Without hurry, he whispered kisses over her face. Perhaps it was an homage to beauty, perhaps it was much, much more. He didn’t question his motives as he traced the slope of her cheek. There was an immediacy he’d never experienced before, but it didn’t carry the urgency he’d expected. She was there for him as long as he needed. He understood that, without words.

“You smell of spring and rain,” he murmured against her ear. “Why should that drive me mad?”

The words vibrated through her, as arousing as the most intimate caress. Heavy-lidded, clouded, her eyes met his. “Just show me. Show me again.”

He loved her with such generosity. Each touch was a separate pleasure, each kiss a luxurious taste. Patience—there was more patience in him than in her. Her body was tossed between utter contentment and urgency, until reason was something too vague to grasp.

“Here—” He nibbled lightly at her breast, listening to and allured by her unsteady breaths. “You’re small and soft. Here—” He took his hand over her hip to her thigh. “You’re taut and lean. I can’t seem to touch enough, taste enough.” He drew the peak of her breast into his mouth, so that she arched against him, center to center.

“Hunter.” His name was barely audible, but the sound of it was enough to bring him to desperation. “I need you.”

God, had he wanted to hear that so badly? Struggling to understand what those three simple words had triggered, he buried his mouth against her skin. But he couldn’t think, only feel. Only want. “You have me.”

With his hands and lips alone, he took her spiraling over the first peak.

Her movements beneath him grew wild, her murmurs frenzied, but she was unaware. All Lee knew was that they were flesh-to-flesh. This was the storm he’d gentled the night before, the power unleashed, the demands unsoftened. The tenderness became passion so quickly, she could only ride with it, blind to her own power and her own demands. She was spinning too fast in the world they’d created to know how hungrily her mouth sought him, how sure were her own hands. She drew from him everything he drew from her. Again and again she took him to the edge, and again and again he clung, wanting more. And still more.

Greed. He’d never known this degree of greed. With the blood pounding in his head, singing in his veins, he molded his open mouth to hers. With his hands gripping her hips, he rolled until she lay over him. They were still mouth-to-mouth when they joined, and her gasp of pleasure rocketed through him.