Before she realized she had, she raised her hands and pushed underneath his T-shirt until her hands slid over his taut belly.

He immediately froze. His tongue stilled over hers and she could feel the huff of his breath over her face.

Thinking she’d jumped the gun, she immediately withdrew and clenched her fists at her sides. She wasn’t used to withstanding seduction. She was usually the aggressor. Playing by someone else’s rules was alien.

Connor eased back just a step and then he reached for the hem of his shirt. Giving it an impatient yank, he hauled it over his head and dropped it to the floor.

Then he stepped back to her and circled her wrists with his fingers. He raised her hands and placed them against his chest, holding them there against the solid wall of his muscle.

“I love you touching me.”

He brought one hand to his mouth and kissed each fingertip before finally sucking her pinkie into his mouth. Hot and moist. It sent a thrill down her spine.

“Take my pants off, Lyric. I want you to touch me. I don’t think I’ll be able to get enough.”

She licked her lips as he lowered her hands to his waist. She shook so bad that she fumbled clumsily with the button of his fly. The sound of the zipper was loud. It broke through the heavy silence and made her flinch as she eased it all the way down.

Slowly she peeled the denim over his hips and down his legs until it gathered around his ankles. He stepped free and stood before her, the burning question at last answered.

She laughed softly and raised her gaze to Connor, a smile twisting her lips.

He arched an eyebrow. “What’s so funny? I have to tell you, laughing when you’ve got a guy down to his underwear is never a good thing.”

“I was right,” she teased.

“About?”

“You’re a boxer brief guy.”

He grinned smugly and mischief lit his eyes. “So you have been thinking about me.”

Damn. “I may have wondered. But that was it.”

“Uh-huh. Admit it, Lyric. You’ve been thinking about me every bit as much as I’ve been thinking about you.”

She hooked her fingers in the elastic waistband of his briefs and pulled him closer to her. “Maybe.”

“I got a hard-on for you the very first time we met. You and that sassy mouth of yours had me so hard, and I was desperate for you not to know.”

One corner of her mouth went up and she reached gently to caress the very noticeable bulge between his legs. His cock strained against the cotton material, a hard ridge trapped against his body.

What would he expect? Would he want her to take the lead now? He’d seemed to cede control when he’d asked her to undress him. Then she frowned. Or maybe he expected to direct her through it all. Was he in control or was she?

He tipped a finger underneath her chin and nudged it upward until once again his heated gaze bored into her. “Why the frown?”

“Who’s in control?” she blurted. “I’m not sure . . . I’m not sure what you want me to do.”

“Does it matter?” he asked lazily. “Why do either of us have to control everything? Why can’t we just enjoy each other for a while? You tell me what you like, what feels good to you. I’ll tell you what I like.”

She smiled and sent her hand seeking into his underwear until her fingers wrapped around his rigid erection. His breath caught and he went completely still.

“Does that feel good?” she asked innocently.

“It’ll feel a hell of a lot better when you get your mouth wrapped around it,” he drawled.

When she would have gone to her knees, he caught her by the elbows and hauled her up against him.

“I don’t expect you to service me before I’ve made you feel good, sweetheart.”

Then his mouth closed over hers, so hot and wicked. She melted, let herself go limp against him as he picked her up and walked her to the edge of the bed.

She wrapped her legs around his waist and pulled him down with her when he would have laid her on the mattress.

“You’re like a feast and I have no idea where to start,” he said in a low voice. “So much to savor. I don’t want to miss a single taste of your sweetness.”

“You’re lethal,” she said helplessly. “How can I possibly resist you when you say such pretty words?”

He grinned. “I think the point is that you’re not supposed to resist me.”

His mouth brushed across her shoulder and he stopped to nibble a path to the column of her neck. Then he retraced back to her shoulder and he sank his teeth into her flesh.

“Mmmm.”

“You like that?” he husked against her skin.

“Mmm-hmmm.”

He chuckled and then licked the spot where he’d bitten her. As he wandered down her body with his oh-so-delectable mouth, she wondered if she’d have a mark where he’d bitten her. The completely irrational part of her hoped so. She wanted a tangible reminder of his possession.

