He began to play with her breasts. Lin moaned in rising misery as he plucked at the nipples, stiffening them into aching points. He looked up at her face, watching her reaction. She bit her lip, sweating in a sweet agony.

“I want to move,” she whispered tremulously.

“I know. I want it, too,” he muttered heatedly. “It feels so good. I want it to last a little longer, though. That’s all. Stay still.”

He whisked the shirt off her shoulders and down her arms. It was gone. She was naked and quivering, nailed to his lap. She began to unbutton his shirt, but he caught her wrists.

“Not now,” he said. “I have something else in mind. I want you to gather all your hair and hold it against your head with both hands. I love your hair, but it’s getting in the way of my touching every inch of you.”

She quickly gathered the long strands and did as he asked, her breathing erratic. She didn’t understand why he wanted her to do this, but following his terse demands excited her for some reason. “That’s right,” Kam said roughly. “Put out your elbows. Arch your back. Open yourself to me.”

So, it wasn’t just the restraint of her hair he had in mind. She stared down at him after she’d taken the position. It did make her feel open, her naked body fully exposed, her spine arched, her breasts thrust forward . . . her heart vulnerable.

His gaze ran over her from head to thigh, slow and hot. She was scorched by that stare. She could barely draw breath.

He spread both hands on her hips and whisked them along her sides and over her breasts and down her belly and up her back.

“Kam,” she moaned, undone by his worshipful gaze, tormented by his possessive touch. He swept his hands everywhere, his actions somehow both lewd and cherishing at once.

“It’s all right,” he soothed when she whimpered as he massaged her ass in both hands. “Just a moment longer.” He placed his hands on her hips and stretched his thumbs toward her sex. He parted her labia, fully exposing her glistening pink folds and clitoris. Her exposure was complete. A rough groan tore at his throat. His cock swelled. Her shaking amplified. He looked up at her face, his expression tight with rapt wonder.

“God, you’re beautiful,” he breathed out. Then he leaned forward, his back leaving its rest against the couch, holding her so tightly she could barely draw breath. One of his forearms slipped beneath her ass like a supporting bar, his hand cupping a cheek, his other arm surrounded her waist, hugging her against him. He began to move her. She rose and fell over him like a crashing wave as he took complete control of her weight. Every muscle in his body grew hard and flexed as he strained for relief.

She’d begged for him to unleash the storm, and suddenly she was at the center of it, taking its full wrath. His cheek was pressed against a breast. He gave a low, guttural growl, the sound and vibration in her flesh thrilling her, sending a spark through her. She lowered her arms, her hair falling around them, and grabbed his head.

“Kam . . . oh . . . God,” she cried as he pounded her down on him, her voice vibrating with the strength of his short, staccato thrusts inside her. She felt him swell, heard his tortured groan.

He slammed her down on him again, roaring as he climaxed. For a moment, he seemed frozen by pleasure, but then he inhaled roughly and began pounding her up and down on his cock again as he ejaculated. The feeling of him pouring himself inside her sent her over the edge. She cried out sharply, the blast of climax all that much hotter and more powerful for having endured the flames with him.

Chapter Sixteen

She lay draped over him like melted candle wax for long, languorous moments, stroking his strong back muscles, coaxing them to release after their intense contraction during lovemaking. She didn’t like that he was still mostly dressed while she was nude, but she felt too weak to undress him, too content to move.

Angus made a muted woofing sound in her dreams, the sound making Lin blink and focus. She saw the bag Kam had left when he’d joined her on the floor and they’d lost themselves to passion.

“You never showed me my dog-walking outfit,” she murmured, nuzzling her face in the crook of his neck and shoulder.

“Hmmm?” he muttered lazily as he continued to stroke her naked skin from buttocks to shoulders, his low, resonant hum tickling her ear.

“The clothes you bought me,” she reminded him, kissing his neck.

“They won’t be as good as the ones you bought for me, but they’ll work. Why didn’t you tell me you bought me the clothes and the things for Aurore?” he asked gruffly after a few seconds.

“Ian thought you might take offense.”

“Why would I take any more offense if you chose things for me versus him or Lucien?”

