He wondered how he had ever considered resisting her. She was every fantasy, every dream, every wish. All silk and shadows. And she was real, as real as that warm yielding mouth, those long, sculpted arms.

With her, all the years of emptiness, all the lonely nights were locked away.

He slipped the silk from her shoulders, and found only Kate beneath.

Curves and muscle, sighs and trembles. He slid into the bed with her, and into that intimate world they created together. Perfumed flesh, soft, stroking hands. She was a wonder to him, a smoky-eyed seductress who could beckon with a look. A strong-minded woman who refused to back down from a fight. An openhearted friend with strong shoulders and a steady hand.

He could no longer imagine what his life would be like if she stepped back out of it.

Knowing it, finally admitting it to himself, he gathered her close, and just held.

“Brody?” Kate brushed her fingers through his hair. His arms had tightened around her so fiercely she wondered why she didn’t simply snap in two. “What is it?”

“Nothing.” He pressed his lips to the side of her neck and ordered himself not to think. For God’s sake don’t think now. “It’s nothing. I want you. It’s like starving the way I want you.”

His mouth took hers now. Hot, ravenous, burning away all thoughts, all reason.

There was something different happening between them. Something more. But he was whipping her over the edge so fast, with a kind of quiet intensity that was kin to desperation. She could do nothing but feel, nothing but respond. Her heart, already lost to him, bounded like a deer.

City lights glanced against the dark windows. The sounds of traffic hummed on the street below. Whatever life pulsed there meant nothing in this tangle of sheets and needs.

She rose over him, slim and pale in the shadows. Her hair was a dark fall, tumbling down her back, then sliding forward to curtain them both as she leaned down to kiss him. The scent of it, of her, surrounded him. Drowned him.

Then she took him in, one fluid move that encased him in heat.

Twin moans merged. Eyes locked. He reached for her, his hands sliding, slippery, up her body, over her breasts. She covered them with her own, holding him to her. And then she began to move.

Slow. Painfully and gloriously slow so that each breath was a shudder. Pleasure slithered through the blood, and began to pulse. He watched her as she took both of them higher—that graceful arch of body, that delicate line of throat. Her eyes closed as she lost herself. Her arms lifted until her hands were buried in her own rich mass of hair.

A sound rippled in her throat of pleasure rising. She began to drive him, drive herself, her hips like lightning. It was all speed and power now. With a kind of greedy glee they dragged each other toward the edge. Held there, held until madness had them leaping recklessly over.