"Oh, for heaven's sake."

As he pulled, she lifted her hips, squirming left and right. His tiny smile said he was enjoying the show, and his sudden inability to pull a pair of jeans off a woman said he was creating the show on purpose. Finally he pulled just enough that they skimmed over her hips and down her legs. He tossed them aside, then eased her panties down over her hips, her thighs, her calves, and finally past her feet. And a glacier could have thawed in the time it took him to do it.

She was naked. He wasn't. That wasn't the order she generally strove for. But at least they were making progress. Come on, baby. Let's rock. Come on, baby. Let's rock.

To her surprise, he walked to the door of the bedroom.

"Hey! Where are you going?"

"I'll only be a minute." He pointed an admonishing finger. "And remember what happens if you let go."

He left the room, and she heard his footsteps on the stairs. What in the h.e.l.l was he doing?

This was completely insane.

Get up. Take control of this outrageous situation. Get him naked and get on with it. naked and get on with it.

Then she glanced down at the drapery cord still lying on the mattress beside her.

Better stay put.

A minute later, she heard his footsteps coming back up the stairs. He came into the room holding a large bowl. What in the h.e.l.l was he doing?

He sat down on the bed beside her again, setting the bowl on the nightstand. He reached into it, and what he extracted made her heart go crazy.

A lime.

Dave grabbed a knife from the bowl and flicked through the lime, separating it into two halves.

Lisa's eyes widened. "Oh, you have got got to be joking." to be joking."

"Those Lozanos. Gotta hand it to them. They really know how to kick a party up to the next level."

"Dave, no. This is insane. I'm going to let go. I swear-" The first frigid drop hit right at the hollow of her throat. If he'd released a lit match on her, she couldn't have felt it more. Even though the lime juice was cold, it seemed to sizzle against her skin, and she had to clamp her mouth shut to keep from gasping.

"You're out of your mind," she said between clenched teeth. "You know that, don't you? You're completely out of your mind."

He ignored her, squeezing the lime half until it dripped into the hollow of her throat, then moving it to either collarbone, down to her breastbone, and circling her nipples, letting each drop fall slowly and singularly. He blazed a path of lime juice down her stomach, into her navel, as she watched with rapt disbelief. She had no idea just how intense a Chinese lime juice torture could be.

Then he moved lower, and she nearly gasped when she realized how far he intended to take this.

She immediately pressed her thighs together. He countered by teasing his fingertips in a tickling motion along the crevice between her thigh and pelvis. As she twisted away from him, her legs fell open, and he took the opportunity to squeeze the remainder of the juice of the lime half right between her legs.

"You play dirty."

That smile again.

Then he reached into the bowl again and produced a saltshaker.

Not in her wildest dreams had she imagined that she'd be making like a head-to-toe tequila shot tonight, or that the slightest sprinkle of salt along the same path as the lime juice could make her practically jump out of her skin.

"I'm taking it easy on the salt," he said, shaking lightly. "Gotta watch the old blood pressure."

Which meant he intended to taste every bit of it, and the thought of that made Lisa's heart rate shoot through the roof.

"Don't tell me you found the tequila," she said.

"Not a drop in the house," he said, eyeing her body from head to toe. "But I have a feeling that in just a minute I won't give a d.a.m.n about that."

He set the saltshaker down and stood up, and she finally got at least one wish she'd made tonight. He stripped completely, and she saw to her immense relief that he appeared to be as ready as she was to get on with this get on with this.

But still he was in no hurry.

He began by licking at the hollow of her throat, his tongue moving gently against her, waking up nerve endings she didn't even know she had. Then he teased his tongue over her collarbone in a slow, sensuous back-and-forth motion. She wanted to scream. Centuries turned more quickly than this man was moving.

Edging downward, he circled his tongue around her right nipple, then sucked it into his mouth, taking the salt and the lime juice in an intense pulling motion that sent fiery hot tremors radiating right down between her legs.

"I love the way you taste," Dave said, his lips humming against her breast. "And the salt and lime juice aren't bad, either."

He moved to her other breast, giving it the same treatment, licking and sucking the salt and lime away, every movement of his lips and tongue so slow and sensual that she almost couldn't endure it. Then he moved along her breastbone, working his way down to her navel, stopping periodically to swirl his tongue in tiny circles or reach out the tip of it to capture a stray drop of lime juice. Lisa had never felt anything like it in her life. He was concentrating every bit of his attention on one tiny part of her body at a time, elevating the sensitivity of that particular part until she wanted to scream.

"Dave?" she said breathlessly.

"Uh-huh?"

"You've got to stop this."

He responded by streaking his tongue over her abdomen. She stiffened, sure he was going to move lower still. Instead, he stopped and stood up.

"Now," she said on a harsh breath. "I want you inside me. Right now now."

