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Gently he put her on her feet and she laughed. “I grew up around you guys,” she said, taking in the unmade bed and random clothes in piles. “I’m used to a little chaos.”
Sophie was in his bedroom. He couldn’t wrap his mind around it.
“This is it,” he told her. “Your last chance to back out.”
Smile wide
, she shook her head. “You think I came this far, waited all this time for you, just to leave?”
Zach slid his hands around her waist, his pinkies sliding under the waistband of her skirt to encounter smooth, warm skin. “I’m barely hanging on here, Soph,” he muttered as he rested his forehead against hers. “I want to do this right, but I’m about to snap.”
Sophie shoved her hands beneath his shirt and started yanking it up. “I’ve been wanting you to snap for years. Don’t make me wait any longer.”
With her bold declaration, he helped her to jerk the shirt over his head and throw it onto a pile of other discarded clothes. When her hands went to the button on his jeans, he stopped her.
“I’ll do this part.”
The last thing he needed was for her to touch him there right now. He wasn’t joking when he told her he was hanging on by a thread.
Sophie slid out of her cardigan, sending it silently to the floor. When she reached for the hem of her silk tank, Zach gripped the material.
“I’ll do that too.” No way was he going to miss an opportunity to undress Sophie.
He removed her hands from her tank and glided the flimsy material up and over her head. Zach swallowed at the sight of her standing there in a pale pink bra and her skirt. She was everything his fantasies were made of, and so much more that he didn’t know he’d been missing.
“Stop thinking here, Zach.” She smiled and stepped out of her flats. “The way you keep stopping is making me nervous.”
Control snapped as he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her flush against his chest. She arched her back, and Zach kissed a path down the column of her throat. Her hands fisted in his hair as she threw her head back. With a skilled move, Zach flicked her bra open and quickly removed it without taking his lips off her heated, silky skin.
This was the moment he’d been craving. Her chest against his with no barriers. Zach’s hands roamed all over her, and in the process he found the tiny side zipper on her skirt and got rid of that problem fast. By the time he got her fully undressed, he was beyond the point of no return.
Sophie did her own exploring over his bare chest, and her touch was anything but gentle. This woman knew what she wanted, which just bumped her up another notch on the scale of sexy . . . as if she needed a boost.
Zach made quick work of his jeans, shucking those and his boxer briefs to the floor. Stepping out of them, he hoisted Sophie up, her legs instinctively wrapping around his waist, her arms around his neck.
“Tell me if I hurt you.”
Sophie kissed him. “You’d never hurt me.”
Now wasn’t the time to start that debate. He followed her down onto the bed, resting his hands on either side of her head.
He couldn’t get enough. He couldn’t touch her, taste her, or explore her enough to satisfy this craving he’d had for so long. He wanted to take everything in all at once, but savor each second at the same time.
He rained kisses over her shoulders, her breasts, down her abdomen . . . where he encountered scarring.
He’d not noticed moments ago when he’d fully undressed her because he’d been kissing her. But now, up close, he couldn’t ignore the sight before him.
“Don’t,” she told him, coming up on her elbows. “They’re in the past and we aren’t. We’re right here, right now, so don’t go back there.”
Swallowing, Zach forced himself to remain in the present. He had to do this, for Sophie. Later, when he was alone, he could torture himself with what he’d done to her. His careless, ego-inflated actions had left her physically and emotionally scarred.
“I know they’re ugly,” she went on. “I hope that—”
Zach placed a finger over her lips. “They’re not ugly. Nothing about you is ugly.”
It was damn hard not to relive that night right now, but he wouldn’t bring that nightmare into the bed with them. Zach traced the surgical scars across the skin below her belly button, then moved to the puckered scar along her hip. After he’d fully committed them to memory, he kissed each one.
Too many emotions pulled him in different directions. He could easily be overtaken by any of them, but he refused to allow hurt and guilt to steal this moment. Sophie was naked and trembling beneath him—nothing else mattered.
