One Spring Night

Chapter Five

Hot water steamed around the cool bathroom, settling into the crevices and corners.

While the rain outside had begun to pound hard on the roof in a barrage of beats like a pair of steady fists, inside the steam drifted and cushioned the space around Ben and Kara.

He drank her in, that's how she would've described it if words hadn't evaporated in the mists. And the effect was more enrapturing than she'd dreamed it would be.

She definitely had dreamed of this, of him. Of Ben.

She'd let herself dream lavishly, and in doing so, she'd been able to ease beyond that line of feeling disloyal to a man she'd loved with all her heart. And let herself feel alive again. It'd been a winding, bumpy road, getting to that place, but she'd earned the life she felt flooding through her. She'd earned those daydreams.

And now, the dream mingled with reality. Ben used his hands to cup her face as he deepened the kiss, skimming her tongue, awakening the dream.

She reached for him, and without thinking, she lifted the bottom hem of his shirt up his body, wanting the thermal, then the white under-T, tossed away. It was his bare strength that she craved. Not out of greed or demand. Not yet, anyway. What she wanted was to feel, simply feel the naked muscle and rugged potency of the man before her. To feel his heart beating as hers beat.

Her pulse tripped when he began doing the same—peeling her out of her layers of clothing, tossing them aside, revealing her to her core.

And without warning, a twinge of something crept up and scared her. She wasn't frightened to be naked; she wasn't frightened to be with Ben, she knew. She was, however, nervous in the slightest of ways—possibly more—that this was her final nudge toward letting go of the past. And was, irrevocably, a step forward into new territory.

But she was ready for it. Come hell or high water—and both seemed to be lashing outside the pub—she was ready for it, she decided.

While Ben lowered to unzip her boots, she felt along his shoulders, trailing her fingertips along the impressive array of muscle. She listened as the zipper slowly treaded downward, then held on to him as he slid off her shoe, then her sock, one foot then the other.

She watched the gentle care he took, knowing it was for her. And she adored him for it.

No, she thought. That wasn't honest. She loved him for it. Even if nothing more happened beyond that moment, she loved him for the care and understanding he showed her.

And at the same time, she fell into a honeyed puddle of lust as his mouth trailed kisses along her stomach, up the centerline to her chest, then back down again. His warm mouth gliding, his hands seeking along her skin then finding the zipper of her pants, she ached as she anticipated the feel of him inside of her.

He paused before sliding off her jeans, his golden eyes looking up to her. And a shiver shimmied through her again.

"I've been wanting you since the day I met you. But I want you to be sure," he said, his voice having dipped into rough depths, then waited.

The man wasn't nervous, she noted, he wasn't rushed. His steady, quiet confidence carried from the usually noisy bar into intimacy, and knowing that caused heat to spread through her like a glass of whiskey tossed back in two seconds time.

"I'm sure," she told him, meaning the two words from the pulsing center of her being.

He slid her jeans over the curve of her butt, then down her thighs, her calves, her ankles, then set them aside and rose.