Yet the sound of it, of the silk rending beneath his fingers, and her gasp of shocked excitement, spread fire through his gut.

“The first time I saw you…” His breath was already short and fast when he tossed the mangled blouse aside. “From the first minute, I wanted this. Wanted you.”

“I know.” She reached for him, amazed at how deep and ripe a need could be. “Me, too. It’s crazy,” she said against his mouth. “Insane.” Her skin trembled as he tugged the straps of her chemise from her shoulders to replace them with impatient lips. “Incredible.”

Glorying in it, she arched against him when he took her breasts in those greedy, rough-palmed hands. Then his mouth—oh, his mouth, hot and seeking—closed over her to tug and suckle. Hurry, was all she could think, hurry, hurry, and her nails scraped heedlessly up his sides as she dragged his sweater over his head.

Flesh to flesh was what she wanted. Skin already hot, already damp. The feel of his lips against her thundering heart had her locking her fists in his hair, pressing him closer. She fretted for more. Even as the storm built to a crisis point inside her, she met, she ached, and she demanded.

Her fingers dug into his broad shoulders when he slid down, setting off hundreds of tiny eruptions by streaking hungry, open-mouthed kisses down her torso. Then back, quickly back, to drown her in desire with his lips on hers.

He couldn’t stop himself from taking. No matter that he had once imagined making slow, tortuously slow, love to her on some huge, soft bed. The desperation of what was overpowered any fantasy of what might have been.

She possessed him. Obsessed him. No mystical siren could have stolen his mind and soul more completely.

A button popped from her skirt as he fought to drag it down her hips. He thought he might go mad if he didn’t rip aside all obstacles, if he didn’t see her. All of her.

Half-crazed, he peeled off her stockings, and the delicate lace that had secured them. Somewhere through the roaring in his brain he heard her throaty cry when his fingers brushed against her thigh. Fighting to hold back, he knelt between her legs, filling himself with the sight of her, slim and golden and naked, her hair tousled around her face, her eyes dark and heavy.

She reared up, too desperate to wait even another moment. Her mouth closed avidly over his, and her fingerstore at the snap of his jeans.

“Let me,” she said in a husky whisper.

“No.” He slipped a hand behind her back to support her, and brought the other down to cover the source of heat. “Let me.”