“You’re so beautiful, Emma,” he said reverently.

Through her smile, she said, “No one has ever said that to me before. Only you.”

“Everyone else is blind.”

He took her lips again, brushing against her mouth so lightly that he couldn’t tell where her breath ended and his began. Every last nerve, every cell in his body leapt into awareness. The curve of her breast against his chest. The insistent beating of her heart through her ribcage. The gentle swell of her hips into his hard, rigid muscles.

She tasted like his favorite part of summer, when the cherries fell from the trees. Her lips were plump and red and sweeter than any berry had ever been. She moved against him, making an impatient sound, and he knew he could take her then, slide all the way into her wet, slick warmth. But tonight wasn’t about getting off, about a quick rush of pleasure.

It was about worshipping the woman he loved.

Smoothing one hand down the curve of her back, unable to resist her hips, her ass, he nibbled on her lower lip, his tongue finding the small, sweet crevasse in the very middle.

“Don’t tease me, Jason,” she begged.

He smiled, running his fingers through her soft hair, enjoying the silky feel of it wrapping around his knuckles, the sensitive center of his palm.

“I’m not teasing you,” he said, “I’m loving you.”

Her blue eyes stilled on his and he thought she understood him then, knew that tonight was his way of apologizing for being so rough, so punishing, that he was sorry for everything he hadn’t had the strength to be.

Emma had never seen this side of Jason before. Back in college, when they’d kissed and fooled around, they’d still been kids. This week, when they’d had sex there had always been an edge of danger to it.

Almost as if he were continually pushing her to see how far she’d go.

Tonight he was neither a young man exploring her body nor a bitter ex-boyfriend trying to teach her a lesson.

Instead, he was the lover she had always dreamt of. And she sensed that he was trying to say with his body what he could not say in words.

And then he was kissing her again and her thoughts floated away in a tangle of so many sensations: the heat of his skin as he caressed her through her clothes, the solid strength in his thighs as she straddled him, the way his tongue slipped and slid against hers, turning her insides to molten lava.

She never wanted to forget this kiss, the way Jason’s touch was reverent and yet dangerous at the same time. She could feel his restraint in the faint trembling of his muscles as she ran her hands over the hard planes of his chest, around to his tight rear.

They were both still fully clothed, but instead of wishing she was wearing nothing but sexy lingerie, Emma savored this sensation of making out with Jason with only the barest skin-to-skin contact.

It made every touch so much hotter. Every nerve in her body focused in on his lips on hers, his tongue as it teased the corners of her mouth, his teeth as they gently bit down on the sensitive tip of her earlobe.

She felt as if they were coming together for the first time, only this time, there was nothing that could ever come between them.

Emma had lost Jason once. She refused to lose him again.

He moved one hand slowly up her ribs, finally finding the underside of her br**sts. Through her dress, his touch was like a whisper of wind blowing across her. And yet, she’d never been so attuned to his body.

To her own.

“Jason,” she breathed, his name a prayer on her lips, and then he was rolling them over and his hot, heavy weight was pushing her down into the mattress. Instinctively, she pressed her hips into his, wanting him against her, inside her, touching her.

Loving her.

“I wanted to take this slow, but I can’t resist you, Emma.” He pulled one strap of her dress down over her shoulder, exposing one aroused breast to the dim moonlight streaming into his bedroom.

“I don’t want you to resist me,” she said, hearing the pleading tone in her voice, knowing that it was okay to plead, it was okay to beg. Because he felt exactly the same way.

His tongue came down over her flesh then and she reached for him, pulling his mouth down onto her, silently urging him to suck harder. But she already knew that he would lave her ni**les slowly. That while he was tempting her mercilessly with his teeth and tongue and lips, he would slide the other strap off her shoulder and cover her other breast with the callused heat of his palm. That he would squeeze and stroke her skin as if he were touching her for the first time.

She knew this because tonight was the first time they had ever truly made love. She opened her eyes then and looked at him, his dark head at her br**sts, and something in her bloomed into life.

He must have felt her gaze upon him, because he looked up then and smiled at her. He was so beautiful she could hardly believe that he wanted her like this. That he’d chosen her out of all the women he could have had.

As if he sensed her innermost thoughts, he moved the pad of his thumb across her lower lip and she trembled at his touch.

“You’re all I’ve ever wanted, Emma.”

His words were soft and yet she felt them in the deepest recesses of her heart. And knew them to be true.

His hands were on her br**sts again and the bad girl that she had finally gotten to know this week lifted her hips in a clear invitation, and he took it, cupping her bottom with both hands, pulling her wet heat against the erection nearly breaking the zipper of his pants.

“Touch me, Jason,” she begged, but he didn’t reach under her skirt. She’d known he wouldn’t, that she would have gone off like a rocket at the slightest touch. He was seducing her, thoroughly, inside and out.

And he was bound and determined to take his time.

He reached around the back of her dress for the zipper. “I want to see you naked.”

She shivered at his words, at the light play of his fingertips on her spine as he pulled her zipper down, releasing her from the outfit’s silky confines.

And then her dress was gone and he was staring down at her clad only in her panties. She shook beneath the heat of his gaze. She thought maybe he’d break and touch her then, slip a finger beneath the sheer, thin lace. A muscle was jumping in his jaw, the one that said he was this close to pressing his lips into her, tasting her, making her scream with pleasure.

“I used to dream about you lying on my bed like this. Your br**sts bare, wearing only panties.”

Her breath quickened as he began the slow process of taking off the last barrier between her body and his hands, his mouth, his cock. His fingers danced over her belly, past her hipbones, down her thighs, tickled her calves; his mouth followed, memorizing the lines of her body, the sensitive dips and valleys.