kissed his way down her neck. “Your favorite thing to do was tease me . . .”
“You want me to believe we were lovers . . . in another life.”
“No.” He sighed.
She felt him tugging, and then abruptly, she could breathe as the laces at her waist eased up. “We weren’t. I wanted to be. You were . . . uncertain. Scared. I guess I don’t blame you. I wasn’t the kind of husband you’d been looking for, and you didn’t know how we’d make it. But I would have made things work. I just needed you to trust me.”
The corset fell away and she looked down as big, rough hands closed around her waist.
Her breath gusted out of her as he pulled her against him. The room spun. And a soft bed was at her back. “We weren’t lovers, but we will be,” he whispered. “Do I stop now? Are we going to wait until we’re finally together, or can we at least have this?”
Her breath hissed out of her as she realized their clothes were gone.
She hadn’t taken them off. Neither had he.
And it wasn’t that other face she saw above hers.
It was the man she’d met in the park.
A harsh, craggy face, too rough to be handsome, but so fucking sexy he made her hurt from want. Eyes so dark and soft, like molten chocolate, and she just wanted to gorge herself. A mouth that was just perfect.
Reaching up, she touched his lips. “This is insane.”
“No . . . insane is what we’ve been doing for the past hundred years, being lost. Now we’re together.” He pushed his knee between her thighs, pressed the muscle length against her. “Do we wait? Do we stay lost?”
Dru curled an arm around his neck and pulled him closer. She stroked one hand down his arm and lifted her leg, wrapped it around his waist. “Even if it’s insane, I don’t want to wait.”
“It’s not insane.” He slanted his mouth over hers. “And we won’t wait.”
No . . . no, we won’t, she thought. It seemed as though no sooner had that thought left her mind than they were on the bed, his long, muscled body pressed to hers. As his hands cupped her breasts, she closed her eyes. So strange . . . and so not. She could almost believe this actually had happened. That maybe this wasn’t just a dream.
“You have no idea how long I’ve waited for this,” he rasped, pushing a hand into her hair. “All my life, Dru. I’ve been waiting all my life . . .”
“I can almost believe that.”
“Believe it.” He pulled her into his arms, lifting her as though she weighed nothing.
He laid her on the bed, his hands practically shaking as he stroked them up her thighs. “I won’t hurt you,” he said gruffly. “I won’t . . .”
Dru pushed up onto one elbow and hooked her hand around the back of his neck, tugged him close. Scraping her teeth along his lower lip, she whispered against his lips, “If you don’t shut up already, I just might hurt you.”
For a second, something flashed in his eyes. And she felt something from him. That burn on her brain, it seemed to flare, expand . . . hunger pulsing. “Shutting up, ma’am.” He took her mouth with his.
The heavy, solid weight of him was so unlike anything she’d ever felt. Yet it felt so perfectly right . . . so right . . . The wide, muscled wall of his chest crushed against her breasts, harsh, ragged breaths escaping him. She could feel the hard, rigid length of his cock. His hands stroking over her.
And that hunger . . . it was like it surrounded her very being. Overwhelmed her. Warmed her.
She sucked in a desperate breath, only to lose it when he reached between them, teasing her with the head of his cock. Slow, torturous . . . ah, hell. Wrapping her legs around his hips, she arched up. “Weren’t you the one whinging about waiting?”
“Whinging?” Laughter lurked in his voice as he scraped his teeth over her neck.
“Whinging . . . whining, whatever you Americans call it. Bitching . . . would you just fuck me already?” she demanded.
His body went tense. Rigid.
Dru caught her breath. She’d been behaving herself so long, being the demure little twit who’d never dare speak her mind, but she hadn’t thought—
A groan rumbled out of him. So fast, he moved so fast, one hand coming