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She touched him through his jeans, tentatively at first, then stroking him more aggressively, trying to discern his exact structure beneath the denim.
His breathing grew harsh. She wanted more. She reached for his zipper.
He stepped back as if she'd hurt him. His chest heaved, and he choked out his words. "Maybe we'd better slow down."
Only seconds earlier she'd been hot, but now a chill passed through her. She heard restraint in his voice, so familiar from her marriage, and he continued as he spoke again. "I don't want to rush you into anything you're not ready for."
That awful consideration. That horrible, stifling solicitude as if she weren't capable of making up her mind, as if she were breakable, untouchable, undefilable. Not a woman at all.
She'd spilled her guts to him, but he hadn't understood a thing.
"You're still new at this." He put more distance between them and ran the flat of his hand absentminedly over his chest, as if he were smoothing his T-shirt. "Let's go inside."
She wanted to slug him and scream at him and burst into tears all at once. Why had she expected him to understand? She couldn't contain her hurt. "I'm not a virgin! And there's nothing you could do that'd be too raunchy for me, do you understand? Nothing that's too kinky! You've screwed this up, Bonner, and now you aren't ever going to touch me." Her anger boiled, then spilled over. "As a matter of fact, you can go to hell!"
She whirled around and shot down the slippery wooden steps to the lawn. It was wildly overgrown. Shrubbery hung over the flagstone path and grass tangled around her ankles as she fled.
"Rachel!"
She'd left her shoes in the laundry room, but she didn't care. She'd climb Heartache Mountain barefoot before she'd let another man treat her like she was some kind of sexually neutered icon.
Her hands knotted into fists at her side, and she realized she didn't want to run away at all. What she really wanted to do was go right back there and tell him what an insensitive, unfeeling, imperceptive ass he was!
She spun around and stalked toward the deck, only to see him doing his own war dance right toward her. As he approached, his teeth were clenched. "Don't you think you're overreacting just a little bit?"
She wanted to shout something really obscene at him, but she wasn't too effective with obscenity yet. A few more weeks in his company, though, and she could probably turn pro. "Stuff yourself."
In three long strides, he had her. He grabbed the front of her dress and began pulling open the top buttons. He looked annoyed, irritated, but not actually angry.
He peeled the dress apart. "You want kinky? I'll tell you about kinky. Do you know there are men in this world who get their kicks by bringing a woman right to the point of orgasm, and then, at the exact moment she comes, strangling her to death!"
He jerked the dress down, baring her to the waist as he trapped her arms in the fabric. Then he bent his head and bit her on the inner slope of one breast.
"Ow! That hurt!"
"Good. Any more trouble out of you, and I'll do it again."
His lips nuzzled her wet nipple, and her anger fled.
"Now where was I?" he asked.
She shuddered at the huskiness in his voice, the warmth of his breath on her cool skin. "Oh, Gabe… What if you screw this up again?"
"Then I guess you'll just have to keep after me till I get it right."
"I guess." She sighed and rested her cheek against his chest.
"In the meantime, you might be thinking about exactly how wide you can spread those legs because I intend to spend a long time between them."
She moaned. Maybe he'd gotten it right after all.
Chapter Eleven
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Just as she was starting to relax and think this might work out after all, he drew back again. "I know you're going to tear into me for this, but it strikes me that, for somebody who wants to be a wanton woman, you should look out for yourself better."
"What do you mean?"
