She tasted sweet and fresh and perfect. More perfect than anything he'd ever known, anything he'd ever dreamed of. His heart beat in a wild frenzy of need-and love. Endless, boundless love. Her lips parted beneath his on a cry of pleasure, then his gentle kiss turned savage. Possessive. So damned erotic that they could have started a fire right there in public.
When he finally let her up for air, he needed her to know how he felt. "I love you, Charlie Ballard."
"I know you do. I could hear you saying the words when you were holding my mother's hand, telling her all you wanted to do was help her." Her eyes were slightly dilated as she looked up at him, her lips still gorgeously damp from his tongue. "And I could also hear it in your kiss."
"Then get ready to hear me say it all night long," he murmured before he took her mouth again.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Three little words. They changed everything. Because Charlie had said them. To him.
Sebastian had wanted her right there against the door of the car, was already half crazy with desire and need. Those words. Her kiss.
He was head over heels.
The moment he got her home, he scooped her up in his arms.
She laughed. Her sexy, throaty laughter always turned up the heat inside him. "What are you doing, you crazy man?"
"Crazy for you." He carried her off to his bedroom, her body soft, warm, and yielding against his.
He needed her lips, now, her mouth under his. Her kiss seared him, burning straight to his heart. In the bedroom, he let her feet slip to the carpet as he buried his fingers in her lush curves and steeped his senses in her taste.
"Charlie," he whispered. "I need you." He needed her skin branding his flesh, her taste on his lips, her scent filling his head.
"I'm right here," she promised.
Desperate to get to her skin, he tugged on her blouse and the buttons seemed to pop off. "Too many clothes," he growled.
"Tear them off."
He went wild. Crazy. Totally reckless. The cloth tore, fabric flew across the room, hitting a wall, falling into a corner. Until he could worship her gorgeous, naked skin.
This was what he wanted-to worship her, to give her everything, to be the man who made all her dreams come true.
She wore the laciest of lingerie, her bra almost see-through, her panties a mere wisp. And she stole his breath. He couldn't move. He could only trace her body with his gaze, the sweet pearls of her nipples dusky through the lace, the strong muscles of her arms that could hold him so tightly, the smooth belly he'd kissed.
"You are so beautiful." He felt like a caveman kneeling before a princess.
And she'd said she was his. I love you. The beautiful princess was all his. He would never believe it, never truly accept it. He was terrified he'd wake up and find her gone. Terrified he'd screw up with her one too many times. And yet she'd said she loved him right after his biggest failure. She'd forgiven him. She was so damned unique and special.
"You have too many clothes on," she whispered. And with seductive sweeps of her hand, she unbuttoned his shirt, his pants. The fleeting touch of her fingers was electric. She stripped him down and set his skin on fire, made his body burn for her.
Saturday at the Regent had been momentous, but this was beyond anything. This was Charlie loving him.
"Come here." Taking his hand, she backed up to the bed, pulling him with her.
The balcony doors were open, the evening breeze fluttering like fingers through her hair. Her skin was bathed in the last golden rays of the sun before it fell behind the distant coastal mountains, and her hair was lit by fire, a red-gold halo.
She pushed him down on the cool sheets. Moments before, he'd been desperate with need, dying to be inside her. Now he craved her slow seduction.
"You're the beautiful one." Her lips curved in a sensuous smile. She climbed on top of him, straddling him, the feel of her so sweet, so good, so hot that his body rose, tensed, caressed her. His hands on her hips, he held her tightly to him, exulting in the slip-slide of their bodies. She was so soft, so wet already, and he was so hard, he could have rolled her over and taken everything right now.
The fever in his blood begged for it.
But Charlie bit her lip and smiled. She rocked, driving him mad, then slowly she sidled down his body, leaning to kiss her way over his chest. "Not so fast," she said, licking his nipple, then biting it lightly. "I've got plans before that." She slipped a hand between them, wrapped him in her palm, and squeezed until he groaned.
