inside until she gasped, then withdrawing. “Or here?”
He pressed her clit and she arched, gasping at the explosion
of need spiking through her blood stream.
He touched and toggled, then buried his finger deep within
her again.
She shook her head. She couldn’t choose. She wanted both. She
wanted him. She wanted to do exactly what she was doing now—allow him full
access to ply his magic.
He didn’t disappoint her. He alternated between the two,
sending her into a maelstrom of sensation. He whispered a thousand sweet
compliments, each made nonsensical by the blood rushing in her ears. She picked
up snippets. Something about loving how hot she was. Maybe something about
wanting to feel her come at least twice before he took any pleasure for
himself.
She was only vaguely aware of the gravity of that vow when he
kissed a sweet path down her inner thigh. Without hesitation, she lifted her
knees. He tucked his shoulders underneath her thighs, ran his smooth cheek
against her sensitive skin, then blew out a hot breath across her hungry flesh,
elevating her madness to near insanity.
It was as if he could read her mind—as if he’d read a page
from her unwritten sexual diary. He knew what she liked, what she wanted, what
she dreamed about. He curled back the lips of her sex and blew again, this time
concentrating a stream of air where she was hottest and wettest. When she cried
out with pleasure, he dropped his mouth on her.
The sensations threw her into instant delirium. He took his
time, tasting every inch of her, leaving no crevice unexplored. By the time he
concentrated his tongue on her clit and slid two fingers deep inside her, she
no longer had any sense of who she was or why she was here. She was nothing
more than an exposed nerve ending, desperate for the sensations he pumped into
her.
“Yea, sweetheart,” he coaxed. “That’s it. Come on. You’re
nearly there.”
He increased the tempo and she cried out as she crested,
then fell. In the aftermath, he pressed his face to her thigh, his own
breathing labored as she came back to earth.
And then, suddenly, he was straightening her clothes,
tugging down the hem and adjusting the straps so that the lingerie reached her
ankles and covered her breasts. He rolled off the bed, back to her, and slammed
his hands through his hair with such force, she imagined he’d torn out some of
the strands.
“Shaw?”
He spun around, looked at her for a split-second, then held
out his hands as if to ward her off.
She sat up on her elbows. “What? What’s wrong?”
“I can’t do this,” he muttered.
She remained stunned for a full minute before she mustered
the strength to slide her legs off the bed and stand. Her knees protested, but
obeyed.
“Can’t do what?”
Up close, she could see anguish carved into every aspect of
his face.
She took a step back, suddenly enveloped in fear. She’d
risked so much to be with him tonight—her pride, her professional position, her
heart. Was he throwing this back at her somehow? Rejecting her after giving her
the best oral sex she’d ever had?
“Shaw? I don’t understand what’s happening.”
He took a deep breath, exhaled, then turned his hands, not
to touch her, but in surrender. “I have to tell you something, Kate. About the
night we first met.”
Kate looked away, wracking her brain for the time and place
of the first time they’d been introduced. It couldn’t have been anything
significant. A party? A business meeting at the office?
“A fundraiser for a city council candidate at a club on
Division Street,” she said.
Even before she finished the sentence, Shaw was shaking his
head.
“No, Kate. That’s the first time you remember meeting me. But
our worlds collided a couple of months before that. The night you can’t
remember.”
The muscles in her chest clenched tight. “How do you know
about that?”
“Because I was there. With you. All night long.”
Chapter 6
Though Shaw knew it might be a