her chest. When his finger looped to pick up a tendril of her hair, a tingling sensation swept down her nape into her breast. “Please don’t tell me I hurt you so badly that you couldn’t trust men. If you denied yourself the pleasure of sex because...” He swallowed. “It really would be too much for even my fairly impervious conscience to bear.”
“It wasn’t that.” She licked her lips, hyperaware of his finger twirling that length of hair. “I mean, I was pretty disenchanted with men and the institution of marriage, but I had to work while I was in school. I didn’t have time to do more than go for coffee. Anything more than that would have meant I’d have to free myself of you first and...”
This part was hard to admit because Leon had set a certain bar. No one had made her feel the way she was feeling right now, and he was only touching her hair. Since when were there electrical currents in strands of hair that ran straight to erogenous zones, lighting her up like a Christmas display?
“I never met anyone who—” tempted me the way you did “—seemed worth going to the trouble of filing the papers. You didn’t break me, Leon.”
“Good,” he said after a pulse beat. “I don’t want that kind of power.”
“Too much responsibility?” she guessed in a voice that was strained by the reactions and emotions she was trying to stifle.
“Yes.” He spoke frankly, but gently. His fist was resting on her shoulder and his fingertip extended to play with her ear. “You weren’t even tempted to have a casual hookup, though? You’re so passionate.”
“Not really. Not if I can go five years without sex,” she joked weakly.
“You’re very passionate. That hasn’t changed.” His tickling touch dipped into the hollow beneath her ear, making her scalp tighten. “This may come as a surprise to you, but most people do whatever I tell them to do. You’ve always pushed back on me. It’s frustrating, but I have to respect you for it.”
“You must bring it out in me.” She was trying to keep it light, even though his caress was making runnels of heat invade her limbs. If he knew what was happening beneath these blankets—the flush of sensual heat likely turning her skin pink, the peaked nipples that were stinging with anticipation, the flooding heat settling in an ache between her thighs—he would be on her like a wolf on a fawn.
“We do seem to play off one another, don’t we? I haven’t forgotten.” It was a smoky warning that made her want to wriggle closer.
She pushed her palm against the weight of the blanket where his chest was radiating warmth into her side, resisting him as much as reminding herself that she ought to.
“Easy, sailor. After five years, I’m thinking a stiff breeze is all you need to get excited. Don’t pretend your reaction has anything to do with me.”
“See, that makes me think you’ve forgotten how good we are together.”
He hadn’t moved, and she was suddenly fixated on how close he was, willing him to close the distance between his mouth and hers.
She should have said something pithy, but wound up saying, “Perhaps I have.”
And slowly, very, very slowly, the shadow of his shoulders shifted. His head lowered. The tip of his nose brushed hers and the heat of his lips settled feathery soft across hers. She let her mouth open slightly while he ever so gently deepened the contact, searching out the fit before he sealed them in a deep kiss and plunged them into a molten sea of passion.
She made a throaty noise of shock, expecting playful excitement, not this sharp jab of wanton hunger. Her breath dried up while her whole body flushed, accosted by lascivious longing.
He stilled as though their combined reaction startled him, too. Maybe he was weighing whether her noise had been a protest.
She brought her hand from beneath the covers to grab his wrist, silently conveying that she wanted him to keep kissing her.
He pressed into it, opening his mouth wider to ravage her unreservedly. His wrist twisted against her grip and his fingers slid between hers. He pressed her hand onto the pillow beside her head as he let his weight come over her and crush her into the mattress.
She was smothered by his weight, trapped by his bulk and the covers and the way he was making love to her mouth. It was magnificent. She moaned her encouragement, abandoning