Kat tugged her T-shirt over her head and tossed it to the floor. Her senses begged to indulge in him. She stroked the hard line of his shoulder and felt a faint shudder ripple through him at her touch. She stroked the sleek muscles of his back as he explored her ribs and the underside of her breasts, the faint rasp of the stubble on his face, stoking the fire he tended with his sensual exploration. With deliberateness, he bypassed the aching peaks of her breasts and moved on to the pulse tattooing a rhythm of desire at the base of her throat. Braced on his forearms above her, only his mouth touched and caressed her.
His muscles bunched beneath her fingertips as her hands clutched at him, transmitting the fever building inside. Her breath grew ragged as he pushed aside her hair to sample the sensitivity of her neck and the shell of her ear. Trekking across a desert could not have left her with a greater thirst.
She groaned in frustration and invitation as she pulled his mouth to meet hers. It was the sweetest of tortures. Rather than gaining some satisfaction from the taste and feel of his mouth, it only turned up the heat coursing through her.
When his tongue touched hers, the last tenuous hold on her moderation slipped. She touched him as she’d wanted to the first time she’d seen him at his beach house. She purred her appreciation for the tight ripple of his buttocks when she slid her hands beneath his briefs and stroked and kneaded.
Andrew had teased and incited her earlier, but she’d sensed he did so while fully in control of himself. She’d sensed his measure of restraint in his touch, the cadence of his breath. Now spiraling urgency replaced his control.
He found her breasts and measured their fullness against his palms, intensifying the ache of his earlier neglect. She murmured a request on their behalf and he took one pearled tip in his mouth.
Pleasure rocked her, rippled through her and left her wanting more. Impatient to feel the hard length of him against her skin, she tugged at the waistband of his underwear. “These have to go. Now.”
“You’re the boss.” He took over for her and shucked his briefs.
My, oh, my. Kat lay very still and closed her eyes. The cool cotton of the sheets against her fevered skin felt real.
The heady scent of aroused male mingling with her own excitement smelled very real.
“Kat, please tell me you’re not falling asleep.” The sexy thrum of Andrew’s voice sounded real.
The questing probe of his hand down her belly to the slick wet between her thighs felt, oh, so very real.
She moved against him in an age-old request, opening her eyes.
No doubt about it. She wasn’t dreaming. She was in bed with her husband, who happened to qualify as the all-time sexiest man.
“Do you know what redneck foreplay is?” Her voice sounded husky, even to her.
His finger stroked against her silky fold. “Hmm, I hope not.”
She nudged his shoulder and delivered the punch line. “You awake? You awake?”
He chuckled as he slid his finger in her.
Kat arched. No more jokes. Coherent thought lessened with each dip and stroke. She wrapped her hand around the length of his shaft. “And no, I’m not asleep.”
His fingers found the sensitive nub of her womanhood. “If you are, you’re having one hell of a wet dream.”
She writhed beneath his ministrations, excited by his touch and his comment. Could this man with his naughty talk possibly be the same stiff shirt she’d married? She rubbed her hand up his hardness. He was stiff all right, but it wasn’t his shirt.
Kat lost herself in a kaleidoscope of sensation. Of touching and being touched. Of tasting and being tasted. Want became need-the need to feel him deep inside her.
Then he was. And amidst the maelstrom of pleasure she recognized an emotional connection. She hadn’t sought it. She didn’t want it. But it was there, almost as tangible as the thrust of him within her. This was not some nameless, faceless sperm donor. This was stuffy, sexy, thoughtful, quirky Andrew.
She gave herself over to a pleasure so intense it bordered on pain. She panted and moaned, close to tears from the tension that mounted with each rhythmic plunge. And then she transcended to a place she’d never been before. She soared even as she shattered and became part of the kaleidoscope.
As if her satisfaction had pushed him over the edge, Andrew found his own release. She had never heard a sweeter sound than his harsh rasp of her name as he spilled into her.
STILL DAZED and somewhat befuddled, Andrew turned off his bedside light with a snap. He’d set out to teach his wife a lesson and fulfill an obligation. Somewhere along the way he’d lost sight of both objectives and given himself over to pleasure. And something else he couldn’t name. Or wouldn’t.
Kat followed suit with her light, but instead of plunging the room into its customary nighttime darkness, a faint glow illuminated the bedroom.
Andrew propped himself on one elbow, trying to find the source. The glow seemed to originate somewhere to the right of Kat. “What’s that?”
Beside him, Kat faced him in a similar fashion. “That is a night-light.”
The emotional intensity of their lovemaking still disconcerted him. “Why do you need a night-light?”
“If I had my own room, it wouldn’t bother you.”
“I didn’t say it bothered me. Not exactly. But why’s it on?”
“Maybe Toto can’t sleep without it.”
Andrew harumphed his disbelief. “Toto could sleep next to a freight train.”
In the shadows, the vulnerable look on her face told its own story. Just because he was annoyed by his own lack of control, he’d tried to bait her. He kicked himself for being an insensitive moron, anticipating her answer before the words left her mouth.
“I’m afraid of the dark.” Embarrassment tinged her defiance. “So, now you know. Go ahead and laugh.”
The indomitable, unflappable Kat Hamilton Devereaux Winthrop feared the dark. He realized what the admission had cost her. He was an ass for asking.
Without forethought, he reached out and smoothed his hand over her unruly hair, drawing her down to the bed. He settled beside her, rubbing her back with a soothing rhythmic motion. It had been a hell of a day for both of them.
“It’s okay. I don’t like spiders.” He’d never divulged that to anyone.
She relaxed. “The light won’t bother you?” Impending sleep slowed her speech.
“No.” Beneath his fingertips she tempted him again, a bewitching heady mixture of feminine flesh and muscle, wrapped in the scent of satisfaction. He swelled a bit recalling his role in her satiation.
“You sure?” She sounded one step closer to slumber.
“Positive.” This impromptu back rub qualified as torture. He’d given in to an urge to comfort her and look where it had landed him-more than ready to make love to her again, but they were on a once a day ration and she was almost asleep.
Snoring intruded on the quiet.
“Kat?”
“Hmm?”
“Does Toto always snore?”
“Uh-uh.” Though she verged on sleep, the smile in her voice wrapped around him.
“A’drew?”
“Hmm?”
“Thanks,” she slurred into her pillow.
For the back rub? For marrying her? For his sperm donation? For being the kind of guy she wouldn’t fall in love with, one who’d walk away from his own kid?
Kat snuggled her delectably plump rear against him, her even breathing punctuated by a gurgle of contentment. Andrew frowned into the dark of the night as his hand rested against her belly. Maybe even now in the aftermath of mind-boggling lovemaking, his numerous sperm were competing for a chance to form a new life-a red-haired little tyrant with serious gray eyes and a penchant for mischief.
He’d never wanted a child. It wasn’t part of his plan. He was too dedicated to his career. Too remote. Too emotionally distant. He might be great at sperm donation, but he wasn’t good dad material. Was he? Could he be?