With Tatiana in his arms and her mouth pressed against his, Ian momentarily forgot all the rules, all the restrictions he’d put on his life and his heart. He couldn’t do anything but feel, couldn’t stop himself from taking another kiss, and then another and another, dragging her closer with each one, falling deeper under her spell with every breath he stole from her lungs, with every gasp of pleasure she made against his lips.

He’d known it would be like this with her, hadn’t he? So powerfully sensual, and so addictive as she opened for him so that he could stroke his tongue against hers and she could taste him just as intimately.

On and on their kiss went, her response utterly unrestrained, but it wasn’t until he heard her moaning softly against his mouth that he realized his hands had slid up from her waist to cup her breasts, her nipples pebbling against his thumbs as he stroked her.

What the hell was he doing?

And now that they’d kissed, now that he knew just how good they could be together, how could he possibly go back?

Ian tried to think straight. Tried to remember all the reasons why they shouldn’t do this, even as she told him, “I’ve never wanted anyone, or anything, as much as I want you, Ian.”

And in that moment, when it felt to Ian as though everything he’d ever wanted was right there in front of him, even though he knew better, he simply didn’t have it in him to move away from her.

But despite the hungry way she’d kissed him, he also instinctively knew that for all the lovers she’d already had, none could have needed her as badly as he did...or would demand as much of her unfettered sensuality as he would. Grasping at straws now, he decided the only chance—and the very last one—that he had of getting them to stop this madness before it slid all the way out of their control, would be if he could scare her with the force, the depth, the wildness of his need.

He slid his hand around to the nape of her neck, then fisted his hands in her hair and roughly tilted back her head so that he could scrape his stubble across the sensitive skin of her neck. “If you don’t leave right now,” he warned her in a voice made harsh with the inner conflict that rode him, “there’s no going back.”

“I don’t want to go back. Not now.” She shivered against him. “Not ever.”

“I won’t be gentle.” He had one last chance to try to do whatever he could to get her to run, because he sure as hell couldn’t figure out a way to let her go. “If you stay, I’m going to take what I want from you, Tatiana. Everything I want. Everything you’ve been offering to me since the moment we met.”

But instead of running, all she said was, “Yes.” And then again, even more emphatically, “Yes. I don’t want gentle. I just want you.”

And then she lifted her mouth to his again...and he was lost.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

As Ian kissed her, for the first time in her life Tatiana knew—really knew—what passion was.

This was the kind of passion that people wrote songs and books and movies about.

This was the kind of moment that people waited an entire lifetime for.

She’d acted out passion a dozen times on screen to the best of her professional ability, but she’d never truly felt it before. No one but Ian had ever kissed her like this, touched her like this. Touching not just her body, but her heart and soul, too.

She hadn’t meant to leap into his arms to kiss him like that, but she’d been so excited about being an Oscar nominee that it had been pure instinct to share her joy with him any way she could. They’d hugged, they’d danced, and then, before she knew it, she was kissing him.

Just a few moments of her lips against his—and yet it had been unlike any kiss she’d ever had, with warmth and arousal instantly swamping her system.

Feeling as if she’d just been struck by lightning, she’d drawn back, but before she could do more than exclaim her surprise at what she’d done, Ian was crushing her against him, his mouth devouring hers. And as he kissed her breathless, she forgot all about the nomination, forgot about everything except how badly, how desperately, she wanted him.

She heard it first—the sound of fabric ripping—before she realized he’d torn open the bodice of her silk dress with one tug of his hand on the fabric at her neck, leaving her standing before him in her bra, also in blue silk.

“You’re even more beautiful than I dreamed you’d be.”

The raw timbre of his words, and the fierce need in his eyes, sent shivers through her, along with a ravenous hunger for more of his dangerous passion. She didn’t want him in his clothes any more than he seemed to want her in hers, so in yet another impulsive move, she shoved his jacket open and onto to the floor, then reached for the buttons on his shirt and yanked them open.

His tie still held the top of his shirt in place, but she’d pulled it open enough to bare a patch of his chest. Oh, how she wanted to feel his heat, his strength! She was just putting her hands on his chest when he tugged her hair back, his mouth diving for the pulse point in her neck. With his free hand, he cupped one breast through the silk of her bra, and she both heard and felt his aroused groan against her neck.

Being with him without any walls anymore, without any rules about what was and wasn’t allowed to happen, felt so good. So shockingly good that the only way she could keep herself steady on her shaking legs was to hold on to him, and to arch closer, to offer more of herself—all of herself—to him.

Sliding his hand from her hair so that he was cupping both of her breasts through silk, he stroked over her nipples with his thumbs. As a new flood of heat and arousal rushed over her, she couldn’t stop herself from bucking her hips into him.

He gave one more hard rip and her dress was gone, nothing more than a small pile of shredded silk on the rug in his office. Her panties were blue like her bra and as he just stood there and stared at her, a hint of fear at knowing she was about to do something she’d never done, go to a place she’d never gone, nearly made its way in past her excitement, past her joy.

