Here. Make love to me, Grey.”

She ran her fingers under the hair at the back of his neck, fisted her hand in it, and forcibly pulled his mouth back down to hers. She made a sound at the moment of contact, a rich, husky purr of pure pleasure.

With a surge of molten energy humming through every muscle in his body, he stretched full length on the couch and settled Grace on top of him. She didn’t let go of her grip throughout the entire process. She used her tongue to tease his mouth, slipping it inside with another mew of pleasure. She used her hands, awkwardly, creatively, and desperately, to drive him insane. And then she wiggled her hips more fully over his until he was shaking with need.

He had to slow her down. This was getting explosive. He was getting explosive. He wanted her beneath him now, to drive into her with the force of his passion.

Grace moved from his mouth to trail kisses over his chin, down his neck, to the base of his throat. Grey closed his eyes and locked his jaw. Two of the buttons on his shirt popped off and clattered against the walls in opposite directions.

She licked his nipple. He shouted then, nearly throwing them both off the couch. It was definitely time he took the lead, before he lost his control.

In one fluid motion he reversed their positions, tucking her beneath him, trapping her fevered hands over her head. She stilled, blinking up at him.

Her face, puffed from hours of crying, was flushed with passion now and framed dark blue eyes swimming with lust. Her breathing was irregular. Her scent was alluring. He could still taste her, warm and delicious, on his mouth.

“Oh, God, Grey. Please don’t stop,” she pleaded, moving restlessly beneath him.

Trying to steady his own irregular breathing, Grey lowered his forehead to hers. “I’m not. I’m not stopping, lass. But you’ve got to slow down. You’re burning me up, and I won’t last long enough to get inside you.”

She tilted her head back and lifted her lips, kissing him again, completely ignoring his petition for patience.

He growled into her mouth and captured her lower lip in his teeth, relishing her indrawn breath of surprise.

The surprise didn’t last long. She darted her tongue over his teeth and dug her nails into his back, pulling him even closer, firing his lust back into a bonfire.

He could see he was going to have to get sneaky if he wanted to survive this day. She wasn’t listening to him; she was too far gone with passion. He untangled himself from her arms and lifted them over her head again so that he could lean back and give her his warmest smile.

“Hold your hands there a minute, lass,” he told her, slowly releasing them to see if she obeyed.

Frustration and curiosity warred in her expression, but she did as he asked. “Good girl,” he said, quickly undoing what buttons remained on his shirt. He pulled it off and tossed it on the floor, relishing the waft of air that ran over the sweat on his back, cooling him off enough to let him think straight again.

Grace’s gaze widened, and her curiosity quickly turned to admiration as she stared at him with eyes as dark and as deep as Pine Lake in the midst of a storm. She stretched, purring like a cat about to devour a mouse, and folded her hands behind her head in contentment.

Well, this mouse intended to get in a few good licks of his own before he was eaten.

Grey made short work of his socks and his heavy belt, his hands automatically going next to the snap on his pants. He stopped suddenly, thinking better of it. Not yet. Not until he could trust himself.

Her lower lip came out when she realized he wasn’t taking off any more clothes. Her hands came from behind her head, reaching for his chest.

“Oh, no,” he said, grabbing her wrists again just as her nails lightly raked over his skin. He closed his eyes, clenched his teeth, and prayed for strength.

He was a ball of sweat now, actually shaking with the need to possess her. Lord, but he wanted to sink into the softness she was offering.

“You’re next,” he said, letting her go and quickly grabbing the hem of her sweater. He didn’t know if she was squirming to help him or if she just couldn’t lie still. He pulled the sweater over her head, at the same time lying over her again, bringing their chests together.

As soon as her face was exposed, he kissed her, capturing her gasp of pleasure. He continued to work the sweater up her arms—but not all the way off. Grace continued to kiss him demandingly, rubbing her pebble-hard nipples against his chest, wrapping her legs around him, and digging her heels into his thighs, using her tongue to lay a scent of her taste all through his mouth.

Sweat broke out on his forehead.

Blindly, and quite desperately now, Grey moved the body of her sweater over the arm of the couch, pushing until it locked firmly into place.

He lifted himself up on his elbows and brushed the hair from her face. “Do you remember what happened yesterday at the summit house?” he asked, his voice heavy with need.

Her eyes clouded with confusion and a bit of impatience. “We made love,” she said in a husky voice, lifting her face to kiss him again.

He leaned further back and shook his head. “Nay, lass, we didn’t. That was not lovemaking we shared.

That was a claiming.”

Her confusion grew, her face darkened.

“It wasn’t even sex, Grace,” he continued, after giving her a quick kiss on her nose. “When I broke through your maidenhead and then gave you my seed, I was claiming you as mine.” And, he continued quickly when she started to speak, “when you gave yourself up to me and placed that red badge of your innocence on my thigh, you claimed me as yours.”

She suddenly had nothing to say to him. He kissed her again, on the cheek this time, letting his mouth linger as he felt a shudder go through her.

“Tonight we make love, Grace,” he said into her ear, keeping his cheek on hers. “This time you’ll find your woman’s pleasure.”

Her entire body shivered beneath him, sending a ripple of electricity firing through his muscles, making the blood rush to his groin.

He began by kissing her forehead, her eyebrows, then her eyes as she closed them on a moan of pleasure. He worked his mouth in a path down her face, stopping at her lips for a deeper taste of her sweetness. He moved on to her chin, her throat, the base of her neck.

“Wait. My hands are caught,” she said, tugging to lower her arms. “I can’t get them out of my sleeves.”

He looked up and gave her a feral grin. “Aye. You are caught, Grace. And you’ll be staying caught,” he said, grinning at her dumbfounded expression.

She tugged harder, her face getting red with outrage. “You did this on purpose?”

He nodded again. “Aye.”

“Untie me.”

He shook his head. “I’m sorry if you’re offended, Grace. But honest to God, woman, I won’t even get inside you if I feel your hands on me right now. Stop fighting,” he said, continuing his mouth’s journey down her body. “Stop thinking. Just feel what our bodies do to each other.”

Her reply turned into a moan of surprise when his hands unclasped the front of her bra and he kissed the exposed skin between her breasts. He assaulted much more than her body then; he battered her senses with his lips, his hands, with words meant to inflame her heart. She forgot her fight for freedom, giving herself over to the passion he awakened on every inch of her body. He stripped off her pants, socks, and panties, slowly exposing her beauty, telling her just what he thought of her, what he wanted to do to her.

And then he backed up his words with action. Grey started where he’d left off, kissing her breasts again before moving further down her body, dipping his tongue into her feminine, dimpled belly button, raking his teeth lightly over her hipbone. She nearly bucked them both off the couch when he settled a kiss on the inside of her thigh, her gasp of excited wonder echoing through the silent house.