with her boyfriend.
It hurt to realize how wrong she’d been.
“I don’t care,” she said. Saying it out loud made her realize it was true. “There is something between us.”
He took her arms from around him and stepped aside.
“Yeah. Mason.”
She shook her head. “That’s not what I meant. I always had you pegged as a straight shooter, but I guess you are probably used to saying whatever you have to in order to win an argument.”
He shook his head. “Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
He closed the gap between them in two long strides and reached for her, his hands briefly brushing over her shoulders before he dropped them to his sides.
“Don’t make this impossible,” he said.
“It already is,” she said. “Or maybe I’m the only one who feels this.”
He shook his head. “Dammit. You know you’re not.”
He stepped closer, and the waves of heat from his body enveloped her as he reached for her waist and drew her closer. She put her hand on his arm, and felt his biceps tense as he lifted her slightly off her feet.
He lowered his head toward hers, and she tipped hers back. Their eyes met. A flash of their entire history went through her mind. All the times they’d sat quietly talking in a corner while Mason had been entertaining their friends with some daring trick.
She knew that this was sudden and was afraid that Ethan would pull back. That he’d let his friendship with Mason keep them from kissing. So she did it.
She initiated the kiss.
His lips were warm and firm, but soft. When they parted, she tasted the lime and tequila on his tongue as it rubbed over hers.
She dug her fingers into his upper arm and lifted her head trying to get closer to him. He tasted good. His kiss was perfect, and so was the way he held her to him. She felt him shift so that he was leaning against the balcony railing, her body resting fully along his.
She felt his hard-on against her lower stomach, and her breasts were nestled against his chest. Just the thin layer of her nightgown kept her from feeling his skin against hers, and she wanted more. She let her thigh fall to one side so that his leg was between hers, and he groaned as his hands roamed down her back to her butt, cupping it and shifting her into a deeper contact with him.
She raised her head to look down at him, and he was watching her. Just staring up at her. She wasn’t sure she could read the emotion in his eyes, but it sparked something deep inside her that was more than sexual need.
She started to draw back, aware that she was craving something from him that felt dangerous and edgy, but he tunneled his hands in her hair and drew her head back to his.
* * *
Her hair was soft. Way softer than anything he’d touched recently. Her eyes were half-closed, lips wet and swollen from their kiss. Her hands were on his waist, holding him lightly. She tipped her head to the side, their eyes met, and he thought of all the arguments he could make. All the reasons that he could list to make himself drop his hands and walk away from her. But he wanted her.
And he’d been denying it for too long. It had been easy when she lived with Mason, but now that she was here in his house, sitting on his balcony, putting her hands just inches above his groin, he knew he wasn’t interested in anything other than following his gut instinct, which was clamoring for him to pick her up and carry her into his bedroom.
“Are you sure?” he asked. He had to. This was Crissanne. She meant more to him than a hookup.
And it didn’t matter to him if it wasn’t the same for her. She might be looking for sex from him just to forget or to make Mason jealous or for a million other reasons. But for him this was the one woman he’d wanted for over a decade. The one woman he’d thought he’d never touch like this. And he needed to be sure she wanted him, too.
“Yes,” she said, her fingers moving up the center of his body until she wrapped them around his neck and kissed his chin and then his jaw.
He stopped thinking. His mind shut down and he turned his head to capture her lips with his. His grip on the back of her head tightened a little bit as he tried to control the passion that was roiling through his veins.
She was unleashing something that he’d forgotten was a part of him. He groaned and then wrapped his arm around her hips, standing up and carrying her into his bedroom without breaking the kiss. He stepped over the threshold, and she pulled her head back.
He let her slide down his body, biting back a moan at how good she felt against him. And then he realized she might change her mind now.
Hell.
He would have to let her go if she did.
But please, God, don’t let her change her mind.
He watched as she trailed her fingers down his chest again, and then glanced over her shoulder at the king-size bed that dominated his room. The studded-leather headboard was mounted on the wall and there was a huge pile of pillows that his housekeeper arranged each morning when she made the bed. Above the bed were the horns of the first longhorn bull he’d raised when he was a kid.
“I always forget you’re a cowboy,” she said, turning to look at the horns.
He shrugged, taking her hand in his and drawing her closer to his bed. “Not really, but I can put on my boots and cowboy hat if you want me to.”
“Only if you lose these jeans first.”
“Uh, I don’t think any self-respecting cowboy would be seen like that,” Ethan said.
“Too bad,” she said, raising both eyebrows as she stepped back and let her eyes move slowly over his body. “You’d look damn good in just a hat and boots.”
He felt his chest swell and he couldn’t keep his pecs from flexing. “You think so?”
She nodded. “Maybe one day...”
“Maybe,” he said. He wasn’t sure he’d do that. He was a lawyer. He was the serious Caruthers brother. The arguer who was always thinking of the consequences. Which couldn’t be said of him tonight, as he stood there in his bedroom next to Crissanne with a raging hard-on.
She turned back to him, her hair swinging around her shoulders as she held her hand out to him. He took it, lacing their fingers together, and she stood on her tiptoes and put her hand in the center of his chest again, spreading her fingers out and rubbing her palm over his skin. A shiver went through him and he drew her closer. He lowered his head, but this time it was just so that their foreheads would meet.
He felt the brush of her exhalation against his neck and closed his eyes.
Crissanne Moss was in his bedroom.
All the feelings he’d been ignoring flooded him, and he realized