She brushed her lips against the slowing pulse at his neck and leaned back to look at his face. “I don’t know exactly, except to say that I think he worried you’d become irritated if you got the impression he was trying to . . .” She paused, searching for the words. “Make you into something you’re not. Change you. He cares about you, Kam. Truly. He just wants the best for you.”

“Now that I think on it, I would have taken offense if anyone else had done it,” he said after a moment.

“Done what?”

“Bought me things. I know I paid for them, but still . . .” He faded off, his gaze narrowing on her. “Because it was you, it didn’t bother me. Somehow.”

She held her breath. It was an incredibly sweet thing to say. She waited, a prickle of anxiety or anticipation or something going through her when he just continued to pin her with his stare.

“Did you ever consider working for someone other than Ian?”

“What?” she asked, taken off guard by the direction of his question.

“I know you told Jason Klinf ‘no way’ last night—even though from what I heard, he was offering you a pretty interesting opportunity. Others have to have offered you even more lucrative opportunities. I’m just wondering if you ever really considered leaving Noble in the past?”

“Not really, no. I’ve thought about offers, of course, but never seriously.”

“What makes you stay? Why are you so loyal to Ian? Is it because your grandmother worked there and helped him build his company, and it feels like a family endeavor to you?”

Lin looked down from his piercing stare. “Maybe that has something to do with it,” she admitted. She hesitated. Kam cradled her jaw and silently bid her to look at him. She saw his questioning glance. “A friend—Richard St. Claire, actually; you know him—recently pointed out to me that I tend to—” She paused, blushing in embarrassment and staring at his collar.

“What?” Kam prompted.

She shrugged. “I tend to cling onto familiar things, like my work, because I’m afraid of change. Of abandonment.”

“Abandonment?” Kam asked.

Her blush deepened. “I know, it sounds ridiculous.”

“No it doesn’t.”

She looked up in surprise. “It doesn’t?”

He shook his head. “No. Not really. You must have been hit pretty hard when your mother and father left the States, leaving you behind. You were close to your grandmother, right?”

“Very,” she said.

“When she passed, and you were all alone in the world. But Noble Enterprises was there. Familiar. Knowable. Comfortable, even, given your history with your grandmother. What’s more, you’re amazingly good at what you do. That gives a feeling of affirmation all on its own. I can understand how all that would make you want to stay.”

“Yeah,” she admitted. “I guess you’re right.”

He stroked her cheek with his thumb. “There’s no reason to look sad about it,” he said quietly. “It’s completely normal. We all want what’s familiar. Sometimes I feel like I’m going to jump out of my own skin in this city. I keep longing for home, and the silence of the woods, and my old routine myself.”

“You do?” she asked, holding his stare. He nodded. “But you came. You’re staying put, despite the fact that you’d rather be home. How come?” she asked.

“Because I realized that unless I stepped out of my comfort zone, I was never going to grow. I’m ready. I’m ready for a change.” His thumb brushed her cheek softly.

Her heart began to pound in her ears in the silence that followed. Angus startled up suddenly, looking around the room. Lin glanced from the golden retriever to Kam with amusement.

“I’d love to know what that dog dreams,” Kam muttered dryly. Angus turned at the sound of his voice, her eyelids falling drowsily when he reached and scratched her behind the ears. “One thing I do know, she’s going to want a bathroom break now that’s she awake. You up for a walk?”

“I’d love one,” Lin replied, thinking that the brisk fall air might clear some of the confusion and chaotic thoughts she’d been having lately about work and Ian. What bothered her most was that she never would have been having these feelings if it weren’t for Kam.

He’d been the catalyst for everything.

Lin scrambled some eggs, which they ate with toast before they headed out with Angus. They walked south on the lakefront, Kam suggesting they take the path around the museum campus. It was a brilliant, warm fall day with the temperature in the low 60’s. They walked hand in hand, talking about anything and everything—comparing notes on favorite spots in London and Paris, architecture, the kind of music they liked. She learned that his full name was Kamryn Patrick Reardon.

“I told you my mother never gave up an inch of her Irishness,” Kam said sheepishly when Lin exclaimed over how much she loved the name. “The fact that Trevor Gaines seemed irritated by my Irish-sounding name only seemed to make me like it more.”