She couldn’t wait to see how Rafe reacted when he realized that she’d left both her bra and her panties in her dresser drawer.

Because no matter what he’d said about being more than she could handle, she knew she was safe with him. Only a true friend could give her such a great gift: the chance to play with fire, knowing all the while that he’d never let her actually get burned.

She was reaching for her makeup bag when she looked into her bathroom mirror and realized that her cheeks were flushed and her eyes were already bright enough without any blush or mascara. Even her mouth was pink, as if just thinking about Rafe’s kisses had been enough to give her a just-kissed look.

Five minutes left.

Her heart had been beating a little bit faster all day long. Now, it pounded like crazy.

All night, all day, her brain had kept replaying his words: "Last night, you called me wild. You’re right. I am wild." Brooke took one last look at herself, but barely saw her reflection in her rising excitement.

How had she possibly lasted twenty-four hours?

She opened her bedroom door and walked barefoot into the living room. The way the soft cotton of her dress slipped and slid over her naked curves only increased her breathlessness, especially when she realized Rafe was already there.

He turned from the window, his hair still damp from a recent shower. He smelled clean and masculine and utterly delicious and looked beyond gorgeous in his jeans and T-shirt. Even his bare feet were tanned and beautiful.

For a long moment, they stood and stared at each other across the room, just as they had two nights earlier when he’d arrived on his motorcycle and she’d just come from swimming in the lake.

Finally, Rafe broke the heady silence. "The way you look tonight. In that dress. Jesus, Brooke, you’re beautiful." He seemed to lose the breath for anymore words at that point, and then they were both moving toward each other.

She didn’t know who reached whom first, just that her hands were suddenly in his and he was tugging her close. Every single movement, every touch, felt so right. So perfect.

So meant to be.

"It’s been twenty-four hours." He slid both hands up her arms and shoulders and neck until he was stroking her cheeks with the pads of his thumbs. "How do you feel?"

"I ache." Her confession was barely more than a whisper.

His dark eyes flashed with so much heat that the breath she was barely able to take caught in her throat.

"You ache," he repeated in a raw voice. "Where?"

"Everywhere."

On a groan, he was lowering his mouth to hers, and she could almost taste him when he stilled barely an inch from her lips. "Last chance, Brooke."

God, she could hardly think straight when she wanted to kiss him this badly, but she knew it was important that she make sense of what he’d just said. "For what?"

"To change your mind." A muscle jumped in his jaw. "Tell me to let go of you, and I won’t touch you again."

Just the thought of his not touching her made her gut twist painfully. "Don’t you dare let me go."

She clenched her hands in the fabric of his shirt to pull him closer, and their mouths met in a hot, borderline frantic kiss. She was desperate to make up for the one thousand, four hundred and forty minutes they’d lost, badly needed to fill in all the kisses they’d missed out on.

As if he could sense she needed soothing, he slid his hands into her hair and lifted his mouth just far enough away from hers so that their lips were barely touching. She could feel his warm breath on her damp mouth, and she shivered even as he kissed her again, more gently this time, just the barest press of his lips against hers.

His kiss was at once sweet...and commanding. Without a word, with just the barest of touches, he was slowing them both down, letting them savor each other rather than simply devouring without thought or appreciation.

And, oh, how he savored.

No one had ever kissed her like this, taking the time to taste every last inch of her mouth, from corner to corner, from the upper bow of her top lip to the lush center of her bottom lip. Her hands opened and closed on his shirt as waves of pleasure moved through her. And then his tongue was moving back inside her mouth to find hers, causing another sweet shock of bliss to shoot all the way down to her toes. Without a bra on, her full br**sts were peaking hard against the bodice of her dress, and she instinctively moved her hands from his chest to wrap them around his neck so that she could press herself into him.

That was when he lifted his head to stare down at her with such heat and more desire than she’d ever seen on a man’s face. "You’re amazing."

"I’ve never felt like this before." With anyone but Rafe, she might have been shy about expressing her desire, might have been unable to put words to her erotic feelings. But she knew she was safe with him...even as the lust that spiked inside her was the most dangerously beautiful thing she’d ever known. "I’ve never needed anything, anyone—" His teeth bit into her lobe, and she gasped with pleasure. "—as much as I need you."

A moment later his mouth caught hers again. She lost herself in his kiss, in his delicious taste, in the shockingly sensuous feel of his tongue stroking over hers.

"Tonight," he murmured heatedly against her lips, "isn’t nearly long enough for all the things I want to do to you."

"You can have as long as you need," she told him, her arousal ratcheting up even higher at the thought, the question, of what all of those things might be. As he lowered his mouth to the curve of her shoulder, she couldn’t wait to find out.

His teeth nipped into her skin at the exact moment he slid one slim strap down. Oh, how she loved the slick of his tongue over the small bite, and then the incredible sensation of his full mouth sucking against a part of her body she would have sworn wasn’t the least bit sensitive or sensual. A moment later, he was giving her other shoulder the same treatment, stripping her even as he tasted her flesh with a small bite followed by the warm lash of his tongue and then a split second of suction against her skin that had her trembling in his arms.

When he lifted his head, his eyes were blazing with the same heat and need she knew must be reflected in her own.

"I need to see you," he said, his low voice rasping over her skin as if he’d touched her instead.

"Yes," she whispered. "Please."

With the utmost gentleness, he moved his hands to her bodice and slowly slid the material down over the upper swell of her br**sts, just to the point where her ni**les were about to show. He stopped then and looked up into her face.