“You can even rip my clothes off again.” She linked her arms around his neck. “It’s your shirt anyway. I like wearing your clothes. It’s almost like having your hands on me. Are you going to put your hands on me, Michael?”

“I’m debating.”

“I’ll tell you a secret.” She pressed against him, put her mouth on his ear. “Wanna know my secret?”

She was going to be sorry come sunrise, but—he skimmed his hands under the shirt—what the hell. “Yeah, tell me a secret.”

“I have dreams about you. I used to have them before, too. Long time ago, when you would come around with Josh, I had dreams about you. But I never told anybody, because—”

“It wouldn’t be appropriate for a woman of your standing.”

She chuckled, nipped his earlobe and sent his blood pressure through the roof. “ ’Xactly. You know what I’d dream about you? I’ll tell you. You’d find me. I’d be on the cliffs or in my room or in the forest, and you’d find me. And my heart would start to pound, so hard, so fast.”

She took his hand, pressed it against her heart. To show him. “I couldn’t move or breathe, or even think,” she continued, and her hand laid over his on her breast. “You’d come toward me, not saying anything, just looking at me, looking until my knees were weak, until the blood was rushing in my head. You’d kiss me, so rough, so hot. The way no one else ever would. No one else would dare to touch me the way you touched me.”

“No.” It was like drowning, he thought. Staring into those deep gray eyes was like drowning. “No one would.”

“You’d rip my clothes, rip them off, and take me right there, wherever we were. Just the way you did that night, just like in my dreams. I must have always known you would one day.”

She circled away, arms lifted like a dancer on point while he stood where he was, aching. Viciously aching.

“That’s my secret. I dreamed of you. Oh, my head’s spinning.” She laughed, pressed a hand to it. “Being drunk feels just like it feels having you on top of me, inside me, pounding in me. God, God, I love it.”

She combed her hair back from her face, grinned at him. “Look at you, standing there, watching me. Never expected to hear such talk from Laura Templeton, did you?”

He knew, standing there, watching her, that if he’d been dying of thirst he would have begged for her rather than a single sip of water. “No. And if you don’t remember this in the morning, I’m going to be damn sorry.”