Worth the Risk_ A Contemporary - Megan Hart Page 0,90

as light and small as she felt in his arms, this wasn’t going to work.

“Not like it is in the movies,” she whispered.

Shane laughed. “No.”

He let her slide through the circle of his arms to rest her feet on the floor. Arden linked her hand with his and led him toward the stairs. “Come with me.”

He paused in the doorway, his hand linked in hers making her stop, too. Arden looked back at him, a big man wreathed in shadows. A shaft of light from the hall window cut across his face, illuminating his eyes.

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure, Shane.”

Then she was in his arms again, and he swept her up like a bridegroom carrying his bride across the threshold. The comparison twisted her stomach for a moment in memory of Jason, and she pushed it aside. Jason was gone. They had loved, married, had a life, but that had ended. He’d loved her too much to wish unhappiness for her.

A thought struck her. “Are you sure?”

The moment stretched out between them, as fragile as gossamer. She didn’t want to speak, lest she break the thread. If it had taken her a long time to admit this was what she wanted, she knew it had taken Shane even longer.

His kiss answered her as her put her feet on the ground. Softer this time, it caressed her mouth instead of plundering it. His hands came up to tangle in her hair, to tilt her head and pull her close to him.

“It’s all right,” Arden said, as much to soothe herself as him. “It’ll all be right.”

She took his hand again and led him toward her bed, where fresh, cool sheets welcomed them. She took him down on top of herself, thighs and arms spread to embrace him in the cradle of her body.

They kissed. Slow. Sensual. Mouths opened and closed, feeding their passion. They kissed like they had forever to do it, and she was happy to let him taste her as she tasted him.

Her hips lifted under him, moving against him in answer to her body’s call. He answered with a rolling thrust, pressing against her. She felt him, hot, long and hard in the confines of his jeans, and she shivered in anticipation of what it would be like to feel him inside her again.

Shane pulled back and stood to tug his t-shirt off over his head. For a moment he stood silhouetted in the light from outside, his chest and stomach tight with muscle and arms flexing with more of the same as he dropped the shirt to the floor. His hands went to his black leather belt. The silver buckle flashed as he snapped it open. Then the button-fly of his jeans came undone as though by magic, and he pushed the heavy denim over his strong thighs and kicked off the jeans. He wore dark boxer-briefs, the front tented. He slid his thumbs into the waistband, but didn’t pull them down.

Arden waited, breath caught in her throat, for him to reveal the rest of his body. She’d seen him naked before, those long-ago times, but like everything else about him, her memories had been shadowed and replaced by others. Seeing him now would be like seeing him for the first time.

He slid the soft cotton down, exposing himself to her hungry gaze. She swallowed hard at the sight. His belly hair led to a dark, thick patch. His cock rose from the nest of curls, framed by strong thighs.

She’d leaned up on her elbows to watch him undress, and though her oversized sleepshirt had ridden up to expose her thighs and give him a glimpse of her own dark curls, when she put her hands to the hem to lift it off entirely, she found she couldn’t do it. Time had been good to him. His body was better now than it had been even back then, taut and firm and unblemished by the years.

She, on the other hand...

“What’s wrong?” He slid onto the bed beside her, his erection warm on her thigh. Shane put his hand on her belly, over the shirt. “Arden?”

“I’m...I’ve...” She fumbled the words, not wanting to sound vain. “I don’t look the way I did twelve years ago, Shane.”

His palm made gentle circles on her belly. “I wouldn’t expect you to.”

She thought of stretch marks, love handles, breasts changed by nursing and gravity. “I haven’t been naked in front of anyone for a long time.”

He did not, thankfully, try to talk her