“You’re trouble,” she said, shaking her head.

“Yes, but you know that about me. Besides, you like trouble.”

“Too much for my own good,” she mumbled.

He pressed a finger gently to her lips. “Not tonight. No talk tonight of why we’re a bad idea.”

She bit her lip then flicked her tongue against his finger. A mischievous look flitted across her eyes.

He nodded, encouraging her to let go. “That’s right. Tonight we’re a good idea. Because tonight I’m going to make you feel things you’ve never felt before.”

She inhaled sharply. Her skin shimmered with the flush of desire. It was a good look on her. “Like what?”

“You’ve worked hard to make a ton of people happy, and to make an incredible thing possible with the center. The next thirty minutes are all about you, and you’re going to feel what it’s like to be with someone who is obsessed with your pleasure. Every ounce of it, every inch of it, every second of it.” He ran his other hand down her arm, leaving a trail of goose bumps in his wake.

“Colin,” she said, as if she were trying to resist him. Trying futilely. “You say these things…” She trailed off as she seemed to collect her thoughts. “You say these things that make it so hard to resist you.”

“Nah. That’s not what makes it hard for you to resist me. This is.” He tugged her body to his, letting her feel his erection through their clothes.

She laughed. “Fine. You win for best innuendo of the night,” she said then pressed into him, her voice turning feathery, the way it did when she started to melt for him.

“Excellent. Let’s see if I can win at making you want to come more desperately than you’ve ever wanted to in your life,” he said, and her eyes widened, giving him a yes, telling him she wanted all the same things. To come hard in his arms.

God, he fucking loved getting her off. And taking his sweet time doing it.

He brushed his thumb over her top lip, tracing a soft line, and she parted her mouth, closing her eyes. But he didn’t kiss her. He had something else planned. He moved his mouth to her ear and whispered, “How sensitive is your neck?”

“This isn’t fair,” she moaned in a feathery voice as he spun her around and sat her down on the end of a lounge chair. He stepped back a foot, so he could look in her eyes as he stripped off his jacket and tossed it on the back of the chair. The way she watched him sent bolts of lust through him. From the edge of her seat, she stared unabashedly, with hunger in her amber eyes.

“What’s unfair about me giving you what you want?”

“Because you know I’ll do anything if you touch me there,” she said, raising her hand to the back of her neck as he unknotted his tie.

“Anything?” He arched an eyebrow. “Anything at all?”

“Pretty much.”

“Anything sounds damn good to me. Besides, if you truly wanted me to do nothing, you wouldn’t be here,” he said, always ready to give her an out. In whatever capacity she was going to be with him, she had to be with him. To choose him. To want him.

She held out her arms and shrugged. “I want anything. Anything and everything with you.”

“You can have it all with me.”

He unbuttoned the cuff of his right shirtsleeve. His every nerve ending fired for this woman. How he felt for her was physical and so much more. Her passion for her work, her drive to make a difference, her heart that gave and gave and gave—all of it had spurred on his feelings. But then this—her body, her desire, her fucking fantastic face—she drove him wild. He was confident he did the same to her. He rolled up his other cuff, each fold of the crisp white shirt revealing the art that adorned his forearm. A sentence in curling script: Nothing ventured, nothing gained. It suited his job, but it had little to do with how he made a living. It was his mantra. It was how he lived. It was his mission in life ever since he’d taken the biggest chance years ago and gained so much in return.

“So tell me something,” he said, moving closer, dropping his hand behind her to touch her lower back, then tracing a line up her spine with his fingertips. She arched into him, vertebra by vertebra.

“Yes?”

He bent his head closer to her ear, and whispered hotly, “Did you wear your hair up for me?”

She exhaled deeply, as if it cost her something. “Yes.”

He dragged his index finger up the back of her neck, as he rested one knee on the lounge chair, positioning himself behind her so he could devote all his attention to her neck. “When you were getting ready at your house, were you thinking this might happen?”

She nodded.

“So you came here tonight already wanting me?” he asked as he stroked her skin.

“More than I should,” she murmured.

“You think you shouldn’t, but you’re giving into it, aren’t you? It sure looks that way to me.”

“I am. You know I am,” she said, and he could hear the fevered desperation in her tone. He was going to reward that wanting.

“Give in,” he whispered. “I’ll make it worth your while.”

Lowering his mouth to her shoulder, he licked the line of birds up her neck and to the edge of her hair. She shuddered.

He smothered her neck in kisses. Up, down, across. Over her shoulder blades and back up her spine.

Every kiss unleashed another moan from her, a sexy gasp, a needy sigh. Noises that were only a prelude of what he wanted to hear from her tonight.

CHAPTER FOUR

Why, oh why, did he have to be off-limits? Why did he have to fall squarely under the heading of do not pass go? It was truly fucking unfair because no one had ever made her feel like this. Like she was high on a touch. Like she was deliciously dizzy from a kiss. She wanted him so badly, and not just physically. She wanted more of him, but her emotions had to be cordoned off tonight. She told herself to let go for this one last night, let go of everything but the way he made her feel so alive.

“Close your eyes,” he told her firmly, and she let her eyelids drift closed, giving in to sense. Giving in to touch.

Maybe she was selfish. Or maybe she just wanted to feel a little something that was solely for her tonight. Nobody could deliver that better than this man.

He was kneeling behind her. She couldn’t even see him. But she was keenly aware of his presence as he dipped his mouth closer to her skin. His lips fluttered over her sensitive neck once more. She ached, pulsing between her legs as he kissed her all over. A snapping sound fell on her ear, and her hair spilled from its clip onto her neck as he undid her twist.

“Oh God,” she gasped, because she knew what was next.

His hands dove into her hair.

Fuck me now. Just fuck me now.

He’d discovered all her secrets the very first time he’d kissed her and explored her body. He’d read her responses as if it were his top-secret assignment to know every inch of her skin, then he’d remembered and sought them out, focusing on all the places that drove her wild. The back of her knee. The inside of her arm. Her neck, the gateway to her pleasure.

She was hopeless with him. He’d unlocked the code to all her desires, and he used it masterfully.

He threaded his talented fingers through her curls, gripping, and she moved with him, moaned for him, as if she were the notes he played on a cello. He was the musician; she was the instrument. He played and he played and he played, and her body sang for him, a song of pure desire. Of heat. Of want.

He twisted her hair once around his hand, pulling it to the side, and she tilted her head that way, giving him more room to devour her neck with kisses, like he was starved for her. He lavished pleasure all over her, leaving her drenched in sensation from soft, fluttery whispers along her neck, territorial kisses that claimed her as his, all mixed with the whiskery rub of his stubble. His ever-present scruff was trimmed to mere millimeters but long enough to brush against her skin with every kiss, bringing the intoxicating mix of soft and hard, of rough and tender. He rubbed his chin along her shoulder, and she arched into him.