“Sorry,” she managed behind a horrified laugh when he lifted his head. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t help it, I just had to—”

The words backed up in her throat as the front of her dress slipped to her waist. He immediately filled his hands with her breasts. “Sorry,” he murmured, repeating her words. “I couldn’t help it, I just had to.”

She would have laughed again but his thumbs slowly rasped over her nipples, and any laughter vanished. Unbelievable. She was closer to an orgasm than she’d been during the last time she’d actually had sex. “Zach…”

“Relaxing yet?” His voice was low, silky.

“T-trying.”

“Good. You keep trying.” Bending her back over his arm, he dragged hot, wet, openmouthed kisses down her throat and across a breast, and sucked her into his mouth.

At the feel of his tongue stroking her nipple, she gasped, and then again when he settled her so that his erection pressed against the core of her.

He felt hard, very hard. And big. She looked into his glittering eyes, gulping as his hands slid down her thighs, then up the backs of them to play with the edging of her panties.

Oh, God. This was happening. They were doing this. She untied his board shorts.

He hooked his thumbs in the sides of her panties.

She tugged his shorts down, freeing the essentials.

He repeated the favor with her panties and slipped his hardness between her legs, using the rough pad of one finger to stroke her.

She quivered. “Zach—”

He did it again, adding a second finger, and she tightened her legs on his hand so he couldn’t stop, because if he did she was going to die.

“I won’t stop,” he promised, reading her mind, playing in the slippery heat he’d generated, a heat she’d forgotten existed.

“Condom,” she managed.

He went utterly still, then pressed his forehead to hers. “Christ. I don’t—Brooke. I didn’t think about—”

“I have one.”

His gaze, so steamy hot it singed everything it touched, met hers.

“In my purse. It’s been there for a while…” She fumbled for the zippered compartment. “I wish I had two—”

His laugh was soft and sexy as he took it from her fingers. “This’ll work for now.”

Biting her lower lip, she nodded, touching his chest, his flat abs, and then lower still, where his shorts were opened.

He stopped breathing.

So did she.

Bold in a way she hardly recognized, she wrapped her fingers around him. Loving the way that made him let out a rough oath, she slowly stroked. Swearing again, he slid the skirt of her dress up to her waist, baring her to the night and his searing gaze.

“Um…”

“Relaxed yet?”

“Not quite, no.” Her dress was now bunched across her belly, leaving her hanging out in the wind. Literally. Relaxed? Try wound up tighter than a coil.

“Lie back, Brooke.”