He could easily have led their kiss, and she could feel his innate dominance even in the way he let her explore him. Sliding her hands up from his hard chest to brush over the strong lines of his neck and jaw, while the prickle of his dark five o’clock shadow against her fingertips sent sharp bursts of pleasure down through every inch of her, she slipped her tongue between his lips on a soft moan.

Soon, the heat of their kiss took over and drew away any control either of them had been holding. Brooke couldn’t get close enough, not even with her arms wrapped tightly around his neck, her br**sts and stomach and hips pressed against the front of his hard body.

Rafe tore his mouth from hers. "Time to get you naked."

She wanted him naked, too, but she couldn’t find the oxygen to put the words together to tell him, not when he was already teasing the patch of bare skin beneath the hem of her tank top with his fingertips as he slowly pulled up the blue cotton. He’d stripped her clothes from her before, in the locked linen closet, but tonight it all felt brand new, as if last night had only been a dress rehearsal for the real thing.

He surprised her by leaning down to press a kiss to each new inch of skin that he bared. It was glorious to be appreciated so much…but how was she possibly going to make it through to morning in one piece?

"Rafe," she whispered, and would have begged him to go faster if he hadn’t responded by smiling against her stomach.

"I made a promise to you last night that the next time we did this, I’d go so slow that you’d be begging me," he murmured against her skin, his warm breath sending as many shivers through her as his words did. He lifted his dark gaze to hers. "I never break my promises."

A moment later he slid cotton up over silk so that he could press hot kisses to the undersides of her br**sts through her bra. His shoulders were strong and corded with taut tendons as she gripped him. Soon he was going to be moving up another couple of inches and his mouth would find—

Oh, God.

The whispered prayer left her lips as Rafe’s lips closed over her nipple, the silk instantly wet beneath the sweet stroke of his tongue over her tightly aroused flesh. Her heartbeat raced fast and hard as he kissed his way across silk and then the bare skin between her br**sts and then more silk to find her other nipple with his lips and tongue.

"So sweet, even through silk." He pressed a kiss to the center of her throat right before he shifted back enough to draw her tank top all the way over her head.

Brooke had lingerie that was far more revealing than this bra in light blue silk. But the way Rafe was looking at her as she stood in front of him in her simple bra and shorts made her feel as though she was wearing the sexiest undergarments ever made. And when he reached out to run the tips of two fingers across the upper curves of her br**sts where her flesh rose up from the silk, she wasn’t the only one shaking with need.

Badly wanting to touch him the way he was touching her, she reached for his shirt. His hands caught hers before she could lift the cotton up more than an inch.

"You’re not naked yet." His eyes ran, heated, hungry, over her partially exposed br**sts and waist. "Not even close."

"It’s not fair," she pouted. "You already got to taste me last night." Instead of letting her yank his shirt away, he slid his fingers through hers and lifted them to his mouth to press a soft kiss against each of her knuckles. "When you do that, you make me forget."

"Forget what?" His eyes were still dark with desire, but as he teased her, they also danced with a hint of the light she’d been wanting so badly to see in him again.

Somehow she managed to remember. "That it should be my turn now."

He leaned down to cover the side of her neck with his mouth. "Tell me how you make truffles."

With the blood rushing thick and hot in her ears, she could barely make sense of his words, could only repeat, "Truffles?"

"How long does it take to get them right? To whip the chocolate into just the right consistency?"

She might have been able to follow his questions more easily were it not for the fact that he’d just found another sensitive spot on the other side of her neck.

"Can you rush the perfect sweetness, Brooke? Can you rush the perfect smoothness?" Each word fell hot and damp against a different patch of skin on her neck, the underside of her chin, and then her mouth as he licked her once, then twice as if he hadn’t gotten nearly enough of a taste the first time around. "Can you rush the perfect taste of pleasure on your tongue?"

"No." She gave up her answer under sweet duress, the kind only Rafe could employ.

"You have to be patient with your truffles, don’t you?"

Again, wicked persuasion was the only thing that could have drawn the "Yes" from her lips that was sealing her fate.

"You and I aren’t going to rush anything, either," he told her as he slowly teased his fingertips down over her waist to the waistband of her shorts. "One slow, sweet orgasm at a time is how we’re going to do this tonight. All night long."

Thank God he at least had enough mercy to quickly unzip her shorts and let them fall to the floor. Before they kissed, she’d already been aroused, and every kiss had ratcheted up her need higher and higher. Now, Rafe’s eyes caught—and held—on her matching silk panties, no longer a light blue between her thighs.

"I got you all wet."

It was just what she’d said to him that first night when she’d hugged him in her wet bikini. But now, the words meant something else entirely. Something deliciously dirty that only made her wetter, especially when he put one arm around her waist to hold her steady while he reached out with the other hand to cup her through damp silk.

His eyes closed as he slowly moved his fingers over her. A muscle in his temple jumped. When his eyelids slid open again, the look he gave her was so full of desire he stole away what was left of her breath.

"How the hell am I supposed to survive this?" he asked her. "To survive you?"

"I could help make you feel better," she whispered against his neck, loving the brush of his stubble against her lips. She wanted to rub every inch of her body against him, and one day she vowed to take the lead and have him just the way he was having her now.

"So stubborn." He didn’t sound at all upset about it, more pleased by what he was learning about her. "So impatient."

As if to prove him right, she rocked her pelvis into his hand. Just a little harder, just a little longer, and she’d be—