And his hair. God. His hair in her hands. Flowers she’d clutched at the temple had felt less like worship. She threaded her fingers through the strands, fisted them so hard they dug into her palms, tugged around the sensitive skin between her fingers.

All of her, she wanted all of her touching all of him that way. Tight and wrapped. No spaces. Her legs wrapped around his hips as he lifted her and carried her in.

“Rico.” She pulled away, hands still in his hair as he kicked the door behind them. “Your knee.” She slid off him, hands sliding to his cheeks, his beard at once rough and smooth and more erotic against her palms than she could ever have imagined. She stroked him even as she pulled away.

He tightened his hold on her, a full-body hug that said: Don’t leave me. “My knee is fine, Ash. I swear. Forget about my knee. Please.” Breathless. He was breathless and he touched her lips with his again. Then again. “Baby, how, tell me, how did we let this go?”

Her heart spasmed at that. She soaked up his taste. Sunshine would taste like this. A fresh summer stream with a hint of melting sugar. Crisp and sweet.

She wanted to bottle it up, blend it into a tea, drink from him until the day she died.

Her lower lip slipped from between his lips, clinging to the soft suction, his mouth resisting letting her go. He dropped a kiss on it, swollen and sensitive beyond words. All of her too aroused and tender to bear.

“Is this what you hear me say with my eyes? Is this what you don’t believe?”

“I want to believe it.” She couldn’t stop kissing him. His mouth had been her undoing. His jaw. Everything intoxicating as she touched it with her mouth, stroked it with her tongue. “I want you to make me feel beautiful.” Her lips were on his throat now, tracing the line where smooth skin turned to soft beard. Then up again to his mouth. “Please.”

His answering kiss matched her fever. Then suddenly his forehead was pressed against hers, his chest pumping with breath, his hand stroking her hair. Tendrils had come loose from her bun to dance around her face, and he couldn’t stop stroking whatever free locks he could touch. She was a skittish filly to be calmed.

“Ash, tell me what’s going on? What’s the matter?”

She pushed away from him, their bodies disengaging for the first time since they had touched. Turning away from him, she started for the door. “Great. So you don’t want me either.”

He was on her in a second, his hand on hers as she grabbed the doorknob. His body curved around hers, his breath in her hair. “Slow down. Please, meu amor, slow down.”