Damon reached between them and twirled several loose strands around a finger. Dark hair on a white pillow. His gaze clouded with the images of her tucked beneath him, his bed at her back and him tending to every fucking need her body craved. Phantom moans and tortured groans of ecstasy already played in his ear as he imagined luring the sweet sounds from her plump lips.

“Do you always stare at a woman’s lips, Mr. Savage?”

“Damon,” he corrected her gruffly as he leveled his gaze with hers. “And only when I can’t get the taste of strawberry out of my head.”

“Oh? Do you associate strawberries and lips often?” she asked softly.

“More and more. What’s with the sweater fetish?” That had to be a safe enough topic. He stared at her a moment longer, torn between walking back to his room and taking care of the raging need she stirred in him, or seducing her and finding out if her soft lips would feel as heavenly wrapped around his shaft as they did pressed against his own.

“What? The clerk at the counter said it looked good on me.”

“I bet she did.”

“He,” she corrected with a playful smirk.

He cocked a half-grin. His little tease wanted to play? She stood back from him then and her gaze pulled him over the threshold of her apartment.

His chest tightened as unwanted fire seeped into his blood to ignite a deep need he hadn’t felt in years. The burning need to take a woman until they both couldn’t walk from sheer excursion.

“He gave me his number if I ever need more sweaters.”

His cock pulsed in his pants, drawing her eye.

“No one needs more than one cheesy Christmas sweater in their lives. All that thing needs is lights to win the ugliest sweater award of all time.”

He eyed the island counter through the opened door at her back, which was the perfect height for burying himself into her dripping channel. And she would be wet. Wet for him and hungrier after he made her come with his tongue pressed between her folds, his fingers dipping into that virgin pussy to tease her further.

The dark need to confirm his suspicions grabbed him by the balls and tightened until he couldn’t see. Did she know how tempting she was fresh out of bed? Mussed hair, dreamy eyes, and flushed cheeks.

His cock swelled to press against the soft material of his sweats.

He growled when her gaze drifted down his bare chest to rest on his cock.

Ivy. An angel with raven hair and greenest eyes. When her gaze lifted to his and recognition flared with a glittering surprise in her eyes.

She bit into her lip. “Strawberry you said?”

He took another step closer, then another. “Hmm-mmm. Your lips. They taste like strawberries.”

Beyond the kitchen, the curtains were drawn. No one would see him devouring the Texas beauty.

His gaze caressed her heart-shaped cheeks, the way her chin came to a delicate point.

“Have you eaten?” husky and low, he drew out his question, fixing his gaze on the way her tongue flicked over her lower lip, the way her chest rose and fell with every breath.

Could he kiss her again and walk away? Doubtful. He had a feeling no one walked away from Ivy Kennedy unscathed. In the last twenty-four hours she filled his head like a bad idea waiting to happen. A charged bomb ready to explode in his face. Then why couldn’t he keep away? He shouldn’t be here, this close to her.

She brought her face up to his and her eyes shone with what he wanted to believe was unspent need as he reached out and tucked a stubborn strand of hair behind her ear again as it slipped free, causing the lines in her forehead to deepen and her eyes to shutter closed for a brief moment.

He picked up the faint sigh as his fingers brushed the baby soft skin of her cheek. What was it about this woman that he couldn’t resist?

“Did you know that there are over one hundred different species of berries in Alaska?” Her green eyes darkened and she mirrored his steps as he entered the apartment and flicked the door closed behind them. He advanced, she retreated until her back bumped against the small island situated in the center of the kitchenette. With nothing between them but air, he watched as she slipped a finger into the neck of her oversized sweatshirt, black, big glittered up neck and gold letters that spelled out Santa’s favorite HO HO HO.

He tracked her movements and fantasized how she would look on top of him, her glasses on as she rode him and that ugly sweater tossed aside.

Heat fused his blood and pounded through every inch of his body. Instinct mixed and jumbled his thoughts until his movements became jerky.

She fetched her glasses and slid them on with practiced ease. “Watermelon.” Like a teacher set on driving home a point, she raised a tiny digital finger. “That’s my favorite one. Watermelon berry. Of the berries, I mean and the rarest. Have you had those?”