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My hands slid up his lapels, then into his hair, eliciting a groan from him that vibrated against my chest. He tasted like Honey and fantasies, and I strained closer to taste more, feel more. The table dug into the small of my back, but I barely registered it as he pushed against me, molding our bodies together as best we could in our evening finery.

His fingers anchored into my hair, dislodging pins, angling my face just so. He kissed like a man starved, and I was no less desperate. My hands slid beneath his jacket and pushed it off his shoulders. He broke away to toss it to a chair, then returned, his hands cupping my neck and sliding down to my waist, touching everything in between. The fine material of his shirt caressed my fingers as I dragged them over the lean muscles beneath. I wanted to touch his skin. I wanted him to touch mine. I wanted to feel him—all of him—pressed hard against me and dig my fingernails into his back.

My heartbeat burst to life across the expanse of my skin, in my fingertips, and deep down inside.

Too much feeling.

Too many clothes.

His mouth dipped to my neck, gently nipping the skin beneath my ear, and a whimper broke loose.

He released a breath against my skin. “I have fantasized for years about what you sound like when you come.”

I hummed again, more wanton this time. Like an out-of-control addict, I skated my hands around his back and slotted us tight together, giving him no chance to hide his desire.

His hips jerked against mine. “Fuck.”

I’d never heard him say that word, and a thrill of power skittered through my nerves as I dismantled this polite, restrained man’s control. A dark, heady chuckle rose.

At that, he looked up. In the dim light, his eyes gleamed like a cat ready to pounce, and his hands grasped my hips firmly. He turned me so I faced the mirror.

“Look at me,” he said.

I met his gaze in the mirror, a shiver running through me. He kissed my neck while his hand slid around my hip and down the inside of my thigh, then finger-crawled the silky fabric of my dress upward. His silvery eyes promised wicked pleasure as he gazed into mine, and I found I didn’t care what he chose to do to me in that moment. I’d let him do anything.

At the first brush of his skin against my upper thigh, sizzling sensation lanced through my leg. I cried out and pitched forward, holding my weight with one hand against the mirror. His came to rest over mine, fingers interlacing and squeezing tight.

His hand on my thigh drifted until it found a place that made my eyes flutter shut, but he pulled away at once.

“Honey,” he whispered against my neck. “Look at me.”

I forced my eyes open. His mouth lingered against my neck, but he stared at me through his lashes. The soft brush of his fingers returned, delicate but certain.

“Yeah?” he asked.

Unable to form words, I nodded frantically, letting years of fantasies of this very act be destroyed in the face of reality.

My thoughts coalesced into a bright landscape of emotion. An ocean of desire lapped at the shores, fireproof, but the growing blaze of love that had ignited years ago was now steadily consuming everything in its path—the tundras of logic that it would never work, the forests of fear instilled by his father, and even the deserts of bitterness that things couldn’t be different.

Love devoured it all.

Gaze enmeshed with his, I sensed my will to resist crumble into dust, and as the strokes of his hand below grew bolder, my control on everything shattered into a million unrecognizable pieces. Ecstasy dawned in rays of gold and white, weakening my knees. I didn’t look away. I didn’t close my eyes. He watched me fall apart, something ragged and fathomless smoldering in his gaze.

After I’d settled, he pulled his hand away. My dress fell back into place, and he encircled my waist. Our interlaced fingers held tight to each other against the mirror.

We stared.

The air crackled around us.

My uneven breaths slowly eased, and I wondered whether I should return the favor.

“You make me unhinged.” He glanced at the door. “I didn’t plan this.”

I straightened and pulled our joined hands from the mirror, setting them against my abdomen instead. “You had a plan?”

He kissed my neck. “I had a plan the second I saw you sitting in Ivy’s office. Though it’s shot to hell now.”

Seriously?