“You barely know me.” She picked up her wine, a purely defensive gesture. “There’s a difference between being attracted to and caring for. The latter takes more time.”

“Some of us move fast.” He enjoyed seeing her flustered. It would be, he decided, a rare event. Taking advantage of it, he slid closer. “I do.”

“So I’ve already observed. However—”

“However. I like hearing you laugh. I like feeling you tremble just slightly when I kiss you. I like hearing your voice slide into that didactic tone when you expand on a theory.”

At the last comment she frowned. “I’m not didactic.”

“Charmingly,” he murmured, skimming his lips over her temple. “And I like seeing your eyes in that moment when I start to confuse you. Therefore, I believe I’ve crossed over into the care-for stage. So let’s try your earlier hypothesis out on you and see where that leaves us. Have you ever been married?”

His mouth was cruising just under her ear, making it very difficult to think clearly. “No. Well, not really.”

He paused, leaned back, narrowed his eyes. “No or not really?”

“It was an impulse, an error in judgment. It was less than six months. It didn’t count.” Her brain was fogged, she decided, trying to inch away for some breathing room. He only scooted her back.

“You were married?”

“Only technically. It didn’t . . .” She turned her head to make her point, and his mouth was there. Right there to meet hers, to urge her lips to part and warm and soften.

It was like sliding under a slow-moving wave, being taken down into silky, shimmering water. Everything inside her went fluid. A surprise, she would realize later, that she’d neglected to factor into this particular pattern.

“It didn’t count,” she managed as her head fell back, as his lips trailed smoothly down her throat.

“Okay.”

If he’d taken her by surprise, she’d done exactly the same to him. At her sudden and utter surrender to the moment, his need churned to the surface, thrashing there. He had to touch her, to fill his hands with her, to mold those pretty curves through the thin, crisp cotton of her blouse.

He had to taste her, deeper now, while those little hums of shock and pleasure sounded in her throat. As he did, as he touched and as he tasted, her arms came around him, her hands sliding into his hair, her body turning to fit itself against him.

He felt her heart thud in time with his own.

Panic punched through pleasure when she felt him tug at the buttons of her blouse. “No.” Her own fingers shook as she covered his. “It’s too fast.” She squeezed her eyes shut, struggling to find her control, her sense, her purpose. “I’m sorry. I don’t go this fast. I can’t.”

It wasn’t easy to check the urge to ignore the rules, to simply press her under him on the deck until she was pliant and willing again. He put his tense fingers under her chin and lifted her face to his. No, it wasn’t easy, he thought again as he saw both desire and denial in her eyes. But it was necessary.