Once Upon a Rose(71)

She looked up at him as its solidity left her back, all that space opening behind her into a whole new adventure, a whole new place to get lost and fall without the backing of everything that was familiar. Her expression was nervous and hungry.

He picked her up. I’ve got you. Shh. Don’t worry.

God, the light, gorgeous weight of her body in his arms.

She wrapped her arms around his neck. “I’m scared,” she whispered.

Oh, her, too? She’d said that before. But why should she be scared? She was the one who had all the power here.

His arms tightened around her, lifting her more snugly against his chest. Strength expanded all through him at her need for it, deep from his center all the way to the tips of his fingers and toes, this deep, sure strength. “Don’t be,” he said and carried her into the house. “I’ve got you.”





Chapter 15


He was too sexy. It made a woman’s whole body want to explode with hunger and eagerness and this scrambling fear at how sexy he was. As if a whole cliff was giving out from under her, and she was going over. What was happening to her?

But he was so damn sexy. The muscles under her cheek, the strength of his arms, the careful, sure way he angled her on the stairs so she didn’t bump into a wall. Even through the borrowed tux, Layla could still swear she caught a hint of roses, or maybe it was the lemony, rich scent of the one he still carried in one hand, stem pressed against her skin. Her dress fell down around her waist, so that she was half-debauched already as he carried her, exposed except for those strong arms holding her tight.

He laid her on the bed and paused a second. She followed his gaze to the old jar she’d found in a cupboard and used to hold the rose he’d given her the day before, which sat on the heavy old stand by the side of her bed. “You took care of it.” His voice came out even rougher than usual, and he cleared his throat.

She took the fresh rose from his hand and slid it into the makeshift vase beside the first one.

“Hell,” he muttered and turned back to her. He gazed down at her a long moment, and then ran his hands down her body in a rush of warmth and calluses, slipping away the dress that was tangling her legs. He stepped away long enough to open her shutters, letting in the light of the full moon. A little laugh escaped him as he came down over her on the bed, having to work to find space for himself. “I’d forgotten how little the bed up here was.” He bent that black head to her in the moonlit darkness, with that low, sexy rumble. “We’ll have to see if you fit better in mine.”

Oh, God, they were going to do this twice? She still hadn’t survived once. She felt as if her skin was going to split with the itchy hunger to be petted and squeezed by hands rough with passion.

“Take off your jacket.” She pushed at it. She wanted to feel those muscles, holding his weight off her.

“I kind of like it like this.” He slid his clad thigh up between her bare ones.

She shook her head, crossing her arms over her breasts. “I don’t want to be all exposed while you’re dressed.” I’m always like that. I’m always the one with her heart stripped naked and held up for the crowd that sits on the grass, watching and judging and totally safe. She pushed at his jacket again. “Take it off.”

“You take it off,” he ordered, this low roughness that made her want to twist and arch with hunger. “You do it, Bouclettes.”

Funny, given how laughing and confident she had felt about threatening to help with his T-shirt out there in public, how shy and clumsy she felt now, to take off his jacket. “No, you.” She pressed her hands inside it against his chest. “Please?”

Braced close over her, he lifted a hand to her cheek, his thumb stroking as he searched her face. “All right.”

He kissed her once and then knelt back to strip the jacket off, watching her all the time as he worked the cufflinks, as he draped it over the post at the end of the bed. He was going to drive her out of her mind with how hot he was. How could any woman take this?

What the hell had happened to his previous girlfriends, had they just exploded? Their atoms dissipated out to the ether in one great glorious burst of arousal?

He came back over her, lifting her hand to the top button of his shirt. “You do this part.” His eyes held hers. “Please?” He gave that please back to her as if it was the first time it had ever been formed in his mouth.

So she did it, because no matter how clumsy and exposed it made her feel, she had to get that damn shirt out of her way. And she was definitely clumsy, fighting with those slippery silk-covered buttons. The panels parted slowly to reveal—oh, wow, wow, wow—too much strength and heat and flat hard stomach up so close to her now, where her fingers could touch it.