Mary’s lips curved with joy as she pulled him down over her on the bed. He didn’t know how long they kissed, rolling over with each other on the soft velvet, hands stroking, mouths devouring in their hunger for each other. Her passion matched his, and he found himself wondering if a lifetime could possibly be long enough to fill such a deep well of need.

And then her hands were moving to the buttons of his shirt, and he didn’t stop kissing her as he captured them with his. Holding her captive against him, he gave a final nip to her lower lip before lifting his head to stare down at her.

Already a stunning woman, with her cheeks flushed and her eyes heavy with arousal, there wasn’t any painting, any vista, any wonder in the world that could match her beauty as she lay in bed beneath him.

Jack’s breath caught in his chest as he looked down at her. “What did I ever do right to deserve you?”

“Everything. Everything you do is exactly right.”

Shifting over her, he found the pulse point at the side of her neck again and let his teeth scrape gently over her sensitive skin. The way she arched against him put the silent vow he’d made to go slowly their first time almost out of reach.

Sliding his hands beneath her back, he lifted the hem of her sweater. Her breath came quickly, her chest rising and falling fast beneath the soft green wool as she shifted her shoulders so that he could slide the fabric up to reveal the swell of her breasts above her lacy bra.

“Beautiful.”

Forgetting all about stripping her sweater the rest of the way off, he reached out and brushed his fingertips over her soft flesh.

“Jack.”

His name shook on her lips as he lowered his head to trace over her skin with his mouth. Her scent made his head spin, her soft sounds of pleasure sending his heart racing faster than it ever had before.

When he’d been stealing kisses from her, he’d always been gentle. But now, as he gripped the softness of her sweater in his fists, Jack couldn’t stop himself from roughly dragging it all the way off. Excitement glittered in her eyes as she stripped away her slacks from her legs so that they landed on the colorful rug beside her bed.

If he’d been stunned by the flash of lace at her breasts, the lace at her hips knocked every last bit of oxygen from his lungs.

For a long moment he couldn’t think, couldn’t move, couldn’t do anything but marvel. Lost in the wonder of her, he didn’t realize Mary had taken his hands in hers until she lifted them to her lips. One quick kiss to his knuckles and then she was slowly opening his hands to slide them down over her jaw, her neck, her collarbones, and then—sweet Lord, he wasn’t sure he’d manage to make it through tonight in one piece—she placed them over her breasts.

As she let him feel the hard beat of her heart, then lifted her hands from his so that he was the only one still touching her, Jack knew she wasn’t just silently telling him she wanted him to make love to her…she was also saying she trusted him enough, for tonight at least, to put her heart in his hands.

Notorious for his steady hands as he soldered the wires on a circuit board, Jack couldn’t keep his fingers from shaking as he moved to slide the straps of her bra down off her shoulders. She trembled beneath him, just as unsteady but with him all the way as he finally uncovered one perfect breast and then the other.

It was pure instinct to cup Mary’s soft flesh with his hands and lower his head to take first one peak and then the other into his mouth. She tasted even better than she looked, and as he drew on her with lips and tongue, she arched into his hands and mouth to let him have even more of her.

Reaching behind her, he flipped open the latch on her bra and tossed it to the floor to join her clothes. Her skin was rosy and damp from where he’d been kissing her, and when he brushed his jaw across her aroused nipples, her hips came up against him in a silent plea for more. Her stomach muscles quivered beneath his lips as he ran kisses down the center of her body. When bare skin was replaced with lace, he drove both of them crazy by tracing the edges of her panties with both his fingertips and tongue. She was even softer here, her scent spinning through him.

Lace scratched against his tongue as he covered her with his mouth, and then he was being just as rough with her panties as he’d been with her sweater in his desperation to have her completely bare and open to him.

Again, his name fell from her lips in a whisper of breath and need, and he answered the sweet plea with a slow brush of his tongue over her. A moment later, his fingers found her hot and slick, and when she shuddered and cried out his name, Jack was so lost in the pure sensuality of the way she moved beneath him that he nearly fell over the edge with her even though he was still fully clothed.

Slowly, he kissed his way down her legs, from the incredibly soft skin of her inner thighs to the sensitive spots behind her knees, then over her toned calf muscles, until he was pressing soft kisses to the arches of both feet. With his hands, he massaged her muscles, making her moan from the pleasure of his touch. He could have spent all night working his way back up her body with his hands and mouth, finding all of the spots he’d missed on the way down, but when she took his hands in hers, he let her pull him back up over her.

Her kisses made him dizzy enough that she easily rolled them over so that he was on his back and she was gorgeously naked over him. Silently, and with intense focus, she began to work open the rest of the buttons on his shirt. When she had the fabric completely open, instead of moving it off his shoulders, she leaned in and pressed a soft kiss over his heart.

Jack had never known a woman as beautiful, as intelligent, as gracious as Mary. And he’d never known lovemaking like this before, either. Because with every kiss, with every touch he and Mary gave each other, heart was as important as heat.

