“And yet here we are, thoroughly entangled, all but naked in each other's arms with nowhere else either of us would rather be. Am I right about that?”

Powerfully moved by his assessment, she said, “Yes,” the single word barely a whisper.

“Sometimes,” he said, kissing her so sweetly, “the most important things happen when you least expect it.”

“Is this an important thing?”

“I don’t know about you, but it’s become very important to me over the last few days.”

His admission gave her the courage to offer her own. “Me, too.”

“How about we have a little fun now, take the edge off, and later, after we do our girls’ night and poker night, we meet back here and take all the time it takes to get you relaxed enough to make love?”

Abby trembled at the promise in his softly spoken words. Because she didn’t trust herself to speak, she nodded.

He kissed her, taking it slowly, running his tongue over the seam of her lips until she opened her mouth to let him in. When he sucked lightly on her tongue, Abby nearly died from the pleasure that coursed through her. He coaxed reactions from her that she’d never known possible. He drew her out of her own thoughts and into the moment in a way that no one else had done before.

She clung to him, wanting him closer, close enough that his chest hair abraded her tender nipples and his hard penis pressed against the pulsating tension between her legs.

Desperate to touch and feel all of him, she pushed her hands into the back of his jeans, under the waistband of his boxers, cupping his muscular buttocks as he flexed against her.

He broke the kiss and shifted his attention to her nipple, tugging and biting lightly, but hard enough to make her moan from the pleasure. The tension grew to nearly unbearable heights as he pressed against her and then backed off, and then did it again, over and over until she was lost in the throes of immeasurable bliss, her fingers digging into his backside to keep him right where she needed him until the storm had subsided.

“Abby,” he whispered against her breast. “God.” The heat of his release on her belly was among the most sensual things she’d ever experienced. Watching him let go, feeling the tension drain from his body and knowing she’d done that to him made her feel powerful and aware of herself as a woman in ways that were all new to her.

“I can’t wait to be inside you when that happens,” he whispered, his breath against her neck making her shiver.