“I’m going to let you play around down there for one more minute, love, but then I need you to stop. I want to touch you too, and you’re making it real hard on me to remember why we shouldn’t jump right to the part where my cock…adoodly doo ends up in your lady stuff. Deal?” His breath ruffled her hair but she didn’t look up, too intent on the scintillating task at hand.

She fumbled with the button of his pants, but then the zipper was smooth sailing, despite being strained beyond what could have been expected by the manufacturer. Catman was a healthy boy. That’d be something new. Victor had been more the type of guy that would inspire sad smiles and sentences that ended with “size doesn’t matter.” Grace pushed him out of her head, vowing that it would be the last time she let him in at all, and focused on the man before her. She yanked the sides of his pants away until she could slip her hand between the fabric and his underwear, reveling in this new, more intimate contact.

He groaned, flexing into her. He wore the thinnest of boxer briefs, and she explored his broad head with the tip of her thumb. All at once, it wasn’t enough, and she gripped his waistband and pulled down his pants and underwear in one go. His shaft sprang forward, bobbing before settling high against his belly, and she whimpered. Thick, hard, and delicious looking. She moistened her dry lips and started to sink toward him—

“Forget about it,” he ground out. “Not f**king happening.” He must have noted her stricken expression because he added. “Not right now, at least. I want to—believe me, I want to. But I can’t take it, love.”

The words took the sting out of his refusal. She didn’t resist when he pressed her backward, using his body like a bulldozer until the back of her knees touched the warm wood of one of the benches. “Sit.”

She sat. The rising steam swirled around them, and the heat sank into her bones, so much so that she couldn’t wait to be naked. Apparently, he was on the same wavelength because he tore off his pants before kneeling in front of her to pick up one boot-clad foot.

He held tight. “Pull,” he instructed. The boot came off with a thunk, and he tossed it over his shoulder before moving to the next. “Pull.”

Breasts bared and now shoeless, she was feeling a little self-conscious. Maybe it was the way he stared at her splayed, stockinged legs so raptly. Or maybe it was the way he devoured every inch of her with his eyes. Whatever it was, right when she started to squirm, he leaned in and laid a scorching kiss on her that had her forgetting all about her inhibitions. Her legs wrapped around his waist, and she clamped her thighs over him tight. A little more, and he’d be right where she needed him to—

“Mmm,” she groaned when he lined their parts up right and tight. She wiggled her hips, and waves of need pulsed through her. Before she could find whether that would work the way she needed it to so badly, he pulled back.

“Stockings off.” He flipped her skirt up and gave her hips an appreciative squeeze before freezing. “Jesus, you have on garters?” His voice was so low and choked she could barely make out his words.

Apparently that was a good thing. She sent a mental “good looking out, girl” to Serena who’d insisted that she wear them in order to “keep in character.” Little had she known that someone else would see them.

She nodded, thrilled when he closed his cat-green eyes and seemed to count to ten before opening them again.

“Thank God the steam is thick because if I had seen them when I wasn’t prepared, I’d have dropped dead on the spot. That’s how close I am right now.”

He passed her hips again, giving them another caress that made her glad she’d never caved to Victor’s demands that she get lipo, and then onto her thighs.

“Your skin is so soft. Like a ripe peach, and I want to eat you just as bad,” he said. His fingers expertly found the garter snaps and flicked them open, skimming the stockings over her knees before she could catch her breath. Only a player would know his way around women’s undergarments like that. By the same token, that also meant he knew his way around a woman’s body, so as long as she went in with her eyes open, this could shape up to be the hottest time of her life.

He slid the silk lower, stopping to trail his hands over her knees and massage her calves, even tickling her insole as he went. Then they were gone, tossed into the corner with her shoes.

He stared down at her, and she followed his gaze. Through the thick wash of steam, she could just make out the silhouette of her splayed thighs, and the black skirt flipped up to reveal a tiny pair of lace underwear that she’d picked up to replace her “bloomers” at Serena’s request on the way over. She sure didn’t regret it now because the tension in his jaw, the desire in his eyes…priceless.

“Let’s leave the skirt on,” he said, and hooked a finger around her panties. He gave a sharp tug, and they snapped in his big hand. She gasped at the raw need on his face at what he’d exposed. He looked for so long, she was about to ask him yet again if everything was okay, if maybe she’d done something wrong, but there was no time. Because a second later, he fell onto her, burying his face between her thighs with a muttered curse. His tongue hit her first, lashing at the straining bud between her thighs, and she bit back a scream.

Chapter Five

Honey. The taste he’d imagined a thousand times was like wild, sweet honey. He could no more stop what he was doing than turn into a real panther, so he was glad to hear her whimper. A good, “give me more of that” kind of whimper.

He was relentless, rubbing his tongue against her swollen clit. “Oh, my gosh,” she muttered, chanting it over and over.

The hands that had been clenched on his shoulders let loose and dove into his hair, gripping so tight that, if he’d had any blood left in his body that hadn’t drained to his cock, it might have hurt.

