Hell, scratch that. She only knew maybe half the ways. She wasn’t even close to all.

But she was ready.

He pushed his hands beneath the elastic band on her bra, and then pushed the bra up, bringing it over her head in a fluid motion, one of the little straps snagging for a second on her hair tie, sending her ponytail swinging.

Her breasts weren’t anything to write home about. She could honestly say she had never given them much thought. They were small enough that they didn’t get in her way. And that was about all she required out of them.

But they ached now, beneath his gaze, her nipples going impossibly tight as he looked at her, hungry, and his eyes filled with masculine appreciation.

So maybe it was all right that they were small.

Gabe seemed okay with it, anyway.

He closed the distance between them again, but this time, when he drew her up against his body, they were skin to skin, her bare nipples to his bare chest. The hair on his chest was so rough, and the stimulation against her nipples felt...amazing.

She felt dazed, drunk on the scent of him. On the feel of his body.

She lifted her hand and pressed her fingertips against one pec, dragging her hand down low, skimming it over his ab muscles.

The fact that men’s and women’s bodies were different was something she had known like anything else.

In that distant, inexperienced sense that she had confused with knowing.

But it was like now she understood the purpose of it. Of the way his strength could make her feel.

His size.

The way those big, confident hands moved up her back, and around to cup her breast, the way his thumb skimmed over her nipple.

She gasped, her head falling back, a pulse starting to pound between her legs.

He growled, his lips crashing into hers, his kiss savage.

And Jamie submitted to it. But it didn’t make her feel weak. It made her feel strong. That she was created—at least it felt like it—to withstand the force of this man’s desire.

It was no small thing. He was beautiful.

So very beautiful.

Her hands were trapped against his chest, his heart raging beneath her palm, and he lifted her up off the ground with ease, one arm wrapped around her waist, and deposited her back on the bed, their denim-clad legs tangling together. And she could feel the hard ridge of his arousal against her stomach.

She’d made him hard.

She’d made a man hard.

Not just any man—Gabe Dalton. Who’d had his pick of soft, pretty women likely since he’d reached sexual maturity.

It made Jamie feel like an Amazonian goddess.

He kissed her neck, her collarbone, and then he moved his mouth to her breast, his tongue sliding over one tightened bud. She cried out, lifting her hips up from the mattress, bringing her into more firm contact with his arousal.

He used that wicked mouth on her in ways that she hadn’t known a man could.