"Foraging?"
She flinched, whirling around to face him. "No, snooping."
Her gaze shot instantly to the towel wrapped around his hips and, more important, to the bulge between his thighs.
Her cheeks reddened. "Chase, put some clothes on, for heaven's sake."
"No." Belligerent, with a teasing smile. He stood just outside the kitchen door, toweling his hair dry.
She turned away. "Please." Before I rip off that towel, she thought.
"Scare you?" he said, suddenly close to her ear.
She closed her eyes and took a shaky breath. "Hardly."
"Excite you?" he asked hopefully. She felt his fingers brush stray hairs off her neck, his breath replacing his touch. He was naked behind her. His mouth pressed to her throat, and all Tessa could think was how erotic he looked in that towel, droplets of water on his chest, the trail of hair marking a path down his stomach to the edge of green terry cloth. The goody line, her sister used to call it.
"Chase?"
"Humm?"
His arms slipped around her from behind, his hands gliding down over her tummy, caressing her thighs, fingertips dipping precariously between, then sliding up like a drape of warm velvet over her skin. She pressed back into him, his warmth. His arousal pushed and she squeezed her eyes tightly shut, covering his hands with her own as they swept up to cup her breasts. His touch was gentle and tender, but her body begged for the strength of his passion.
"I remember what you feel like, angel." His thumbs brushed her nipples. "What you smell like."
She turned in his arms, cupping his jaw and covering his mouth with hers.
Chase moaned, twisting to brace himself against the counter. He needed the support. She was coming apart on him and he pushed his knee between her legs, urging her closer. Her breathing hastened, and she sank her fingers into his hair, stroked them over his shoulders. Her urgent whimpers were driving him over the edge and when she slid her hands down to caress his nipples, Chase wanted to devour her whole.
Tessa loved the dusting of hair roughening beneath her fingertips, rubbing against her legs, and when his muscles flinched to her touch as she grazed his ribs, she couldn't resist teasing him again.
"Tessa, oh God." His mouth covered hers again, rolling and lush, his hardness warm and insistent between them. His hands, callused and heavy, moved beneath her shirt, and when hers mapped a path to his hip, dangerously close to the heat of him, Tessa drew back to look in his eyes.
His expression was laced with anticipation and she was screwing up her nerve to pull the towel away when her stomach growled rudely.
He blinked, looking down at her tummy as it voiced its emptiness again.
She dropped her forehead to his chest, her shoulders shaking with a soft chuckle. Chase laughed on a deep breath, rubbing her back, and when she tilted her head he saw apprehension in her gaze, a flicker of relief. He gritted his teeth and set her from him.
He looked down at the tenting of his towel and laughed. "A regular state around you, you know."
Tessa's mouth quivered with a smile and she tried to keep her gaze elsewhere but it wouldn't obey. "Oh my, my, my," she marveled, and this time Chase blushed. "I'm so sorry."
"No, you're not," he said, not unkindly.
He was right. It did something wonderful to her ego to know he was that aroused after one kiss.
"I'll feed you two in a minute. First I need another shower."
She sank back against the counter, swallowing repeatedly, then searched the cabinets for a glass, filling it to the rim and draining it. She was sitting on the sofa, her feet propped up, when he returned, damp and dressed, a suggestive smile on his lips.
He offered his hand, pulling her from the sofa and into his arms. "Come on. I have to get you out of here and at least a mile from a bed, or I'll do my best to start that," he nodded to the kitchen, "again."
Tessa felt a hot wave of desire spirit through her and deep inside she knew that there was more than just her good sense holding her back. She didn't really want this man to get his first look at her naked, while she was six months pregnant.
Chase felt it. The sexual tension. It spread like a thick blanket around them, as if the moments shared in his kitchen were relived every time they looked at or touched each other. Nothing seemed to penetrate the heavy fog of memory. It was two days since that encounter and Chase felt like a wild animal near Tessa. Her scent, the way she looked at him as if she knew his thoughts, kept pressing the image of her responses into his brain like a tape on continuous replay. Her hair, twisted in a soft chignon, begged to be let down, spread across his pillow. Her taut body, scented with cinnamon and always clothed in something feminine and seductive, tormented him, her every gesture and nuance rich with sensuality.