"Do you like that?"
"Yes." He loved everything she did, loved that she dressed herself up like a princess, held court with her subjects, then brought them all, including him, to their knees. Yet in his bed, she was also the sexy, gorgeous, seductive tomboy, her hands all over him, driving him crazy.
"I want to taste you again," she whispered.
He was seduced. Completely. In love. Irrevocably. There was only Charlie. There would only ever be Charlie. She was his gift. How or why he deserved her, he had no clue. But he would give her anything she wanted.
"Taste me," he begged.
She drove him wild with licks and kisses before she took all of him, so deeply that his body arched and he threw his head back against the mattress, crying out her name.
"Charlie." Always Charlie. Only Charlie. Forever Charlie. There'd never been a woman like her, and there would never be another.
She took his pleasure, took the thick growl in his throat, pushed him higher with her mouth, her lips, her tongue, her hands. She set his blood on fire, a conflagration burning through his veins.
"I need you. Inside you. Please. Love. I love you." The words fell from his lips. He had no control.
The effort was Herculean, but he pulled her up, rolled with her, flattened her to his bed, all her curves a perfect match for his, her skin a fiery brand against his. He held her face framed in his hands for one long moment, her eyes pulling him into their depths, as if he were a part of her and she him.
"I love you." The words were just a breath on her lips and yet they reached up inside him all over again. This beautiful, incredible woman loved him.
He slipped his hand down between the softness of her thighs and she moaned, low and sweet. Her pleasure was all that existed. Her breath fanned his cheek, her gasps and her little moans fueling him. He found every hollow, every sensitive spot, learned her curves inside and out, until finally she cried his name. Her body shivered and shimmied, then she wrapped him tightly with her limbs, riding out her storm.
A heartbeat later he had on protection and entered her before she came out the other side. "God, I love you." His voice was hoarse, his words harsh with his emotion.
One arm around his shoulder, she shoved a hand into his hair and pulled his head down. She kissed him with her heart, with her soul, her cheeks wet with her pleasure.
Then she let him go, just to breathe, to whisper his name. And one little demand. "Don't stop. Don't ever stop."
She drew him in, fit him as though her body had been tailored for him, only him. He'd wanted to keep it slow, drive her crazy with short, sweet strokes over all her special, sensitive places. But with Charlie, there was no holding back.
"Jesus." He moaned into the sweet, hot pleasure of her body around him. "I love you."
He could never say it enough, never hear it enough.
She said his name, and he went deep and high inside her. Harder, faster, deeper, until there was just her skin against his, her sweet and sexy scent floating in the air around him, her luscious taste on his lips, her body convulsing around him, pushing him to the edge right along with her.
All his emotions broke free. All his pleasure. All his love as he tumbled with her right into the eye of the hurricane. "I love you, Charlie. I've never loved anyone the way I love you. Never knew I could love like this."
"I did." Her whispered words came on a gasp of pleasure a beat before bliss took them over completely. "I knew."
* * *
The full moon shining through the balcony doors lit up the room, and a cool wind blew in off the Bay, but Charlie was wrapped in the sweet, warm cocoon of Sebastian's arms in the king-sized bed. She loved curling up next to him, loved falling asleep to the sound of his breathing, loved waking to the feel of his hands doing delicious things to her.
Loved him.
And he loved her too.
Sharing those words had been earth-shattering, making her dream of a different future than she'd ever imagined for herself. Especially with the way he'd been so kind to her mother today. Her heart was still touched each time she remembered him at her mother's feet, holding her hands, his emotion spilling over.
She didn't want to move. She wanted to drench herself in his scent, snuggle into all his hard muscles, and sleep beneath the comforting weight of his arm over her. But she hadn't been in her workshop since the morning of the gala, hadn't welded a single horse's joint in three days. If she stayed in Sebastian's house and his bed, she'd never finish anything.