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She swallowed past the dryness in her throat. “Thank you.”
The polite response her mother had taught her to issue upon receiving a compliment rather than stammering out a quick denial as many of her teenage friends had came out stiff and unnatural. Coburn’s brow rose. He took the last couple of steps toward her, his fingers curving around her jaw as his other hand settled on her waist and pulled her close.
“I’m getting the feeling my ever-poised wife is nervous.”
“Hardly,” she denied, her reply coming out a bit too breathless for her liking.
His fingers slid to the hollow of her nape. “I thought we were going for honesty here. If I was being honest I’d say that blowing off dinner to make love to my very beautiful wife is highly tempting.”
Her insides dissolved into a pool of molten heat. “Coburn—”
He dropped his mouth to her ear. “The only question would be how and where I would do that. I’d be willing to explore more than one option.”
She put a hand to his chest and leaned away from him, her head and heart full of way too much everything. “But we are going to dinner. It would be rude not to.”
His gaze studied her face. “Yes we are. But first I’m going to kiss my wife.”
Her heart sped up in her chest. The hand she had pressed against his torso couldn’t decide whether it wanted to keep him at a distance or allow him closer. He took the decision out of her hands, splaying both palms across her jaw to hold her in place while he brought his mouth down to nudge hers apart. She froze, her lips immobile against his. It was like walking into a tsunami with your eyes wide-open. She wasn’t sure she could do it.
His fingers tightened around her jaw. “Open your mouth,” he demanded. “Let me in.”
The war went on in her head, the battle between her two selves loud and chaotic. And then she couldn’t fight it anymore. Her lips softened beneath his. He took them in a deep, drugging kiss that swept away all conscious thought except for the intoxicating, deliciously male scent of him, the tall, strong length of his body that brushed hers tantalizingly close, but not nearly close enough. His taste, his touch was achingly familiar and yet different somehow. As if the exceedingly tough, driven man he’d become had seeped into every part of him, and even his kiss couldn’t help but be affected by it.
She drank him in, relearned every contour of his sensual, beautiful mouth.
He murmured her name, his voice a velvety caress that slid across her sun-warmed skin. His hands shifted lower to her hips to drag her against him. She moved into him, luxuriating in the press of his strong, muscular thighs against her. Only with Coburn could a kiss be this soulful.
His hands moved over her buttocks, shaping her against him. Froze. “You have nothing on underneath this dress?”
Heat flared in her already warm skin. “It’s impossible with it.”
He brought her chin up with the tips of his fingers, the heated shimmer in his eyes making her insides quiver. “It wasn’t a complaint,” he drawled softly. “Knowledge is power. Or pleasure, in your case...”
She bit down hard on her lip. How could she forget what he did with such knowledge? A dinner party on a steamy night in Manhattan filled her head. Coburn had just been back from a business trip to Germany. He’d touched down, driven home and changed, just in time to walk out the door with her to a cocktail party. Intensely sexual in nature, her husband had spent the evening trying to keep his hands off her, but a week away from each other had taken its toll. She had excused herself to use the powder room when Coburn had discreetly followed her, slipped in after her and locked the door. He had taken her against the wall, swift and hard, his raspy voice in her ear telling her how much he’d missed her. How he had pleasured himself thinking about her in his big, lonely hotel room.
“Hot, wasn’t it?” Her husband’s husky taunt returned her focus to his face. He was studying the heat staining her body a bright red. “It was the most uninhibited I’ve ever seen you.”
She pulled in a breath. “Behave.”
“For now,” he agreed, a pirate-like smile curving his lips. “This time I want you very verbal, sweetheart, so I know I’m satisfying your frustration to a suitable level.”
Her stomach contracted. Skipping the party suddenly sounded like a good idea to her, too, because his blunt seduction was going to have her in tatters after an entire evening of it.
“But first,” her husband drawled, nixing that idea as he stepped back and reached into his pocket, “you need to put this on.”
