“’Kay,” I muttered. “Take your time.”

He grinned.

And it got that much more perfect.

“Love you,” he whispered.

And much, much more perfect.

“Love you too,” I whispered back.

His hand fisted in my hair. “Yeah. And thank you for loving me.”

Oh God.

And now he was even more perfect.

“I think that’s my line,” I retorted.

“Waited for you awhile, Rosie. So you’d be wrong.”

I couldn’t take anymore.

I dipped closer, sliding my hand up to cup his jaw.

“If you don’t kiss me soon, I’m gonna go crazy,” I told him in all honesty.

“Your ribs—” he began.

I cut him off. “I’ll deal.”

His expression started changing. “No you won’t.”

“Baby,” I hissed, putting my lips almost on top of his, “shut up and kiss me.”

He shut up.

And then he whipped me to my back on the bed, curling over me, and he kissed me.

He did not tear my clothes off.

I did not tear his off.

We kissed and we touched and we stroked over clothes, then under them.

After a while we kissed harder and deeper and we touched more and I pulled off his thermal. He drew away to yank off his boots and socks.

He came back and we kissed hotter and wilder and we touched hungrier. But I got the better end of that deal because his smooth, sleek, warm skin was under my hands, I could feel the power of the muscle underneath that heated silk, and with all the kissing and touching and that, suddenly I was all about making this something to remember and going at it hot and heavy.

And fast.

So I pushed up with my hips to roll him to his back, straddled him, sat up, and pulled off my thermal and cami.

Astride him in nothing up top but my bra, Snapper just wrapped his fingers around the skin at my waist and slowly slid them up.

I felt him straining against his fly between my legs but he took his time.

“Baby,” I whispered.

He sat up, touched his mouth to mine, wrapped an arm around me then glided his free hand up to my breast.

He held the weight in his palm over my bra but did nothing else.

“Snapper, honey,” I breathed, pressing and swirling my hips into his hardness.

“Rosie,” he whispered back, his sweet baritone drifting all over me.

He used his arm at my waist to pull me back and dropped his head to my chest.

Unhurried, he slid it to the breast he was not holding, over the swell, then back again, this time tracing the edge of the lace with his tongue.

Now we were getting somewhere.

But he was still going slow.

Restlessly, I churned against his hips, stroking his hair, his back, arching into his touch.

“I’m not real sure I can do slow,” I told him breathlessly on the backward glide of his tongue.

“No?” he asked my skin.

“No,” I murmured.

“Hmm…” he hummed against my skin.

God!

He was driving me crazy!

I ground into him, bunching his hair in my fingers, my mouth opening to say something (maybe whine, maybe beg, I was up for anything that might work at that point) when suddenly he tore the cup of the bra down and honed in with thumb and forefinger, twisting gently, just as he sucked my other nipple into his mouth over the bra.

The awesomeness of that tore through me. I jerked in his hold and he held me to him before he switched nipples and hands and then he was mouth-to-mouth on me.

Way.

More.

Awesome.

“Snapper,” I moaned.

He sucked. He swirled. He rubbed me with the front of his teeth. And I rolled in his lap, pressing into his cock, doing all I could to stroke it with the crotch of my jeans.

He let my nipple go, pulled my mouth down to his, and kissed me hot and wet before he broke it and ordered gruffly, “Baby, get on your feet.”

I didn’t want to get on my feet.

I wanted to get him in me.

But I got on my feet.

I’d barely got my trembling legs to support me before his hands went to my fly.

Okay, this was good. I was happy to be on my feet for this.

The zip went down then my jeans went down.

My panties, thankfully, went down with them.

I stepped out of them hurriedly.

Snap surged up out of the bed.

“No!” I cried, landing both hands on his broad, bared shoulders and pressing down. “We’re both getting farther away from where we’re supposed to be.”

He gave me a look that would melt asphalt at the same time it was filled with humor that I decided in an instant I utterly adored before his fingers went to the button on his jeans.

He grabbed his wallet before he shoved them down.

He stepped out of them, opened his wallet, pulled out a condom, and tossed his wallet to the nightstand.

“Hurry,” I urged, not caring that I did it staring greedily at the perfection of the cock that had sprung free from his jeans and was now standing full and hard and proud, reaching toward me.

“Babe, hurrying a condom is a bad thing,” he muttered, sounding growly turned on and amused, and I utterly adored that too.

I reached out and spread my hands across his pecs, touching him and watching him roll the condom on his beautiful, thick cock, all the way down to the root, dancing lightly on my feet with anticipation, salivating, running my thumbs hard over his nipples.