He walked toward her again, but this time Holly didn’t back up. She knew this was her last stand. She held her head high, jaw clenched and nostrils flaring, and her eyes flashed as they met his.
“I want you, Holly,” he said, and for the first time she saw the yearning behind his passion. “I want you like I’ve never wanted anything in my life. And you want me. But the only time you let us be together is when you’re alone in your bed at night. Do you think about me then? What it would be like if I put my hands on you the way I want to?”
And suddenly Holly realized something.
He hadn’t put his hands on her. Not tonight. He was battering at her defenses, but he hadn’t used the one weapon she couldn’t have resisted. If he’d grabbed her and kissed her like he had after Will’s game, she would have surrendered without a fight. She would have been his for the taking.
But he didn’t want that. He didn’t want to take.
Holly closed her eyes. She felt something surging through her, an electricity so bright and fierce it made everything else fall away.
Alex was still talking, but she didn’t care. She’d thought of one sure way to shut him up.
Alex never finished his last sentence. Holly put her hands on his chest and pushed, and he was so surprised he lost his balance, stumbling backward until he crashed up against the front door. Before he could recover she was there, against him, and then her mouth was pressed to his, fierce and desperate and clumsy.
For a second Alex was stunned into immobility. Then he was kissing her back, and he was so crazy for her and so terrified she would change her mind that he lifted her up and spun them so their positions were reversed, trapping her between the door and his body, shuddering when she wrapped her legs around his waist, and never for one second taking his mouth away from hers.
She tasted like rain, like heat, like Holly. His hunger was making him savage, his mouth crushing hers, but she was kissing him back just as fiercely. If the door hadn’t been there to hold them up Alex would have fallen to his knees.
She was so raw, so passionate, this woman he’d dreamed about for so long and never, never thought he’d have. Now he was tasting her, feeling her, the heat between them so intense it seemed to burn through the layers of wet denim that separated them.
He broke the kiss and pressed his lips to her throat, right at her pulse point. She gasped and let her head fall back, her fingers digging into his shoulders hard enough to bruise.
He had to be inside her. Now. But they couldn’t go upstairs to one of the beds. Alex was afraid to take the time, afraid she’d slip away from him somehow, change her mind, push him away. He’d wanted her for so long and now she was his, for as long as he could hold her—and he wasn’t going to let her go.
He lowered them to the floor right where they were, pulling away only long enough to tug off his still-damp sweatshirt.
Then he turned back to her. His heart was pounding so hard the rush of blood in his ears drowned out the storm outside. With shaking hands he pulled her wet top over her torso and arms until she was free, and the only thing in his way was her cotton bra.
They reached for the front clasp at the same time. Their hands bumped, and their mutual clumsiness made them laugh in surprise. “Let me,” Alex whispered, his eyes on hers, and somehow he managed to unhook the tiny piece of metal so the thin barrier fell away, and then his hands were cupped around her perfect breasts, her nipples pebbled against his palms.
Holly gasped, arching her back, and Alex lowered his head. He grazed his teeth across one nipple and flicked the other back and forth with his thumb until Holly writhed against him, her hands fisting in his hair as she moaned his name.
That sound broke the last of his restraint.
But before he could move to take off her wet jeans Holly had unzipped them herself and was working them down her legs, her teeth sunk in her lower lip as she concentrated. Alex had to tear his eyes away in order to focus on his own clothes, losing pants and shoes and boxers in one damp heap. Then he remembered his wallet. He reached for his jeans again to grab it out of the back pocket, and thanked every deity he could when he found the condom inside.
In a second he was sheathed and could turn back to Holly.
He could hardly believe how beautiful she was. She was naked, stretched out on his hallway floor gazing up at him with her lips parted, her red hair curling damply around her bare shoulders and a flush of heat staining her cheeks. She reached for him, getting her hands on his shoulders and tugging him down to her, and when he hesitated just a moment, fighting for control so he wouldn’t come before he even touched her, she arched up into him.