He came around to the foot of the bed, where he gently pressed her legs apart. He stared down at her for a long time, devouring her with his eyes, his intense gaze making her heart rate soar. She lifted her hips, encouraging him to plunge right inside her. Instead, he began to stroke her legs with his fingertips.

No, no, no!

"Dave-now."

"Hush."

"But I want you to-"

"What you want is not the issue here. I'm far more interested in what you need."

He pa.s.sed his thumbs over the creases between her thighs and pelvis, causing salt to sc.r.a.pe gently against her skin. Dipping his head, he ran his lips across her, then followed with his tongue, easing toward the very center of her.

Oh, G.o.d, oh, G.o.d, oh, G.o.d. . . .

Exposing her c.l.i.t with his thumbs, he teased his tongue in a half circle around it on the continued pretense of finishing off the lime juice and salt. She couldn't breathe for the antic.i.p.ation she felt, and when he finally flicked his tongue against the most sensitive part of her a flash of unbearable sensation streaked through her. She gasped and twisted hard to one side.

"Easy, baby," he said, holding her hips until she stilled. "You act as if the men you've been with have never done this before."

"They haven't."

"Only because you wouldn't let them. Fortunately, I don't have to ask."

He lowered his head again, this time closing his mouth over her with a soft sucking motion of his lips and tongue that made her squirm all over again, but he held her in place, and after a moment the sharp stabs of sensation melted into something warm and pleasurable. He splayed his palm against her abdomen to hold her steady, then swept two fingers of his other hand over her moist opening. With his mouth still against her, he slid his fingers deep inside her, then stroked them back and forth at the same time his tongue moved in an incredible rhythmic motion that did away with all pretense of salt and lime juice removal. Every move now was focused only on making her crazy with need, driving her from feeling warm and pleasurable right into hot and pa.s.sionate.

"Dave . . . oh, G.o.d. . . ."

With no voluntary thought at all, she began to flex her hips in sync with his movements. She was used to control, demanded control, but now she had no control at all. He was propelling her right into a realm where she wasn't thinking straight, where everything seemed hot and hazy and unsure. She tried to focus, tried to think, but all at once it felt as if she'd flown into a bank of clouds and couldn't get her bearings. Her breath was coming so fast she felt dizzy and light-headed, shifting her perception until the pleasure seemed distorted, her heart racing with uneasiness instead. With every stroke of his tongue and fingers, one more fragment of her carefully constructed sense of control slipped away, until she felt as if she were falling, as if her plane had stalled and she was plummeting toward earth, only this time there was nothing she could do to pull out of the dive.

"No!"

She pulled away from the headboard, sat up, and grasped Dave's shoulders, breathing hard, her eyes squeezed closed. "Stop. Please stop. Please. Please."

Dave leaned away with a regretful sigh, shaking his head. "Now you've done it."

He rose, came around the bed, and sat down beside her. He picked up the cord.

"Dave," she said, her breath coming in ragged spurts. "No. You're not actually going to-"

"I don't make idle threats."

He took hold of her wrists and slid the looped cord loosely over them. When she tried to pull away, he gave her a warning stare.

"Now, Lisa, while you're a woman I'd generally think twice about messing with, you and I both know that the outcome here is hardly in question."

She couldn't believe it. He actually intended to tie her up.

"I'm a very patient man," he said in a firm but even voice. "But before this night is out, I will will get my way." get my way."

She still felt so hot and swollen between her legs, her whole body trembling with the need she felt desperate to deny. As she sat there, her chest still heaving, he wound the cord around her wrists in a figure eight motion, and some force she couldn't fathom kept her from pulling away. Then he eased her down to her back again, held her bound wrists over her head, and secured them to the headboard spindles. With a final tug on the cord, he leaned in and teased his lips against her ear.

"I've got you now. I can do anything I want to, and there's not a d.a.m.ned thing you can do about it."

Her heart hammered her chest, beating with the frantic pace of a hummingbird's wings. She tried to concentrate on the incredible level of s.e.xual excitement he'd brought her to, but she couldn't. She couldn't fight the feeling that washed over her with her wrists bound, the terrible sense that she was caught. Trapped. Completely at the mercy of another human being. With her control completely stripped away, her apprehension quickly turned to panic.

She pulled on the cord that bound her wrists, desperate to free herself, desperate to get away, desperate to- Wait.

She froze, breathing hard.

Pulled again.

With next to no effort, she could have slipped right out of the cord that held her.

She snapped her gaze up to meet Dave's and found him staring down at her, waiting for her next words. Just staring at her, his dark eyes solemn and sincere.

Trust me, he was telling her. he was telling her. Just let me love you. Just let me love you.

As the depth of his understanding suddenly became clear, her world seemed to tilt into an entirely new dimension. He was trying to give her something that went right to the heart of the relationship between a man and a woman, a connection she needed so much. And more important, he was giving her the pretense to accept it, if that was what she needed.

