“I should send you home, but I don’t want to.”
His brain was hazy enough that it took him a second to untangle that. “You mean—”
Beth nodded, and he surged to his feet with her in his arms. “This chair is a little too hard for what I have in mind.”
“You’re a detective. Can you find my bedroom?” she teased.
Laughing again, he strode toward the short hall. He felt sure this was a one-bedroom unit and was proved right. Bathroom on the left, bedroom on the right. He barely had an impression of the room, beyond creamy white walls, art and textiles adding color and a bed that had to be full size, with an antique spool bed frame and a fuzzy, butter-yellow spread. Too short for him, but they’d manage.
To slow himself, he resisted the temptation to drop her on the mattress and come down on top of her. Instead, he lowered her to her feet, her body sliding along his. The pleasure of feeling every soft curve had him gritting his teeth.
He framed her face with his hands and asked gutturally, “You’re sure?”
Beth bobbed her head, her gaze shy but eager, too.
“God, I want you.” Despite his determination to be gentle, this kiss went ballistic from the beginning. It was as much her fault as his. She pushed herself up, her tongue tangling with his, her body rubbing against him. Desperate, he wrenched his mouth away long enough to strip her knit shirt over her head. He bent her back and sucked her breast through her bra, but enough brain cells were functioning for him to realize belatedly that it had a front clasp. One flick and it fell open.
Her breasts were glorious, luscious swells of creamy flesh topped with generously sized areolae and taut nipples. He licked one nipple, then had to have her flat on the bed.
Beth squeaked when he lifted her but, when he zeroed in on her breasts, she blocked him with both hands. “Shirt off.”
Oh, yeah. Fortunately, he was wearing a polo shirt, which he could rip right off, but he also had to remove his holstered gun and badge. He tossed them on the bedside table along with his belt and phone, pulled out his wallet and removed the condom, then let the wallet fall.
She looked as fascinated with his chest as he was with hers. He teased and suckled until her hips rocked. Her hands moved the whole while, tangling with his chest hair, teasing his flat nipples, squeezing muscle.
Tony didn’t even remember disposing of the rest of their clothing. Naked, she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen, a man’s dream come true. Slim and yet rounded in all the right places. Long legs. He tore himself away from her breasts and her mouth to explore those legs, kissing the arched bottom of her feet until her toes curled, running his mouth up smooth calves, tickling the tender flesh behind her knees. The skin on the inside of her thighs was so silky, his fingers and mouth lingered, until he was drawn upward to nuzzle the moist curls.
She gripped his hair and gasped. He lifted his head to see her alarm, which made him smile even as he continued stringing kisses upward. Had no man ever put his mouth on her that intimately? That primitive side of him was pleased. Next time, he told himself. Once this wasn’t so new. Hipbones, belly with a tiny bit of give, ribs that felt delicate beneath more smooth skin.
While he sank into a luxuriant kiss, he slipped his fingers between her folds, finding her wet and so responsive, his need intensified. He twisted away to don the condom, then went back to kissing her as she clutched at him.
Her legs fell open at the slightest nudge. The blood roared in his ears as he eased his way inside her. Once he was deeply seated, he hesitated.
“Don’t stop,” she whispered.
Blind with need, he pulled out and drove deep again, and again. She planted both feet on the mattress so she could grip him with her thighs and push up to meet his every thrust.
Her throaty cries and the feel of her fingernails biting into his back ripped away any tattered remnants of self-control. He was lost, their bodies rocking, him on the brink. He hooked an arm around one of her thighs, pulling it higher—and she began to spasm around him. He let himself go, slammed by a release so powerful, his mind shut down.
When the stunning pleasure finally ebbed, he couldn’t even manage to roll to one side.