He dragged his open mouth down her midline, kissing and licking at intervals until he left a wet trail between her breasts to her navel.

Despite his assurances that she was beautiful no matter her size, she tensed when his tongue laved over the soft skin of her belly. She wasn’t fat but neither did she have his taut, lean belly that you could bounce a quarter off. Plus she’d gained and lost weight so many times that she sagged in certain areas.

“Relax,” he murmured as his tongue dipped into her belly button.

Then he kissed every inch of her abdomen and then lowered his mouth to her pelvis. After pressing a gentle kiss to the flesh just above the juncture of her legs, he raised his head and eased a finger over her bare folds.

“I like this,” he murmured.

She didn’t raise her head because, really, she’d never had a man do an analysis of her pussy while she was lying beneath him.

“What do you like?”

He stroked the lips of her vagina and then ran his finger over the small triangle of hair just over the hood that shielded her clitoris.

“Your wax job. I hear women talk about them, but I’ve never seen one exactly. You know, in person.”

At that she did raise her head and she arched an eyebrow in his direction. “Never?”

He shrugged. “The women I’ve been with aren’t groomed down there.”

She laughed. “You make me sound like a poodle.”

His fingers returned to her folds. He seemed to be fascinated with the smoothness because he kept stroking her over and over until she was ready to twitch right off the bed. Didn’t he realize he was making her crazy?

“Do you like it?” he asked.

“Yeah, I do. It makes me feel . . . sexy.”

At that he grinned and stared up at her with approval in his eyes. “I’m glad, then. You need to be as convinced as I am of just how beautiful you are.”

He lowered his head and nuzzled softly through her folds. The tip of his tongue brushed ever so lightly over her clit and she shuddered uncontrollably.

“You taste as sweet as you feel,” he murmured.

“You know just how to get to me,” she whispered. “Words are my life. How they flow. Their meaning. Twisting and turning them and making them more beautiful. Whenever you talk to me like this, I hear it like it’s a song.”

“You don’t want me to sing,” he said in amusement.

She nudged him upward with her knees and then reached for him, wanting him over her body. She wanted him to cover her like a blanket so there wasn’t an inch of her skin untouched.

He rose over her and she clutched at his shoulders, reveling in his hard strength.

“You don’t have to sing. I hear it in your words. No one has ever said such beautiful things to me.”

“Then you’re hanging out with the wrong people.”

And then he started again. Scorching a path over her body, only this time he stopped at her breasts, lavishing attention on each of them. He coaxed her nipples to rigid peaks and then he sucked them between his teeth, one at a time, alternating until she was making incomprehensible sounds of pleasure.

His movements were like the most beautiful notes. Perfect pitch. So in tune with her body—and her soul. He stroked her like a pianist might stroke the keys of a song he’d composed just for her.

She heard the notes, the raw, exquisite beauty, as they reverberated over her skin.

She no longer even knew what she needed. She needed him. Just him. It was a stupid thought but it was all that echoed in her mind.

“Please, Connor. I need you.”

As if realizing just what the admission cost her, he looked down at her tenderly as his hand went to part her thighs. He settled one knee between them and then he reached over her body to pick up a condom she hadn’t realized was resting beside her pillow.

He gave a slight groan as he rolled the latex over his cock. “God, I’m so close to coming and I haven’t even gotten inside you.”

She shifted restlessly, hoping he got the message that she didn’t want to wait any longer. Her skin felt too tight. Pressure swelled in her core until she fidgeted. She burned.

He eased his fingers farther into her heat and she moaned. His thumb gently circled her clit just as he fitted another finger and delved into her tight passage.

“You’re not ready yet, baby,” he murmured.

Her eyes flew open. “Please, Connor.”

“Not yet. I don’t want to hurt you.”

She sighed but closed her eyes when he lowered his mouth to her breast while his fingers continued their slow exploration of her most intimate recesses.

He stroked in and out in a perfect demonstration of how his cock would stroke through her insides to the very heart of her. She arched into his touch like a cat seeking petting. A low sound of contentment poured out of her throat and she reached blindly for him as he continued his erotic assault on her senses.