The change in Perrie electrified Mitch. The bonds on his own hunger strained, the threads snapping, one by one. He had to get closer. Had to be inside her. It took everything he had not to rip the clothes from her body.
Perrie’s mouth became a weapon, nipping at his lips, suckling at his throat. With a carnal moan, she scraped her teeth down his neck, her craving pushing his beyond control.
Mitch unsnapped her jeans, stripping them away until her body was only covered with one small triangle of white cotton.
It was the cotton that stopped him, reminded him that she was fragile, never mind the heat that gripped her now. Pulling her up to sitting, Mitch grasped her shoulders with his hands, shaking her faintly as she plucked blindly at the buttons on his shirt.
“Perrie…” He forced the words. “Stop. I want you too much. I don’t want to hurt you.”
Blue eyes as deep as the sea met his, trust mingling with fire. “You won’t.”
“You don’t know that.” He had to be sure that she was aware, not simply lost in a sensual fog.
Blue eyes could crackle, he discovered. Biting back a chuckle, he heard her mutter as she worked at his buttons, yanking the tail of his shirt from the waistband of his jeans.
Then she ran her nails over his chest, driving all the air from his lungs. He strained for release from the imprisonment of denim.
Mitch clapped his hands over hers as they teased at the hair on his chest. “Wait.” His voice cracked. “I want to see your hair.”
She didn’t stop touching him, but she tossed her head and brought the golden braid sliding over one breast.
The longing to bury himself inside her battled his need to see the golden curtain from his dreams.
It took too many tries to remove the band, too many distractions from her rose-tipped breasts brushing torturously against the backs of his hands. But finally her golden mane flowed loose, as he had dreamed it.
With fingers shaking from desire, he combed through the raw honey silk, spreading the strands over her shoulders, cascading down her torso, hiding the beauty of her breasts behind a gossamer veil.
Firelight limned her frame as he slid off her panties, then urged her to straddle his lap. Mitch lifted handfuls of hair, watching them drift across her skin, teasing her breasts with the strands.
She rocked against his hardness, only his jeans keeping them apart. While his body burned, his mind etched the image to hold close, long after she was gone.
He’d never seen anything more beautiful in his life.
Perrie was glad for every minute she’d let her hair grow. Suddenly it wasn’t a routine part of her, something to be tucked away and tamed. The look in Mitch’s eyes made her feel special…beautiful, as she’d never felt before.
She let her head fall back, let herself luxuriate in Mitch teasing her skin with her hair. Arching back, she offered her body to him, glorying in her nakedness, feeling free and wild.
Leaning back on her hands, she swiveled her hips, brushing the hard ridge straining at his fly. He was a big man…all over. She should be afraid, but somehow she wasn’t.
Through the curtain of her hair, Mitch’s mouth closed on her breast. One hand slid behind her back to bring her closer; the other slid slowly down her hip and over her belly.
Tantalizing slow touches feathered over her skin, grazing the nest of hair, glancing across the tops of her thighs.
Then he parted the lips and slid his fingers between, pressing against her with his thumb—
Perrie gasped and jerked away, then hurriedly pressed back again. His touch was heaven.
Slowly he teased her with darting touches, with slow, agonizing circles, making her whole body tremble. “Mitch?” She wanted to escape the assault of sensations, yet she’d die if she did. Then he rose as though she weighed nothing and laid her on the rug before the fire. He clasped her hips and lifted her to his mouth, his broad shoulders spreading her legs wide.
Too open, too vulnerable, too—
His mouth closed over her, and Perrie’s whole body jolted.
Heat. Aching sweetness. Glory and rapture and sizzling nerves…
So close to something unspeakably beautiful, so nearly painful, Perrie started to panic, too far outside herself, too far out in the open, too alone, too—
His tongue slid inside her, and Perrie shattered, flying past the edge of the world.
His grip never wavered as she spun into the heavens. She was safe, utterly safe, and the relief of it undid her.
When Mitch felt Perrie let go, it was the biggest victory of his life. Her body shuddered in his arms, then collapsed in utter trust.
Tenderness overwhelmed his hunger. He gathered her up, sliding his hands into the spill of bright hair as she lay boneless against him, sighing softly.