Page 48 of Scorched

Paul heard and his body rejoiced. Still, he had to take it slowly, carefully. It took every ounce of his own self-control to keep from ripping clothes off her and making passionate, noisy love to her there on the living room floor.

Her gaze roamed over his chest, her fingers tracing a path to his hard brown nipples. A quick glance over her shoulder must have reassured her that the boys still slept. The door to their bedroom remained firmly closed. “This is so wrong.”

He captured her hand beneath his, pressing it against the pounding of his heart. “Then don’t.” It cost him to make the offer.

“But I want to.” She tugged her hand from his and reached for the hem of her shirt, dragging it up her torso.

Every inch the shirt moved exposed pale, silky skin and the curve of her waist. Then a breast appeared and the other. When she raised her arms above her head, Paul could hold back no longer.

With her hands high, the shirt still tangled around her forearms, Paul reached out and cupped both breastsin his palms, a groan rising in his throat. “You’re beautiful, Elise.”

She tugged the shirt from her arms and let it drop to the floor. “I’m scared.”

He kissed the tip of her nose, massaging the rounded flesh weighing lightly in his hands. “Of the killer?” He kissed her, his mouth slanting over hers, his tongue flicking across her lips. “Or me?”

“The killer, yes.” Her head dropped back, her hair cascading around her, reaching past her bottom. “But most of all, afraid of myself.”

“I won’t hurt you,” Paul promised. Despite the passion of the moment, threatening to carry him away, he knew how important it was to reassure Elise. “I will never force you to do anything you don’t want to.”

“That’s just it. I want this so much, I can’t think.” Her hands ran across his chest in a frenzy, then dipped lower, following the narrowing line of hair to the waistband of his shorts.

Oh, sweet heaven.Paul captured her hand before she went lower. “Don’t go there unless you’re certain. I can only take so much.”

“Paul, I’m not as fragile as you might think.” Her shoulders pushed back, forcing her bare breast deeper into his hand. She looked up into his eyes, her own darker than the usual sunny-sky blue, smoldering a smoky gray. “I want this.” Her hand skimmed over the hard ridge, making his shorts jut out in a tent. “Youobviously want it, so shut up and let me before one of the boys decides to wake up.”

Paul grinned and grabbed her around the waist, swinging her around the room, before gently setting her on her feet. “You’re an amazing woman.”

Elise was feeling pretty amazing, and scared, and filled with an overpowering desire to make love to this man. Now. Before she came to her senses and chickened out. Once he set her back on her feet, she gulped in a fortifying breath and reached for the button on her jeans.

“Let me.” His fingers closed over hers and together they flicked it loose, sliding the zipper down to expose the pink lace of her panties.

Elise thanked the laundry gods for the loads of laundry she had yet to wade through. If not for getting behind, she wouldn’t have been forced to wear the lacy panties her sister had given her last Christmas instead of the sensible briefs she usually wore.

The jeans came off and she stood in nothing but those stupid pink panties, the cool air raising gooseflesh on her skin.

Paul hooked his thumbs in the elastic waistband of his shorts.

Elise reached out, her fingers colliding with his, sending an electric current all the way up her arms.

He halted the downward progress of his shorts, the elastic catching on that part of him straining for release. “Change your mind?”

Elise shook her head and shoved his hands out of the way. “No. Let me.”

She tugged on the front of the shorts, pushing them far enough down his hips that he sprang free.

Her breath caught in her throat. The man was hard, erect and magnificent. Elise hadn’t been with any other man but her late husband. But in comparison between the two of them, Paul’s muscular body, trim waist and everything else was so much more manly, and larger than life than Stan had ever been.

She curved her hands around his buttocks, sliding the shorts and his briefs over the curve of his muscles and down the backs of his legs. Dropping to her knees, she skimmed over the crisp hairs of his thighs and downward to his taut, well-defined calves.

Paul cupped the back of her head, his fingers digging into her hair. “I never knew shorts could be so sexy.”

“Me, either.” She smiled up at him from her position at his feet. Her fingers circled his ankles, pushing the shorts down as he stepped free.

As she rose slowly to her feet, she cupped him in her palm, loving the smooth feel of velvety skin over steely hardness. The juncture between her thighs ached to have him inside her, filling her, making her whole.

“Wait.” He leaned over and pulled his wallet from the back pocket of his shorts, slipping a foil packet from its interior.

Elise smiled. “I’m glad you remembered.” She had been well on her way to forgetting everything in themoment. That scared her. Was she doing the right thing? Would she be giving Paul the wrong message? Would he expect more from her than she was able to give? More than the sex she so craved? The feel of his body against her, making her remember she was alive and a woman with needs he could satisfy, if only temporarily.

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