hands along the sides of her jaw. Immobile, her heart clamoring against her ribs, she remained frozen as she felt the imprint of his fingers along her flesh.
“I miss seeing your hair down,” he told her. “Do you remember how you used to wear it loose around your shoulders and down your back?”
Yes, she remembered. She remembered the way he’d buried his hands in its length, pulling her head back to expose her throat to his mouth. She remembered the way he’d drawn strands of it over his lips, tasting her scent while he stared deep into her eyes. She remembered, too, the way it had fallen like a rippled curtain of candlelit gold over the two of them while she rode them both to completion.
Before she realized his intention his hands moved, his wide palms skimming her ear and nape as he released her giant hairclamp in one smooth, efficient move.
Her hair tumbled down her back in a single coil and she immediately reached to repair the damage. But before she could lift the heavy mass from her nape his hands stalled hers.
“Don’t,” he murmured. His fingers tunneled through the mass of her hair, spreading the curls over her shoulders. “Do you know I still dream about your hair?”
The low rasp of his voice, soft as velvet, made her tremble. He must have detected the subtle shiver along her flesh because his grip tightened against her shoulders and he dragged her closer. As much as she wanted to pull free, another part of her responded to the demanding strength of his touch, to the command underscoring his nearness.
Lifting her hands to push him away, she froze when her fingertips touched the warm thickness of his wrists. Her thumbs pressed against the channel of tendons at the base of his palms while her fingertips involuntarily recalled the hard landscape of bones and flesh in his forearm. She heard his swift intake of breath, watched his chest expand and rise, and her hands refused to abandon his smooth, hair-dusted skin. Time stretched, grew taut, while the silence beat between them.
His head sank lower, until she felt the heat of his breath against her neck. “Colette—”
Dismayed by her irrational response to his nearness, she pressed him back, releasing his wrists and breaking the tenuous contact. “No,” she told him, retreating a sideways step. “We can’t do this.”
“Why not?”
Confusion warred with her need to escape. Now.
“Tell me you feel it, too.” He followed her, his low voice urging her to reconsider. To relent. “Tell me you remember how good it was between us.”
Hypnotized by the fiery intensity of his blue eyes, she knotted her fists at her sides and swallowed. He didn’t move again, simply waiting in silence while she battled her desire to touch him again. “It doesn’t matter. We’re over.”
His mouth pressed into a sober line, lending a grimness to the perfection of his face. “Are we?” he asked quietly.
Before she had a chance to prepare herself, his warm palms cupped her face and tilted her mouth toward his. Her startled inhale did nothing to deter him, and his dark head dipped toward hers with unerring accuracy. Her fingers flew to his forearms even as the muscled wall of his chest bumped her breasts, pressing her against the closed door while his mouth covered hers. The fiery, voracious, delicious assault of his lips stunned her. Consumed her.
An incendiary blaze of sensation tore through her and her hands tightened at his wrists, floundering between the urge to shove him back or pull him closer. He made the decision for her, releasing her head and dragging her up against the granite cove of his body. Curving over her, he possessed her within the hard circle of his arms, the wide arc of his shoulders and chest. She felt secure … desired … needed. All the things she’d always felt with Stephen. All the things she knew could never be trusted. It was all happening so fast. Too fast. She inhaled raggedly through her nose, filling her senses with a combination of crisp cotton, cedarwood, and the clean bite of his soap.
His mouth released hers and then withdrew, to create a hair’s breadth between them. He hauled in a deep breath and then exhaled, wafting mint-scented warmth over her trembling lips. She felt the bump of his nose against hers, and then the glancing brush of his mouth against her temple while the splayed fingers of his hands against her back and shoulderblades kept