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Her shuddery sigh washed over him like an order.Carry on. Which was a command not to rush, but to continue the job you were doing. Right and thoroughly. He brushed his thumb across her lower lip, lingered there in the corner of her mouth as his body tightened and whispered,More.Now.

But he knew a little something about delayed gratification, about withstanding the worst kind of bodily torture. He’d withstood the sea, pushing his body to every possible limit. He’d withstand thispleasanttorture, the one that promised sweet release.

He let go of her hair slowly. He curled his fingers around her waist, so he could pull her flush against him. His hand, right there, felt as if it belonged against her waist, his fingers printed with some perfect code that unlocked her, and everything clicked into place.

Them together.

“This dress is torture,” he muttered, because it was all smooth silk, like he imagined her skin would be underneath.

“T-torture. How?” she asked, just enough breathless to make him grin.

He dragged his fingers from her mouth, down her jaw and neck, until they brushed against the silky strap of her dress. Then he traced the line of the dress, down her chest, to the center drop. Modest, really, but she made a sound, close to a squeak but softer.

He hadn’t thought anything in his body could get tighter, harder, and yet that sound moved everything a notch closer to a breaking moment. Still he stood there, holding her against him, nothing more than featherlight touches and the feel of her chest moving against his when she took a deep, hitching breath.

There was some twisted part of him that missed this challenge, this painful, bruising assault of holding yourself in an uncomfortable position for an impossible amount of time.

So he lowered his head only incrementally, memorizing the way dark and light blue threaded through the irises of her eyes, the tiny mole she had just at the top of her cheekbone, the way her chin nearly formed a sharp point. Until their mouths were only a whisper apart. He wasn’t sure a piece of paper could fit in that tiny, minuscule separation. He reveled in the want and need and anticipation of that separation.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” she muttered before closing that last speck of distance herself.

He might have grinned at that, but her mouth was on his. Soft and insistent, sweet and perfect. She wrapped her arms around his neck, drawing him closer, and she became the world. A softer world than he thought existed.

Her mouth was like the silk under his palms, her taste sweeter than summer honey. Everything centered here, at the slide of her tongue and the heat of her mouth and her arms banded around his neck as if she’d never let go.

It spiraled through him, desire, need. Hers. His. All mixed into a million things he didn’t usually let himself feel, let alone swamp him. He pulled her bottom lip between his teeth until she moaned against him and…hell.Hell.

It wasn’t enough. It wouldn’t possibly ever be enough, and he wanted to drown in the sweet torture of that knowledge.

But there was just enough reason somewhere inside him to remember Colin was around here, sleeping or not, and hiking up Monica’s skirt was very off-limits as long as that was the case.

He didn’t let her go, didn’t try to unwind himself from the tight grip of her arms, but he did edge his mouth away from hers.

“W-wow,” she breathed against his cheek.

He grinned, because if he didn’t, she might see the way she’d flipped his world on its very axis. “Did you just say wow?”

She pulled her arms away from him, stepping out of the circle of his embrace. It was like watching her come back to herself. “No. No. I did not… No.” She shook her head, though she pressed her fingertips to her mouth.

Sometimes he liked every damn thing about her. “Oh, you said wow.”

She dropped her hand, smoothing it over her dress, but there was a slight upward curve to her mouth. “I most certainly did not. I was just breathing.”

“Breathingwow.”

She glared at him, but that glare was undercut by her failure to scowl. “Fine. Maybe I was.”

He rubbed a hand over his jaw. “It was a little wow.”

“A little.” She scoffed. “Well, maybe for you. Maybe you always go around kissing women like that,” she muttered.

“I don’t.” Which he hadn’t precisely meant to say. There was something to be said for a little mystery, for a woman to think you weren’t quite as impressed as you were. But he couldn’t force that kind of lie with Monica.

She blinked once, then looked down at her clasped hands. “Well.” She looked all too pleased, and he wanted to gather her up and tell her a million more things that would put that look on her face and…

Well, he needed to get his shit together.Clearly.

She cleared her throat, those hands still clasped, but when she looked up at him, she was all calm, cool Monica. “I just need to make one thing clear.”