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He said something short and sharp, pulled her against him, and then his mouth was on hers.

She struggled. Or perhaps she only thought she did, because a heartbeat later, her mouth was open to his, her hands were in his hair, and she was sobbing his name.

Not Lieutenant. What she was sobbing was Chay, Chay, Chay, and it added to the frenzy building inside him.

This was what he’d needed. What he’d ached for. This, his tigress in his arms, the taste of her desire, of her surrender, sweet on his tongue.

“Tell me,” he demanded. “Tell me you want this.”

She knew what he meant. That other time he’d kissed her, she’d told him never to touch her again and he’d said he wouldn’t until she begged for him to do it.

How could everything have changed so completely? She’d gone from hating him to wanting him in in one night. Just one night…

She couldn’t think.

She could only feel. His mouth on hers. His breath whispering over her skin. The rasp of his teeth against her flesh. Pleasure shot through her, but this wasn’t enough. She needed more than his kisses, more than his touch, and she whimpered with need, rubbed herself against him like a cat.

He said her name.

She loved the way it sounded coming from his mouth. She loved everything he was doing and when he pulled off her helmet, thrust his hands into her hair, let the silky strands twine around his fingers, she moaned with the electric feel of him caressing her.

He kissed her. Again. And again. His kisses were hard and deep; his tongue swept against hers. He tasted of wine and of himself, and she couldn’t get enough of him.

“Bianca,” he said. “Say the words.”

She rose to him, clasped his face with her hands.

“Kiss me,” she whispered. “I want you to kiss me. To touch me. Please. Please. Ple—“”

She fell back with him against the trunk of a palm tree. He drank from her mouth, nipped her throat, kissed the pulse that beat wildly in its hollow.

He tugged her purse off her shoulder and let it fall to the sand. His jacket slipped from her shoulders and puddled at her feet.

His hands were at her blouse, working at the tiny buttons, his fingers too big, too clumsy, and finally he cursed and tore the blouse open.

He could see her by the soft light of the ivory moon that rode high against the black, star-shot sky.

And, God, she was beautiful.

She had on a bra. White. Some pale color. It was plain. No lace. No silk. Nothing about it was sexy, but she didn’t need a sexy bra.

She was sex itself.

She was the woman he wanted.

A woman he wanted more than any woman he’d ever been with, and now sure as hell wasn’t the time to try and figure that out.

What it was time for was to taste her mouth. Her throat.

Her breasts.

He pushed the bra up.

Her hands rose to cover her breasts.

He caught her wrists, brought her hands to his mouth and kissed the palms.

Then he bent his head and closed his lips around one warm, erect nipple.