He grunted his approval of her uninhibited response. This was the Grace he’d known had been in there somewhere. The one that he’d wanted for so long. The Grace that squirmed during the love scenes in a movie in a way that made him want to test her wetness with his hand. The Grace whose eyes had gone wide when they’d seen that couple having sex under the boardwalk the last time they’d taken the dogs for a walk on the beach at sunset.

Maybe thinking about the dogs was a good idea because things were ratcheting up fast, and the taste of her and the feel of her heated flesh against his tongue were making it a close thing.

“Please,” she murmured, this new word breaking her previous chant.

His cocked jerked, and he obliged her happily, sucking the firm bud between his lips and laving it harder with his tongue. She stiffened, the thighs around his waist locking tighter than a boa constrictor. Very nice. The hands he’d been using to bracket her hips slid lower, spreading her wider. Then he sent his finger to join his mouth, easing it into her unresisting heat. Slick and wet, her tight channel clasped his finger, and she went wild, bucking and arching. Her words lost focus and form and disintegrated into meaningless pleas. He kept the pace steady, working her tight pu**y in and out in long, even strokes.

She groaned and tossed her head. “Please, it’s…so much.” He pulled back and slipped his finger from her, dialing the intensity back. He hadn’t meant to scare her.

“I want you inside me.”

Okay, so, not scared. She pushed him so hard that he rocked back onto his heels and fell flat onto his ass. She was on him in a second, straddling his hips, rubbing her body all over his. The steamy heat that he’d had his face buried in only moments before pressed against him, and his shoulders tensed. He felt the telltale clench as a drop of fluid leaked from the head of his cock.

“Do you have a condom?” she whispered, all the while sliding her pu**y over his shaft in a slippery caress.

His brain was in meltdown, and it took him a beat to understand her words. Did he have one?

“Yeah, in my pants. Wallet.”

She flattened herself over his chest to reach past his shoulder. She nabbed his pants and rifled through them to get his wallet. He was still reeling from the feel of her tits against his chest when it hit him. If she saw his beat up old leather wallet, he was as good as busted. She’d seen it a thousand times before and had suggested he get a new one just the week before. He reached overhead and snagged the pants from her grasp. “Lotta pockets, I got it.”

She nodded and burrowed her hands underneath his shirt while he located his wallet. He abandoned his search to stop her with a hand on her wrist. Things were going from bad to worse.

“I—” He what? What could he possibly say here? The truth was that he didn’t want her to see his naked chest because she might see the scar he had from that time Joey Fabrizzi shot him with a BB gun. They’d spent several days on the beach every summer, and she’d seen his chest many times. Even if it was too steamy to get a good look at the scar, who knew if she’d recognize the rest? Hell, now that he’d seen her breasts, they’d be committed to memory for life. In fact, he’d be able to pick them out in a room filled with breasts. So what to say to her now, when the look of wild abandon was slowly changing back to one of insecurity?

“I’m a little cold,” he said.

Because they were in a sauna. So that made sense. He was clearly not in a position to talk his way out of this one, so he did the next best thing. Distraction. He swiveled his hips, grinding his aching c**k against her sweet spot until her eyes drifted closed and her hand lay limp in his. He didn’t stop as he searched the billfold still in his pocket until he found the emergency condom that he’d kept there precisely for this occasion. The day that Gracie finally realized that she wanted to sleep with him.

He continued his pelvic grind while he made quick work of the wrapper. She opened her eyes at the tearing sound and shifted away so he could slip it on. It took some doing since he was hard as a baseball bat, but then it was done and she sat back on her heels, staring down at him.

“Ready?” she asked, a shy, but hungry smile playing around her full lips.

He was way the f**k past ready. “Yeah.”

She took him awkwardly in hand and shimmied over him. After a few misses and one mortified but funny, “Oops, wrong door!” she settled over him with a sigh, sinking by centimeters onto his straining shaft. It seemed like a year before she was fully seated, but it was the best, most excruciating year of his life. He was buried deep and could feel the stretch of her channel, fluttering, opening to accommodate him. He lifted his head to look. To see himself inside her, but the expression on her face caught him. Her head was thrown back, the mane of curls that he loved wild around her shoulders, her mouth a pretty “o” and her brow wrinkled like she was in pain…but not.

He pumped his hips once, nudging deeper still, and she gasped.

“It’s so full. I just want to stay—”

He thrust up again, angling into the general g-spot area. Hopefully—

“Son of a bitch!” she snarled, her thighs working up before slamming down again and taking him back to that place. No more cockadoodly. She was letting the curses fly now. That was excellent. Her frown deepened, and the chanting started again. He watched, enthralled as she f**ked him, sliding high, then plummeting down, all the while whispering. “What is that? That’s soooo…”

He wanted to take it slow. To keep that even, driving pace until she couldn’t stand it for another second. To make her wait for it. To make her come. And then come again. But she’d found something she wanted now, and it was clear that she wasn’t going to stop until she got it.

He ignored his body’s urgent messages, telling him that if he didn’t slow her down, he was going to explode. Instead, he clenched every muscle and began a mental chant of his own. “Do not f**king blow this. Do not f**king blow this. Do not fuck—”