But then, he was sliding a hand between her legs, and all thoughts of fear fell away as he found her hot and aroused.

“I knew you’d be like this,” he murmured against her mouth as he tugged her close with one hand between her thighs, the other on her breast, for another heated kiss. “So responsive.” He kissed his way down her neck, over the swell of her breasts, before pulling one bra cup down and covering her nipple with his mouth. “So sweet.” She couldn’t keep up with all of the sensations, with the heat of his tongue on her, with the thrill of his hand over her shockingly aroused flesh, especially when his teeth scraped so deliciously over her nipple.

Against her breast, he whispered, “You’re just so goddamned sweet,” and then he was pulling down her other bra cup to suckle on the taut tip of her other breast.

Overwhelmed with heat and arousal and emotion, when he slid his fingers beneath the elastic of her silk underwear and found her bare skin, she couldn’t stop from crying out from the shock of pleasure at having his hands and mouth on her like this. Absolutely everywhere she’d wanted him.

He moved his lips from her breasts back to her mouth to give her another searing kiss, and to drink in more of her cries, but his hand stayed right where it was, slipping, sliding against her slick, heated flesh. “All week I needed this. Needed to feel you, naked, hungry, ready for me to take you over the edge.”

His words were broken up by the kisses he gave her, but even if she hadn’t heard them, she would have known what he wanted.

Because she needed it just as badly.

“Now, baby.” He lifted his mouth from hers to stare down at her with eyes that had gone nearly black with desire. “I need you to come for me. Now.”

But she was already there as with one of his hands between her legs, the other on the nape of her neck to hold her steady, she shattered into a million beautiful pieces in his arms in a climax so much more powerful than any she’d ever experienced before.

He stroked her all the way through her release, murmuring how beautiful, how breathtaking she was. Still, when he lifted her up with his hands on her hips and wrapped her legs around his waist, she was still trying to catch her breath.

“Now. I need to get you into my bed right now.”

“Anywhere,” she said as she put her arms around his neck. “You can have me anywhere.”

He stopped halfway to the door to kiss her again in an utterly unrestrained tangle of lips and tongues and teeth. For a moment, she thought he might just push her up against the wall and take her right there like that. And though she’d dreamed of making love with him in a bed, she now knew that wild sex against the wall would be perfect, too.

Anywhere would be perfect, as long as she was with Ian.

On a low curse, he finally moved them out of his office, taking long, impatient strides down the hallway with her in his arms. He turned into a dark room, moving one arm from around her just long enough to flip on the light switch.

“I need to see you.” He kissed her as he lowered her back against the bed covers. “I’ll go crazy if I can’t see you, Tatiana. All of you.” He looked down as he moved over her, his gaze moving from her face to her breasts, to her naked limbs. “A thousand times I’ve dreamed of what you’d look like, the sounds you’d make, the way you’d smell. But I had no idea just how amazing you would be.” He leaned down to kiss her again. “Watching you completely let go like that, feeling your body moving against mine, your mouth so damned soft and sweet as you kissed me...it destroyed me.”

She pulled him closer, tightened her legs around him so that his full weight was over her. “I’ve never let go like that before, never knew I could.” But she didn’t feel destroyed, she felt reborn, as though everything was brand new and so shiny and beautiful she could hardly wrap her head around the wonder of it all. “Take me even higher, Ian. Please.”

His hands tangling in her hair and his mouth on hers sent her climbing again, so quickly, so fast, that she was already desperate for him. Before she knew it, he had her bra off and her panties shredded as he tore them from her, so that she was completely naked before him.

“I’ve never seen anything, or anyone, as beautiful as you.”

There was pure reverence in his voice as he stilled above her. Balancing his weight on one forearm, he stroked his free hand down between her breasts, over her stomach, then between her legs.

“You’re beautiful, too,” she whispered back, still hardly able to believe they were here in his bed, naked and kissing, and that he was about to make love to her. “But I need to see more of you. I need you naked, too.”

Both of them started to strip away his clothes, although by the time his shirt was off, Tatiana was so stunned by his incredible male beauty that her fingers pretty much forgot how to work and he had to take care of everything else by himself. When he finally kicked off his shoes and socks and pants and turned back to her, gloriously naked and hugely aroused with a condom already on, her mouth went dry, her eyes wide.

“Wow.” Maybe if she’d had enough brain cells left to realize the way she looked, sounded, she might have been able to stop herself from coming across like a virgin who’d never seen a naked man before. Even if that’s exactly what she was. “You’re...I...”

She couldn’t form any words that made sense, but she could go to her knees and reach for him where he was standing at the foot of the bed. Putting her hands on his shoulders, she brought them down slowly over his back, his taut muscles rippling beneath her fingertips. His skin was so warm, his shoulders and back so broad, that a little sound of pleasure left her lips right before she leaned forward to press a kiss to the hollow of his throat.

He growled her name, and before she knew it, he had her lying back on the bed again. “I need you now, damn it.”