“You make me crazy,” he rasped, running his hands through her hair.
She started on the buttons of his shirt. “You just make me want you.”
“How is it I do that?”
“Breathing,” she answered.
He returned her kisses, reaching for her blouse, popping the buttons and peeling it off her shoulders. He stood back and gazed once more at her lacy bra. “I like it when you breathe, too.”
She unsnapped the hooks and dropped the wisp of fabric to the floor. His eyes darkened, and her body began to hum in earnest.
“Oh, man.” He slowly pulled her in, pressing them skin to skin, holding her tight and setting off tiny explosions in her brain. His hands worked magic. His kisses grew harder, sweeter, ranging further and further.
She tangled her hands in his hair, loving the touch, loving the texture. “Stop time again,” she begged.
He feathered his fingertips down her spine. “I’ll do my best.” He tasted her earlobe. He kissed her neck. He delved sweetly into her mouth, and she thought she never wanted him to stop.
How had she imagined she could live without this?
They’d wasted six whole days, avoiding each other when they could have been in paradise. It was almost criminal.
He peeled off the rest of their clothes, and his touch grew more intimate. A flush covered her body, and an overhead fan whirred a gentle breeze, cooling the heat, sensitizing her skin.
He scooped her into his arms once again and crossed through the French doors to the king-size bed.
“Tell me when to put you down,” he said.
A shudder ran through her at his selfless memory. “Not yet.”
She loved this. There was something about his strength, his caring, his bold masculinity that sent shivers to her core.
He smiled and kissed her lips. Then he kissed her eyelids and the tip of her nose. “You really like this,” he teased.
“I really like this,” she agreed.
“Gotta figure out what fantasy it is.”
She grinned. “Caveman?”
“Viking.”
Her body convulsed. “That’s it.”
His eyes turned stormy. And he sobered, covering her lips in a long, deep kiss as he gently laid her back on the bed. He brushed her hair from her eyes. “You’re beautiful.”
She felt beautiful. She felt desirable and wonderful.
He kissed his way up her body beginning with her ankle, then the bend of her knee, gently flexing her leg until he had access to her inner thigh. His days growth of beard gently abraded her tender skin, sending shivers of desire to her core. His lips nibbled and his tongue teased higher and higher while she gasped his name.
She tensed when he blew gently on her curls. But then she closed her eyes and bit down on her lip as sensation after sensation throbbed their way along her limbs.
This was Cole. She was safe. He wouldn’t hurt her. He wouldn’t hurt anyone.
Then his hand replaced his mouth, gently stretching and filling her as he moved on to kiss her stomach. Her hips came off the bed, and he murmured words of encouragement against her skin.
She grasped for his hair, her hands restless, needing something to do. He moved again and took one nipple into his mouth. She groaned, burying her fingers in his hair. Her entire body arched involuntarily, striving to get closer to the sensations that were driving her sweetly out of her mind.
She dug her fingernails into his shoulders, raking them down his back as he moved up to kiss her mouth.
She opened wide. Finally, finally. She wrapped her arms around his broad body, holding him tight against her breasts. She kissed his mouth, kissed his cheeks, kissed his eyelids, then buried her face in his neck and inhaled.
He kissed the top of her head, one hand stroking down her glistening body, coming to rest on her bottom. “Slow and you just don’t go together, do they?” he gasped.
“Get over it, cowboy,” she rumbled, reveling in the salty taste of his neck.
She felt his deep chuckle.
“I’ll try,” he promised, easing her thighs apart. “I’ll try really, really hard.”
He eased inside her inch by careful inch. She bit down hard on her bottom lip. Time was stopping again.
He did slow it down. Then he sped it up. Then slowed it down again, holding her shimmering until she was sure she’d cry out in desperation. He whispered her name over and over, until the city lights blurred and streamed together, melting into the hot, humid ground.
Hours later, the rising sun turned the edge of the ocean a pearly pink. The champagne bottle was three quarters empty. And the lazy ceiling fan pushed a breeze down on Cole’s bare skin.
He dipped a fresh strawberry into the bowl of whipped cream on the bedside table and held it to Sydney’s lips.
She bit down, smiling her appreciation of the delicacy.
He popped the other half into his own mouth, thinking he could happily stay here for the rest of his life.
“So,” she continued around the berry. “Your great-great-granddaddy, the infamous and sexy Jarred Erickson-”
“I believe I take after him,” said Cole, pushing himself into a sitting position, striking a pose among half a dozen plump, white pillows and a billowing comforter.
“The sexy part or the infamous part?” she asked, bending her knees to cross her ankles in the air and resting her chin on her interlaced fingers.
Cole took in her tousled hair and her bare buttocks. Yep. Definitely forever. “I’m thinking both,” he said.
She grinned and reached for her champagne flute. “So you’re telling me Jarred decreed that the ranch should stay as one parcel into perpetuity?”
Cole nodded. “My ancestors were big on decrees. Every few generations, somebody comes up with something that wreaks havoc for a couple hundred years.”
He figured most of them were lunatics, particularly those who had taken to piracy.
She took a sip of the champagne, and he had to curb an urge to kiss the sweetness from her mouth.
“And your solution is to come up with some new decrees?” she asked.
“Damn straight. It’s my turn. I complied with theirs-”
Sydney coughed out a laugh.
“What?”
“You complied with what, exactly?”
“Passing on the Thunderbolt.”
“Ha. You had to be railroaded into marriage.”
That was unfair. He frowned at her. “It’s completely voluntary.”
“As a last resort.”
He reached for his own champagne, leaning back against the birch headboard. “Point is, it’ll get the job done.”
“You’re also splitting the ranch in half, in defiance of Great-great-granddaddy Jarred.”
“That’s just common sense. Keeping it intact was a stupid idea.”
“Are you always this determined that you’re right and everyone else is wrong?”
“Of course.”
“Of course,” she mimicked.
“Hey, if a man doesn’t trust his own judgment, what’s left?”
She laughed again, nearly spilling her champagne. Then she twisted into a sitting position, rearranging the comforter over her lap. “You know, whoever came up with the wenches and ale rule, sure had you Erickson men pegged.”
“Wenches and ale?”
“Yeah. You know. The wenches and ale.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Didn’t your grandma tell you?”
Cole shook his head.
Sydney leaned across him, snagging another strawberry and dipping it in the cream. “That’s why the women get the brooch.” She popped the berry into her mouth. “Somebody back in the fourteenth century decided you guys might sell it for wenches and ale. You know, the Erickson of the day would change the tradition. And, poof, there would go the Thunderbolt.”
Cole couldn’t help but grin.
“What?” she asked.
“Who needs wenches and ale?” He lifted his flute in a mock toast. “I’ve got champagne and-”
“Watch it, cowboy.”
He leaned forward and kissed her strawberry lips, taking the safe route. “A princess.”