“And you’re lollygagging an awful lot, Mr. Kingsley. Pick up the pace.”

He did, releasing my hand and coming up behind me. He gripped my waist as we walked and kissed the back of my neck, and I let out a small moan.

Why was my bedroom so far away? What kind of cruelty was this?

“Stop it.” I slapped his hands away and pushed open the back door.

“No.” He caught me in the doorway and kissed me again until I was breathless. “Now I’ll stop.”

“Please don’t.” I dragged him just inside and shut the door, pushing him against it.

He groaned when I kissed him. I ran my hands down his firm chest and stomach, teasing my fingertips at the waistband of his shorts. They were the least sexy shorts known to man, but that was even more of a reason to get him out of them, if you asked me.

“If you don’t stop that, we will not make it to your bedroom,” he warned me in a gravelly tone. “I promise you that.”

I bit my lip and pulled back. “I’ll have to stop then.”

“Come here.”

Laughing, I ran through the hallway to the stairs and up them. Miles was just about fast enough to catch me, but he didn’t, instead opting to tickle my legs under my skirt when he was near enough.

He got me at the top of the stairs, and I kissed him with all the vigour I could muster. I was desperate for him. I wondered if I truly knew what it was like to want someone until now, until this point, when it felt like I was going to burst if I didn’t get him in my room right this second.

I dragged him along the hall to my bedroom door and pulled him inside, shoving the door shut after us. It made a deafening bang, but I barely noticed as we came together again.

This time it was rougher, more desperate, needier. We pulled back together to the bed where we fell back, and our limbs tangled together. Shoes came off, and I tugged his t-shirt up, letting my fingertips roam across the smooth skin of his back. He parted my legs and slipped between them, hooking one up over his hip.

His erection pressed firmly against me, and before I could blink, my hips were pushing against him, grinding, almost begging him for more.

Oh, shit.

“Oh, shit,” I whispered.

“What?” Miles pulled back, panicked. “Did I hurt you? Was I on your hair?”

“No.” I bit the inside of my cheek. “I don’t—I don’t have a condom.”

“Oh, fuck it.”

“I don’t suppose you do?”

“Can’t say it’s something I carry around in my pocket while I’m gardening, princess, no.”

I deflated. All this, and for what? A night of dirty, unsatisfying dreams that ultimately end up with me doing the job myself?

Apparently so.

“Do you have one in your car?” I asked hopefully.