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Her bra was made of unadorned white cotton. It was nothing like the stuff she'd worn the night they met but that didn't matter. There was something about her reticence, her trust, that made this bit of utilitarian cotton sexier than any concoction of black lace could ever be. Was that why his fingers shook as he undid the clasp?
He watched her face in the mirror as her breasts tumbled into his waiting palms.
If she looked at him like that again, he'd be finished. It was too much to ask of a man, that he hang onto his sanity while a beautiful woman stared at him as if he were showing her all the secrets of the universe. But he had to hang on, had to make this right, for her.
His hands cupped her breasts, his thumbs skimming over her nipples.
"Travis..."
Her voice was a tremulous whisper. She tried to turn toward him, away from what she saw in the glass, but he wouldn't let her.
"Not yet," he whispered.
He nuzzled her hair aside, so it fell over one bare shoulder. He bent his head and kissed her nape, nipped lightly at her throat. Alex had to bite her lip to keep from crying out. She was drowning in a river of sensation but she couldn't, she couldn't. If she let the river sweep her away, how would she know if she was doing all the things a woman should?
Travis was wrong. She couldn't get Carl out of her head this time. He was there, telling her that she was unresponsive, that she didn't know how to please a man and never would.
And she wanted to please Travis. To give him pleasure. To hear him groan as he spent himself inside her...
His thumbs rubbed across her nipples again, and the cry she'd tried so hard to suppress burst from her throat. Her head fell back against his shoulder.
"Travis," she whispered, and he cupped her breasts again, holding them, molding them, stroking the swollen peaks until, without thinking, she lifted her hands and placed them over his before she realized what she'd done and she snatched her hands away.
"Do that," Travis said thickly. "Put your hands over mine."
"No. I mean—not if you don't like... Not if you think it's—it's wrong..."
"Open your eyes, Princess. Look into the mirror."
She thought of that day two weeks before, when she'd looked into the mirror and seen what Travis's passion had done to her, of how horrified and humiliated she'd been.
"No," she said, "Travis, please. I don't—"
"Just look," he whispered.
And, slowly, she did.
The woman in the mirror wasn't her. It was a woman trembling on the brink of surrender. Her hair was tumbled around her naked shoulders. Her mouth was pink and swollen, her eyes were feverishly bright.
And the man who'd made her look like this stood just behind her, staring at her reflection with such naked hunger that it made her dizzy.
"Go on," he said softly, his eyes never leaving hers. "Cover my hands with yours."
Color swept into her face. "Carl said—he said it was wrong to do that. It would be like touching myself."
"Put your hands over mine, Alex."
Their eyes met. Slowly, she raised her hands and did as he'd asked. The sight electrified her. His skin, so dark and hers, so pale; his hands so large and powerful, hers so small and feminine...
"There's nothing you can't do with me, Princess." He bent his head, kissed her throat. "There are no rights and wrongs, not between us. Do you understand?"
"Yes," she whispered.
"There's only you, and me, and what pleases us both." Her hands fell away from his as he let go of her breasts. His fingers went to the fly front of her linen trousers. She felt the button give, heard the hiss of the zipper. Her trousers slipped down her legs and fell to her feet. "Tell me what pleases you, Alex," Travis said, and cupped the damp silk between her thighs.
Alex cried out, not only with need but with the shock of realization. She'd thought Travis had been in her dreams for the past two weeks. Now, she knew he'd been in them forever, this handsome, dangerous, tender stranger who'd come into her carefully planned world and turned it upside down. He was no longer a dream. He was flesh and bone and blood, his eyes pools of darkness, his body hers to lean against, his hands hers to watch as they touched her.
"Do you like this?" he whispered, and slipped his fingers under the silk. "And this?"
She exploded against him, her body's most intimate tears scalding his hand with her heat as she called out his name. It almost undid him.
And it would almost have been enough. Just to see her lovely face as she came, to know his strength was her support, to hear her say his name as if he was the only man she'd ever want, ever need...
It was more than most men would ever know of heaven. And yet, he wanted more.
