Page 65 of In Shining Armor

He tilted his head and smiled at her. “If you’re too drunk to sit up—”

“All right,fine.I think I can manage it.”

Flicka leaned over, her hand stroking the denim over his knee, and she found she couldn’t move any farther.

Her hand couldn’t even move, and she sucked in a deep breath.

Dieter said, “We can stop any time. If you touch my leg, that’s all it is. If you kneel over me, we can stop there. Anything you want, for now, for a while, or for tonight.”

The heat of his skin bled through his pants, warming her palm. “Sometimes, when we were together, it seemed like you had lost control of yourself.”

“Sometimes, you seemed too drunk to walk.”

She looked up at him, realizing what that correlation meant. “Really?”

He ran one finger around her jawline. “You’re a beautiful woman, Flicka, but I’m a grown man. I can stop and stand up any time I want to. I’m not some rutting animal, controlled by instincts it can’t understand.”

She touched his face, fitting the hard line of his jaw into her palm. “I thought you were out of your mind with passion.”

He blinked slowly, an affectionate move. “Of course, I was.”

“I’m drunk out of my mind now.”

“So you’ve said.”

“I’m so drunk,” she crawled over him and straddled his legs, standing on her knees, “I’m not sure what I’ll do.”

He rested the back of his head against the high headboard, a simple slab made of white-painted wood. His mouth curved into a smile as he looked up at where she stood over him. “You’re that drunk?”

“Sure.”

“Kiss me,Durchlauchtig.”

She had loved it when he had ordered her around in bed, before. Removing the pretense that it had been her choice meant that she hadn’t had to be coy about wanting something.

And she did want to kiss him.

She rested her hands on his shoulders, feeling the warmth and satin of his shoulders, familiar and yet different.

He reached up with one hand sliding his fingers around the back of her neck. His heavy hand rested back there, not pulling her, just heavy, making leaning down feel natural.

Flicka brushed her lips over his and felt his soft mouth open under hers.

She didn’t want to back off.

So she kept kissing him, bracing herself on his broad, round shoulders, his mouth moving softly under hers.

He sucked on her lower lip for just a flash, and Flicka found her tongue licking forward in response.

His other hand slipped around her waist, embracing her, not holding her down.

She sighed, mostly in relief.

In her hair, his fingers found the rubber bands that she had used to bind her hair back from her face, and he pulled them out. Her hair fell around her cheeks. The tension in her temples floated away.

She broke off the kiss, her breath catching in her throat. She rested her forehead against his, getting her bearings as his hand wove into her hair and his other arm firmed around her waist.

Dieter’s eyes were closed. Stress lines radiated from the corners. “You’re drunk, right? You’re so drunk that you probably wouldn’t remember anything I said, even if I told you that I missed you so much these past two years, more than I imagined.”