That kiss over his breastbone was the first in a sweet path of damp heat she made across his chest, neck and jaw, until she’d made it high enough to cup his face in her hands. When she rocked into him and they moaned into each other’s mouths, he was too greedy for another one of her beautiful climaxes to even think about taking things further.

“Again,” he urged, following his words with caresses that had her eyes closing as she levered up over him again to rock closer, faster, harder against him. And as her breath hitched and her hands gripped at his forearms, she was so heartbreakingly beautiful that he knew she really was an angel.

His angel.

Jack could have listened to the sweet sounds of her releases all night long and might have done just that had she not reached for his belt buckle. The light brush of her fingertips over his abdomen was almost too much to handle by that point, and he had to tense every muscle in his body to keep from losing control as she finally pulled the leather open and slid down the zipper.

She didn’t tease him as she stripped the rest of his clothes and his shoes and socks away, but when her elegant hand came around him a beat later, a hard hiss of air whistled out from between his clenched teeth.

Jack wanted their lovemaking to be as much an equal adventure as everything else they did together, but he was too close to the edge to let her keep touching him like that tonight. In one quick move, she was back beneath him, her hands in his on either side of her head as he kissed her.

For a week, Mary had clearly believed she needed to fight what was meant to be, and Jack had worked to hold on to his rapidly disintegrating patience until she felt that she could give herself to him without reservations. But now the time for waiting was long past. And yet, even as she whispered to him that she was protected and she lifted her hips to welcome him into her, in the moment that he moved between her legs, Jack wanted to stop everything so that he could tell her how much she’d already come to mean to him.

But for tonight Jack knew he’d have to use his body to tell her everything he felt in his heart, instead.

The pleasure built with every stroke, with every thrust, with every kiss. Damp skin against damp skin, heated breath over aroused flesh, they were perfect partners in passion.

And as they moved together, with desire driving them higher and higher, Jack knew that every breath, every dream, every prayer had led him here, to the warmth of Mary’s arms around him.

* * *

The velvet coverlet and sheets lay tangled around their bodies as they held tightly to each other, still breathing hard, Mary’s head cradled in the crook of Jack’s arm. Outside her bedroom window the rest of the city was sleeping. Warm and safe in her bed with the most wonderful man she’d ever known, sleep should have finally come to claim Mary, too. But so much had happened tonight, much more than just lovemaking that had left her breathless. It would be a long time before she could settle down enough to get some badly needed rest.

Tonight she’d trusted Jack with her body, but though that might have been enough for another man, she knew Jack wanted much, much more.

He wanted her to trust him with her heart, too.

Not just for one night but forever.

For a few hours, she’d been able to drop her guard and allow desire to take the place of decisions. Jack’s touch, his kisses, had brought her fully to life in a way that no other man’s had before him.

Come morning, she’d have to decide if she could let what was between them continue to grow…and risk letting herself fall in love with him.

She’d known from their very first kiss that making love with Jack would be wonderful. But nothing could have prepared her for the extraordinary sensations of his mouth moving across her skin, the sensuality of his hands caressing her…or the perfection of coming together with him until she lost hold of where she ended and he began.

Nothing could have prepared her for the wonder of feeling as though he was her very first, her only.

And nothing could possibly have prepared her for the way the heart she’d been so careful with had opened wide with reckless abandon.

Fortunately, looking at their entwined fingers resting over his chest helped to calm her racing heart. As if he could read her mind, he lifted their hands to his lips and softly, slowly, kissed each of her fingers.

Raising her gaze to meet his, she was hit with yet another shock: Jack wasn’t hiding a single emotion from her. And—oh God—what she saw in his eyes echoed what she felt in the deep, secret part of her heart she thought she had locked down, sure it was the only way to prevent ever being hurt again.

Through the haze of her post-pleasure brain, Mary couldn’t lie to herself: From that very first moment he’d spoken to her, from the very first press of his lips against hers under the mistletoe, had she ever had a choice about falling for Jack Sullivan?

Suddenly finding it difficult to breathe, Mary tried to move from his arms, but he wouldn’t let her go.

“I promised you I’d be patient,” he reminded her softly. “I’m not going to break my promise.”

Didn’t he see that just because he hadn’t said the word love aloud, it didn’t mean his body, his expression, his heart beating steadily and hard against hers, weren’t saying it to her even now?

Mary had been on her own for all of her adult life and had carved out a successful career in a supremely difficult field. Yet, as Jack held her on her bed, she finally had to face her own weaknesses…and accept just how far and deep her fears ran. Fears that had plagued her since the day she’d walked away from everything she’d known as a teenager.

One night. Couldn’t she have one night to take a break from the confusion, from the doubts?

Maybe it wasn’t fair to ask Jack to give her that when he was already giving her everything else, but Mary had never felt this safe, this cherished, with anyone else.

Letting the sheets fall away, she put her hand on his chest, his pectoral muscles jumping beneath her palm and fingertips as she slid them up to caress the beautifully masculine planes of his jaw and chin. Desire had been sated just minutes ago and, still, as she leaned forward to press her mouth to his, the sparks flew again, even hotter and higher this time.