Heat scorched him from the inside out, and it was like the first time, only worse. Better. Trace couldn’t think of anything to compare it to. Couldn’t think, really. All he knew was that they both had too many clothes on. He stripped her jacket from her arms then fought to remove his own, all the while their lips clung together in a series of kisses that threatened to steal his sanity...to steal his soul. Fire raced through his veins. He wanted. Needed. But so did she. She was as wild to touch him as he was to touch her. Everywhere.
“I have to see you,” Trace whispered, drawing away from Mara only far enough to gaze at her with wonder and pain. “Just once I have to see you as God made you.” The air in the small room was warming up quickly, the heater and the fire in the fireplace doing their job. A faint tremor shook his hands as he reached for the buttons on her blouse. She stood there passively at first, as one button then another slid open. But then her hands were tugging at the pullover sweater he wore beneath his jacket, and when that was off she reached for his buttons, too. She whispered something in Zakharan he didn’t catch, and it was a race between them.
When he unbuttoned her last button his hands tugged the ends of her blouse from her jeans, then slipped inside and slid the blouse off her shoulders. He tried to be gentle, but his heart was slamming inside his chest, and all he could think of was hurry. Hurry. A wisp of a silk-and-lace bra cupped her full breasts the way his hands longed to do. He reached behind her; first unsnapping her bra, then removing the clip that held her hair so that it tumbled around her shoulders in a silken curtain.
Then his hands moved beneath, sure and strong, sliding the bra straps down, down, until she was naked from the waist up, with only her honey-brown hair partially concealing her from him.
A little panicked sound escaped her and she made as if to cover herself. “No, Princess,” he breathed reassuringly. “Don’t hide. Not from me. Please.”
His hands reached for the zipper of her jeans, but she stopped him. At first he thought she’d changed her mind, and disappointment exploded through him. But then she smiled up at him, her obvious desire to please him overcoming her shyness, and she undid the zipper herself. Holding his gaze she skimmed her jeans over her hips. But then she stopped.
His hands replaced hers. “Let me. I’ve dreamed of doing this.” His hands slid inside the waistband and slipped the denim down, kneeling before her. She rested her hands on his shoulders, balancing herself as he gently lifted one foot, then the other, so she could step out of her jeans.
She was trembling, but so was he. He hooked his fingers in the scrap of silk that shielded her womanhood from him and tugged it down and off. Then she was completely bare to his gaze, and he sat back on his heels to take in the sight of her. “Hallelujah,” he whispered finally, reverently.
She laughed, just a breath of a sound, and he realized from the delicate pink flags in her cheeks it was more from the release of the stress of standing naked before him while he was still completely clothed than from humor. He wanted to say something more, to express the complex emotions roiling through him at the sight of her. But he couldn’t think of words strong enough, sweet enough, meaningful enough to describe what this moment meant to him. What her trust meant to him.
He stood up slowly, his hands moving her silky tresses aside so he could caress the pink nipples that tightened even before he touched them. Then he was bending to take one nipple into his mouth, loving it with his tongue. “God, you are beautiful, Princess,” he whispered, as his lips moved to her other nipple and loved it the same way.
“That is not—” Her breath caught. “That is not true,” she said. “I am pretty, yes, but not... Oh!” He’d slipped his hand between her thighs, parting them until his fingers could slide into her velvet tenderness.
“Yes,” he told her, his voice husky with desire. “Beautiful. If Eve had looked like you, Adam would have gladly left Eden.” If Eve had felt like you, he told her in his mind as his fingers moved slowly in and out of her melting softness, Adam would have thought he was still in Eden.
A wave of heat swept through Trace so powerful his whole body tightened, and he knew he had to hold her against his bare skin just once, or die. His hands made short work of the rest of his clothes, and then he was as naked as she was. His heart was pounding so savagely he was almost beyond caring about anything but having her when he drew her into his arms and felt her all along his body—soft and yielding everywhere he was hard and immovable. But he managed to hold on to his sanity—and his self-control—by his fingertips.