He was right. So right. He couldn't give her anything if she refused to take it. With a desperation that drenched her very soul, she wanted all he had to give her, no matter how much she had to open herself up to get it.

"You seem to have forgotten where you were," she said, her voice quivering.

"Do you remember?"

"You were touching me." She swallowed hard. "With your tongue."

A faint smile crossed his lips. "Now, how in the world could I have forgotten that?"

As he rested his hands against her thighs, she let her legs fall to either side. But when he pressed his mouth to her again, the feeling was so intense that she couldn't help shivering beneath his hands.

"Just relax, baby," he told her. "Relax. . . ."

His voice was hypnotic, his hot breath skating across her. She closed her eyes and gave herself to him completely, allowing him to touch her, tease her, to send her on an upward spiral all over again. The tension he created slowly pulled her tighter and tighter, like an arrow on a bow, quivering with the need to be released. Soon her breath became short, sharp gasps, her mind so far beyond reason that she couldn't have managed a single coherent thought. It was as if she were climbing through that cloud bank again, only this time she was focused on the clear blue sky she knew was beyond it and wanting it more than anything.

He paused for a moment, and she instantly arched up to meet him again. "No! Don't stop! Please Please don't stop! Oh, G.o.d, Dave . . . don't stop! Oh, G.o.d, Dave . . . don't stop don't stop!"

Words of sheer desire tumbled from her lips in a spontaneous rush. He pressed his mouth to her again, and somewhere deep inside her something caught fire. Flared.

Exploded.

She cried out his name, shuddering wildly, as wave after wave of incredible sensation slammed into her. He clamped down hard on her hips, holding her steady, compelling her body to accept every bit of pleasure that he could possibly wring from it. Still she gripped the spindles of the headboard, her eyes squeezed shut, overwhelmed by the feeling that she'd burst through those clouds into a sun so brilliant it couldn't possibly be real.

She sensed him grabbing one of the condoms, ripping it open, and before she could even breathe again, before the sensations had faded away, he rose above her, moved between her legs, and plunged inside her in one deep, possessive thrust, intensifying the climax still pulsing through her. He fell to his forearms, his dark gaze locked onto hers, transfixing her with the burning desire that filled his eyes.

"Do you feel how much I want you?" he said, his voice a harsh whisper. "Do you?"

"Yes," she said, barely able to speak. "Yes." "Yes."

"Hold on to me, baby. Put your arms around me."

She twisted her wrists wildly, pulling loose from her bonds, then wrapped her arms around him. Oh, G.o.d, G.o.d, it felt so good to finally touch him, to hold him like this. As he moved inside her with hard, forceful strokes, she clutched him tightly, her fingertips digging into the muscles of his back and shoulders, bruising him, she knew, but she couldn't stop. She had the most glorious sensation of him filling her, not just her body but her heart, her mind, her deepest needs. Unbelievably, instead of her climax fading away, she felt that place inside her spark again, deep ripples of heat swelling through her. An act that always generated a raw, unfinished sensation for her felt on the verge of being full and complete, and she wanted it more than anything. it felt so good to finally touch him, to hold him like this. As he moved inside her with hard, forceful strokes, she clutched him tightly, her fingertips digging into the muscles of his back and shoulders, bruising him, she knew, but she couldn't stop. She had the most glorious sensation of him filling her, not just her body but her heart, her mind, her deepest needs. Unbelievably, instead of her climax fading away, she felt that place inside her spark again, deep ripples of heat swelling through her. An act that always generated a raw, unfinished sensation for her felt on the verge of being full and complete, and she wanted it more than anything.

She rose to meet every stroke, begging him with every breath to bring them both together to that glittering moment of release. The same foggy sensations clouded her mind as before, the same spasms radiated deep inside her, all of it expanding and multiplying with every furious thrust.

"Oh, G.o.d . . . Lisa . . . yes yes. . . ." A groan rose in his throat, a deep, rasping sound of pleasure that seemed to quiver through his entire body. "Come with me, baby. . . . Come with me. . . ."

He'd barely gotten the words out when she drew in a deep, gasping breath. It was happening again. She couldn't believe it.

Oh, G.o.d, G.o.d, she was coming again. she was coming again.

She cried out as the sensations swept through her, deep, concentrated spasms that seemed to go on forever. They locked every nerve and muscle in their grip, bubbling up from someplace inside her that had never been touched before. And Dave was right there with her, holding her so tightly, drawing himself deeply inside her as the last waves of pleasure washed over them both.

Breathing hard, he lay against her, every muscle taut, his face buried against her neck. "Yes," he murmured. "Every time, just like that. That's how it's going to be from now on."

"Oh, G.o.d," she said suddenly, shifting beneath him. He rolled to one side. She sat up suddenly, barely able to breathe, the sheer power of it making her tremulous and unsteady. "Oh, my G.o.d."