma." His hands continued to caress her, cup her, grip her.

"That's good to know," she mumbled, half into the sheets. Half out of her mind.

"Well, actually, I'm a breast man, too. And a leg man. But mostly an ass man."

"Okay," she squeaked. "I got all those things."

"Hell yes, you do, Miss Marple." His hands slid up into the dip in her back, thumbs touching, then let his fingers slide down into her waist, around the swell of her hips to her bottom, where he grabbed on and started over.

"And my God, you've got one fine ass." His fingers began to stray down the furrow of her bottom and she felt the bed move as he came up behind her.

His tongue landed hot and wet on her flesh and she nearly screamed at the intensity of the sensation. He licked her, dragged his lips and tongue across her, and flirted with the crease of her. She felt his tongue flick and his teeth nip and then one of his hands was sliding hot and slow up the length of her spine until it grabbed a handful of her hair. At the same time, his other hand moved down, down, until he cupped her sex.

Emma knew instinctively that she'd just been claimed.

"Every inch of you is beautiful," he whispered, his breath hot on her skin and his lips vibrating against her flesh. He was such a big man that he could be every place on her body at once-her hair, her sex, her back-and Emma heard herself make little whimpers of pleasure, soft moans, then a startled cry when his long fingers tickled the opening to her body.

His fingertips separated her, slicked around the swollen tissue, but didn't enter her.

Emma lost it,just like the night on the front porch, and her body seemed to move of its own volition. Her hips began to circle slow and rhythmically, pushing against his touch, pulling away, until she was lost in it, suffocating in the pleasure, rubbing her face into the bed as she moved her hips.

For what seemed like an eternity, Thomas just let his fingertips play along the wet rim of her, spellbound by her greedy wiggle and the sight of his big fingers up against her beautiful little pussy-so puffy and sweet and so ready for him.

Emma was into sex. He'd figured that out by now and said a little prayer of thanks.

And being naked with her, so close to her heat, hearing those little noises she made, getting drunk on her scent-he couldn't remember experiencing this kind of buildup before, this kind of exquisite torture, pressure, agony.