He lifted her just enough that he could fit one hand underneath to unhook her bra and then he pulled it away and tossed it onto the floor.

For a long moment he stared down at her, his gaze drifting up and down her body then focusing on her, their eyes catching and holding.

“I’m burning the image of you into my memory,” he said in a husky voice. “I don’t want to ever forget again. I can’t imagine how I ever did to begin with. What man when presented with such beauty could possibly let such a memory of it escape?”

Her heart went all fluttery again. It was hard to breathe around him. When he wasn’t sending shivers of delight over her flesh with his touch, he sent ripples of pleasure through her heart with his words.

“Kiss me,” she begged softly.

“Just as soon as I’ve taken the last of your pink girly underwear off,” he said with a smile.

His fingers danced down her sides and hooked into the lacy band of her panties and he tugged, moving backward as he pulled them down her legs.

This time he moved up the side of her and curled his arms around her, pulling her against him so her naked flesh met his. It was a shock. A delicious, decadent thrill. His hardness was cupped intimately in the V of her legs and her breasts pressed against the slightly hair-roughened surface of his chest.

As he kissed her, his hand roamed possessively down her back and over the swell of her buttocks and then around to cup her belly before drifting lower into the damp, sensitive flesh between her legs.

She moaned and arched forward as his fingers found her most sensitive points. His erection slid between her slightly parted legs, burning, rigid, branding her flesh.

She wanted him inside her, a part of her, after being so long without him. She stirred restlessly, clinging to him, spreading her legs wider to encourage him to take her.

He smiled against her mouth. “So impatient. I’m not nearly finished yet, little love. I want to make you crazy with pleasure before I make you mine again. So crazy that you’ll scream my name when I slide into your warmth.”

“I want you,” she whispered. “So much, Rafe. I missed you. Missed holding you like this. Missed having you touch me.”