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His jaw tightened a touch but his avid stare continued to bore into her.To hypnotize her.“It’s not a line, Bethany.You know that.You’ve just admitted you felt it.What I felt when I saw you from this room—you felt it, too, even before we’d exchanged a single word.”
Although she wanted to agree, Bethany held back.Her instincts screamed that giving in too easily to this man would be dangerous.“It’s a long cake walk from feelings to fucking, Mr.Savage.”Even his surname tasted foreign on her tongue, exotic and exciting, and charged with the endless possibilities shimmering in his eyes.
His nostrils flared.“Not for us.In our minds, we’ve already fucked a hundred times in a hundred different ways.Mental copulation is just as powerful as the real thing.”
Jesus!“And did I like it, this hypothetical fucking?”
He grinned with complete and utter masculine confidence, his white-toothed smile transfixing her.“You wouldn’t be here, alone with me, if you hadn’t.”
“Mr.Savage?—”
“Zach,” he insisted.
“Let’s be clear on one thing.I’m not in the habit of jumping into bed with the first man who crooks his finger at me on a Sunday morning.”
His nostrils flared in a barely contained hint of displeasure.“You won’t be jumping into bed with any other man for the foreseeable future.Let’s get that clear.”
The breath she blew out was both desperate and exasperated.His closeness was doing things to her insides she wasn’t sure she could accurately describe.From the moment she’d set eyes on him, her nipples had peaked into tight, hard nubs.Bethany was sure there was some sort of physical side effect from being this turned on for too long.The racing of her heart alone scared the holy shit out of her.She needed to get out of here, if only to find a moment’s reprieve.But from staring into his eyes, she knew Zachary Savage wasn’t about to let her go.
“Are you going to conduct this search sometime today, or am I free to go board your plane?”
For an eternity he didn’t reply.Then he took a single step back.“Drop your purse.”
Holding his gaze, she did as he asked without argument.With a soft thud, her purse landed on the carpet beside them.Until she didn’t have the imagined security of her purse, she hadn’t realized just how vulnerable she felt.
She swallowed hard and waited.
“Arms up.”
A shiver went through her, but she complied, slowly lifting her arms until they were level with her shoulders.
“Higher,” he rasped, his voice strangely compelling.
Licking her dry lips, she raised her arms higher until they were above her head.The action lifted her short dress.
Bethany didn’t have to look down to know her legs were exposed to mid-thigh, that her breasts were pushed high by her stance.
She watched him watch her, her breath coming in pants as he slowly sank down onto his heels.
He reached for the heel of her shoe, lifted her foot and widened her stance.Then he grasped her foot and placed it on his knee.Her platform-heeled shoe came off with little resistance.
The moment Zachary Savage touched her, Bethany knew she was thoroughly screwed.
Profound, electric and wild.She marveled that so simple a touch on her heel could elicit such strong feelings.
With precise movements, he looked into her shoe, checked the platform and stiletto, then set it aside.He conducted the same scrutiny on her other shoe, then lowered her foot.
He raised his head and locked his dark grey eyes on her as his fingers drifted up her ankles and over her calves.When he touched the back of her knees, she couldn’t stop a soft moan from escaping her throat.He paused, his stare curious and hungry, then he continued upward, upward until his hands were underneath her dress, over the super-sensitive skin of her hips.
Searching fingers grazed the edge of her panties, traced the cotton to the space between her legs.Bethany saw him swallow as his fingers encountered her wet heat.But he didn’t linger.
Lips clamped together as if holding himself together with the utmost control, he let his fingers drift to the top edge of her panties and then to the sides before withdrawing.
She almost groaned in disappointment as he continued his search over her dress.Large, strong hands travelled around her waist, his grip sure and powerful as he searched upward over her midriff.
He rose to tower over her.Without her heels, she reached just below his shoulders.Again, her feeling of vulnerability escalated.He was so tall, so strong and powerful.He could break her with a single snap.
And yet, looking into his face, she saw gentleness in the depths of all that wild and savage need.