dark stubble ran all the way down to his neck, taunting her with the need to feel the texture of it.
He was a nice guy. With a deeply kind heart. He worked hard. He cared for people. He always took life seriously. But he’d just shamelessly sung and danced a girl-power song with her, in his pajamas without any sort of embarrassment or irony.
He wasn’t anything she’d believed he could be.
“So,” he rasped, obviously trying to catch his breath as he lowered his arm. “There. I did it. So what do you have to say to that?”
He was warm all the way down to his core. It filled him to the brim. It seeped around the edges of his character. It shone in his deep brown eyes. All of him. So incredibly warm.
She needed that warmth. She wanted it so much. She couldn’t possibly not claim it when he was standing within arm’s length of her.
Sexy. Half-naked. Hot and breathless. All man with his broad shoulders and rippling biceps and scattering of dark chest hair.
She launched herself at him. There wasn’t any other way to describe it. She threw herself against him and grabbed his face to pull it down into a kiss.
He was still for just a moment, clearly taken by surprise. But then she felt his body changing. Coming alive. He took her head in both hands and held it as he returned the kiss, taking control of it almost immediately.
Her mind felt like it might explode with too much pleasure and excitement and energy and force. She whimpered as she opened her mouth to his demanding tongue, running her hands up and down his arms so she could feel the firm contours of his muscles.
After a minute—maybe more since it was hard to tell time in that thick blur of need and satisfaction—he broke the kiss and lowered his head to run quick, delicious kisses along her throat. “Ruth?”
She tried to answer but could only get out one syllable that sounded like, “Eh.”
“Is this what I think it is?”
He was asking her a question, even as he teased her with little kisses all over her skin. It was very distracting. She tried to focus enough to answer. “What?”
“Because I’m getting excited here. Into it. And I don’t want to get too into it if you just want this to be a kiss.”
Her eyes had fallen closed. She might have melted to the floor had he not been holding her up. But his hoarse words penetrated enough for her to understand them. She pulled back enough to look him in the eye. “I need a lot more than a kiss,” she admitted, wondering briefly if she was about to embarrass herself again by throwing herself at a guy who didn’t really want her.
Carter’s eyes blazed. Blazed. Something a lot hotter than warmth was radiating out of him now. He let out a soft groan. “Thank God. Me too.”
He kissed her again, and this time it was clear neither one of them were planning to stop.
Six
CARTER HAD STARTED walking them back toward the bed as they kissed when Ruth remembered something. She pushed at his shoulders, causing him to release her immediately.
With a tight twist of his face, he asked, “Change your mind?”
“No. No way. Just... condom. Before we get too far. Do you have one?”
Relief washed over his expression. “Oh. Yeah. Good thinking. Hold on a second.”
She stood near her rumpled bed and waited as he went into his bedroom and returned in less than a minute, holding a few condom packets that he set on the nightstand.
Even knowing she should be smarter about protecting male egos, she couldn’t help but giggle. “Feeling kind of ambitious, aren’t you? You really think you’re going to need all three?”
Carter gave her a wolfish smile. “You never know.”
Unsuccessfully restraining her rippling laughter, she took a step toward him. “I suppose you might be clumsy in bed. You might tear a couple of them and need the third.”
His eyes narrowed. “Or maybe I have legendary stamina and powers of endurance.”
The laughter burst out of her. “I’m sure that’s it.”
He obviously wasn’t offended by her teasing. His eyes glinted with amusement. But he closed the last of the distance between them and said in a low, rough tone that made her shiver. “You really doubt me?”
“Well, what do you expect? In my experience, the buttoned-up nice guys are sometimes not as adventurous in the—” Her words were cut off abruptly when Carter grabbed