because she was so unaware of how attracted he was to her.
She stared quizzically at him, as if trying to decide if he was teasing her again.
“Hell yes, I’m serious,” he answered her unspoken question. “You want me to quit before or after I kiss you? But I definitely plan to kiss you, unless you are totally repelled by the thought. If so, speak up, Mattie.”
She didn’t speak up, didn’t say a word, just smiled at him. Then she looped her arms around the taut muscles on his neck and tilted her face to his.
His hands molded against the trim indentation of her waist and he pulled her against him. His body reacted instantaneously to the feel of her supple curves meshed to his masculine contours. “On three,” he whispered, hypnotized by the sparkle in her eyes. “One, two, three…”
Joe felt her lips part invitingly beneath his. That’s all it took to set him aflame. Need burgeoned, overriding thought. He responded mindlessly, devouring her, savoring her, plundering her mouth until he swore he was about to go into cardiac arrest. His heartbeat went off the charts when he heard her moan, and then she pulled his head down to devour him as thoroughly as he had devoured her.
His hands glided lower, mapping the swell of her hips, her bottom, then ventured up to cup her breasts. He teased the beaded nipples beneath her cotton T-shirt and felt her arch helplessly toward him. When she ground her hips against the hard length of his arousal, he restrained himself from throwing back his head and howling in torment.
“Oh, Mattie,” Joe croaked, pretty sure his voice sounded as if he’d been sucking helium.
He opened his eyes, then stared down at her kiss-swollen lips. All the while, the heat of unappeased passion swamped and buffeted him, egged him on. He slanted his lips over hers and clutched her tightly to him, delivering and receiving a kiss that packed enough wallop to send his senses reeling.
Mattie felt her mind whirling like a pinwheel. Her body sizzled with sensations she couldn’t begin to describe. She’d known she was attracted to Joe. That was a given. But my gracious! She hadn’t expected to feel so completely out of control the moment his lips first touched down on hers, the moment his hands glided over her quivering body, setting fires that burned deep in her very core.
Even now, when he raised his head and came up for breath, she still felt as if her bones were melting into puddles and her skin was turning into steam. She’d never known anything like this, certainly not that one time in college when she allowed sexual curiosity to sweep her away momentarily. She’d realized her mistake immediately afterward. The encounter had left her feeling foolish and ashamed, and she had never allowed another relationship to go beyond casual dating.
This, she decided, was what desire and passion was supposed to feel like—this spontaneous, ungovernable, delicious and wildly disconcerting wave of sensations that left no part of her untouched. Mattie had always regarded herself as an in-control kind of person. But when Joe kissed her, caressed her, she felt helplessly out of control—and didn’t mind that she was.
The fascinating discovery made her bolder, giddy. She draped her arms around his shoulders, marveling at the feel of his body’s reaction to her, feeling empowered by the intimate knowledge that she aroused him.
“Pretty impressive kisses, Mr. Gray,” she said playfully. “What do you say to the best two out of three? We’ll suspend my rules and the king of woodcraft’s regulations for a few minutes. You know, that whole space-out-of-time scenario you mentioned and see how this goes.”
A rakish grin quirked his lips. He was intrigued by her playful sense of humor and aroused because she was asking for more. He trailed his thumb and palms from the underside of her breasts, over the flat plane of her belly to rest possessively on her hips. He felt her shivering reaction, and a ripple of satisfaction streamed through him.
“You nearly gave me a coronary with those first two kisses, Mattie. I’m not sure I can survive another one. If I do survive, I can’t guarantee that I’ll be able to stop with a kiss and caress. You turn me on, Mattie, in case you don’t know it, and I can’t imagine how you could miss the way my body reacts to you. Are you willing to risk what comes next? We’re talking serious, intimate stuff here, Mattie. Are you ready for that?”
Her smile wavered when sanity crowded past the tantalizing sensations. She admired and respected Joe for giving her a choice, not overwhelming her. And she had no doubt that he could, because he was a devastatingly sensual man who obviously had oodles of experience with intimate relationships. In comparison, she was practically a novice. She was talking years since she’d allowed herself to get caught up in the heat of the moment. But it hadn’t been so long that she hadn’t forgotten that it had turned out badly.
Her arms slowly retreated from his shoulders. Her fingertips lingered to encircle the buttons on his chambray shirt. “You’re probably right…no, you’re exactly right, Joe,” she amended. “We’ve only known each other ten days. And though we’ve spent an enormous amount of time together, it is a little too soon. I don’t do affairs, rarely even have time to date because of my job and obligations to Pops.”
Which was exactly why Joe had called a halt—though his body was screeching at him to go with the flow. He knew Mattie well enough to know she wasn’t into one-nighters. She didn’t feed her sexual desires the way she regularly fed her appetite.
She was not a woman who gave sexual favors heedlessly, or without forethought. In short, she was absolutely, positively nothing like the women in his previous social circle. Joe had too much respect and affection for Mattie to screw up their business and personal relations, just to scratch this itch—maddening though it most certainly was.
Gently he reached over to limn the velvety texture of her lips, the curve of her jaw, the rise of her cheeks. “You’re one of a kind, Mattie,” he murmured huskily.
She forced a smile. “Yeah, I know, that’s a polite way of saying I’m the tomboy next door who gets a bigger kick from power tools than power shopping.”
He didn’t like to hear her put herself down that way, especially when he admired her unique qualities and talents. Joe shook his head in contradiction. “You’re way wrong, sweetheart. You possess amazing gifts and creative skills. Power tools may be the tools of your trade, but it’s what you create, the love and intensity you put into your art and crafts that make you special. You fix things and make them right, whether it’s repairing broken knickknacks or solving problems in your grandfather’s and his friends’ lives. You are caring and generous of heart, and your neighbors and customers come to you for ideas, help and advice. And furthermore, glamour is superficial and short-lived. It rubs off with soap and water and it hangs in a closet. You have inner beauty that runs soul deep.”
Mattie stared at him, amazed that he perceived her as something special when she considered herself unremarkable and had never put forth the effort to make much of her physical assets. But what really hit her where she lived was that Joe didn’t care that she didn’t gussy herself up in attempt to gain attention and impress others. He seemed to appreciate her for who and what she was. She wanted to hug him for that, but, considering their explosive physical reaction to each other, she predicted they’d wind up naked on the living room floor—and things would get totally out of hand, or in hand, in this case.
“There’s something else you should know, Mattie,” he whispered as he wrapped his arms around her and drew her full length against him, nuzzling his chin against the top of her head. “I like who I am when I’m with you. I had to get away from the life I was living because I wasn’t sure if I was liked for myself anymore. You helped me find
