“What happened?”

He stopped his advance around the table and searched her face.

“This was a mistake,” he ground out.

“Was it?” She arched a brow. This was as good a time as any to test her new theory. “You came here for a reason. Talk to me.”

He signed and for a moment she thought she had gotten through to him. She should have known it wouldn’t be that easy. It had taken years to build his walls and when he moved into her personal space, running his hands through her hair, Sarah admitted she should have known it would take more than a simple request to get him to talk.

“There are so many more … interesting things … we could be doing.” He punctuated his statement with seductive kisses that just grazed the corners of her mouth. When he pulled back, the swirling fire she had seen when he arrived was replaced with the overpowering cool burn of his intentions. Intentions her shameless body remembered all too well and wasn’t even putting up the pretenses of fighting.

“What do you say?” He was millimeters from her lips. So close he brushed them, forming each word and Sarah felt herself begin to melt into a girl puddle at his feet. He turned off all her inhibitions and it felt so good to let go she didn’t fight when he claimed her mouth in a kiss she could feel down to her toes.

Pulling back from the kiss he released the tie of her robe. “As charming as this is.” He slid the garment over her shoulders. “I think I prefer seeing you with a little less on.”

Arrogant man. She was going to tell him what she thought of his misogyny as soon as he stopped doing those delicious things to her breast. Holy Hannah Handbasket but the man had talented fingers.

When he loosened the buttons of her pajama top and pushed the material out of his way, she figured they would get around to that talk later. Right now, she needed to feel more of his skin on her, in her.

Pushing her body into his, she made her demands known. That’s what he reduced her to, a bundled of nerves demanding he appease them any way he wanted. How could one man turn her into such a base creature?

As if sensing the danger in her urgency he gentled both the kiss and his caresses, leaving her panting, but not teetering on the sharp edge of release. Sarah felt her hands ball into fists at her sides. Damn the man and his control.

“Don’t stop now,” she breathed against his lips.

Taking a small satisfaction at the tremor that worked its way through his body as she lightly ran her hand over his chest. For whatever reason, he wasn’t as impenetrable today. Sensing an opening, she moved in. She pulled his mouth down to hers and forced all her will into the kiss. She wanted him to be as lost in her as she was in him.

Falon allowed her to deepen the kiss and she reveled in the play of muscles beneath her hands as she explored his back. She needed to feel more than the slide of fabric over skin. When her hands made contact with the skin beneath the soft cotton of his shirt, she felt the energy shift. She had reached the end of the tight leash of his control and now he was reeling her back in.

Taking control of the kiss and dominating her senses, he backed her up until her thighs made contact with the table. He took a firm hold of the nape of her neck and bent her over its surface. With his other hand, he spread the lapels of her pajama top, working his talented mouth over her heated skin.

He lifted her so she was sprawled out on the table before him. Like a feast for his taking, she burned for him. When he pulled her hands together over her head, her breath hitched as she relinquished control to him. She couldn’t hold out against the onslaught of sensation he was flooding her with.

Lying there, chest bared to his ministrations, Sarah released a groan she felt building in her toes. He systematically paid homage to her breasts. Bringing her a sliver away from release from just the sensation of his lips, tongue, and teeth on the sensitive puckered skin. Every movement he made was for the sole purpose to bring her body to screaming pleasure. By the time he worked his way to the elastic band of her bottoms she thought she would explode if he didn’t give her some release.

“Please, Falon,” she begged as his tongue danced along the skin he was slowly revealing.

“Now, now Sarah—” he pulled back and blew cool air across the skin he just dampened with his kisses “—there is pleasure in the anticipation.”

She ran a leg up the back of his thigh and hitched it behind his firm backside, pulling him closer to where she needed him. “There is also pleasure in instant gratification.”

He growled and took her mouth with his again. Tongue working in a controlled movement designed to heighten her awareness of the act it imitated while his hips pulsed against her in an uncontrollable motion as instinctive as breathing.

Arching into the pressure of his arousal, her bare chest came into contact with the soft fabric that still covered his.

“So impatient.” He laughed into her shoulder. “Suppose you have suffered enough?”

Sarah couldn’t answer because somewhere in the time it took to ask his question, Falon’s hand found its way under the elastic of her bottoms and right to the center of her need. The pressure of his fingers sent her flying over the edge. Her nerves exploded under her skin like so many fireworks.

He brought her down slowly. Talented fingers keeping her as a slow burn as she began to feel her body once more.

“Why … are you … still wearing … so many clothes?” she asked when she could pull enough oxygen into her lungs. Her eyes were still closed in an attempt to savor as much of the fading sensations as she could so when Falon’s laughter bounced around the room and off of every deliciously sensitive nerve ending she nearly jumped off the table.

“You’re really going to give me a run for my money,” he said before stripping her of her remaining clothes before pulling off his own.

Still startled by the sudden uninhibited sound, Sarah missed the crinkle of the little foil packet. When she felt him hot and ready at her entrance, the passion Falon had kept smoldering roared to life. She cried out as he powerfully filled her. Never wanting the feel of him stretching her inner walls to end, she wrapped her legs around his waist and held on tightly.

***

An hour and another bout of lovemaking later, Sarah found herself sprawled half across Falon’s fabulous body. He had somehow found the strength to carry her upstairs after bring them both to a shuddering release on the kitchen table. Once there he had brought her to heel again with his slow seduction of her body, completely drowning out that inner voice warning her to beware.

When her breath evened out and her body began to cool, her nagging inner voice could no longer be silenced.

“Falon?”

“Mmm?” The rumble of his response reverberated through her and she closed her eyes against the impulse to forget her question and climb the rest of the way onto his body and take them both to that peak again.

“Not that I’m complaining with the current chain of events, but what really brought you here?” She forced the question out and the hand that had been drawing lazy circles on her exposed hip stilled. She held her breath hoping he would tell her something instead of taking off.

She kept her eyes on the fading light visible through the window and waited him out. When he let out a gusty sigh, she relaxed a little.

“I received a call from my grandfather this afternoon.”

“And that sent you running to my house for … coffee?”

“Something like that.” He resumed the play on her naked hip. “We don’t exactly see eye-to-eye.”

She didn’t say anything in hopes he would provide more details. When he stayed silent, she fought the urge to fidget.