Nostrils flaring, his chest heaves against my knuckles. “Two shots. That’s all you had tonight, right?” he questions.

I nod. “Why?”

His entire arm curves around my back, jerking me forward until we’re pressing together, his solid against my soft, then he cups my face and brushes his thumb along my cheek. “`Cause I want to take you to my room and do all those things I’ve been thinking about doing since I first saw you storming across that dance floor, but I won’t if you’ve had more than that, darlin’. I want you remembering this tomorrow.”

I start breathing faster, so quick it’s like I’m being chased. I wet my lips.

I’m not drunk, not at all, but I do feel a little mindless and wild and daring enough to roll up onto my toes, place my mouth a breath away from his and reply, “Then I suggest you make it good enough to remember.”

I cannot believe I just said that. That wasn’t me. It’s the tequila talking. Honest.

Only . . .

It isn’t. Not even a little bit.

His eyes flash with heat, then he’s on me and we’re kissing with hungry mouths and greedy tongues, and it’s unlike I’ve ever kissed anyone before because I can’t remember feeling a need like this burning through me. Not ever.

I’ve had passionate kisses. Ones that make my skin flush and my breath quick but nothing like this.

Nothing even close.

It’s long and slow and unrestrained.

CJ keeps one arm curved around my back as his other hand slides along my face to my neck, breaking goosebumps out along my skin, then his fingers are delving into my hair, twisting in my messy practice wedding-day updo.

I want him to ruin it. I don’t care that I’ve spent forty-five minutes getting it perfect. I want to look undone.

He tilts my head to deepen the kiss and does this thing with his tongue that has me gasping and groaning, then standing taller and pressing closer on shaking legs. I could stand here forever and kiss him, openly and witlessly.

But I don’t.

My feet shift blindly beneath me as CJ moves us away, and I don’t care where we end up, his room or mine, a remote spot or somewhere public where anyone could see, I don’t care. I’m lost. So far gone to this kiss. I’m not thinking about anything besides his soft mouth and his rough hands and the scratch of his beard as it burns my skin and hopefully leaves evidence of tonight.

Whatever happens, I want to remember this.

His taste saturates my tongue. His frenzied touch squeezes my hips and presses low to my back as he heaves me closer and carries me when I’m doing nothing but dragging my feet and slowing us down.

And he never stops kissing me.

It’s the hardest, deepest, most incredible kiss of my life, and I just want time to stop right now or the world to end so this is the last kiss I’ll ever feel.

I’m shaking and moaning and making sounds I’ve never made before, and this is before we even make it to his room. And once that door shuts behind us and we separate long enough to look at each other, really look—his hair, wild from my fingers and my lips swollen and kiss-bitten—reality washes in to slow us down or stop us all together.

But it can’t touch us.

Nothing can touch us. Nothing can stop this from happening. We both know it.

CJ moves first but only a second before I reach out to grab him, then we’re stripping each other of clothes and kissing skin we’ve never seen, gripping and stroking while moving each other across the room until the bed catches us.

I cling to him as he moves on top of me, running my hands up and down the hard planes of his back and wishing I could see what I look like beneath him.

Small and a little nervous and inexperienced. Are my eyes wild and are my hands shaking and do I look as fragile as I feel?

He sucks on my throat and the tops of my breasts. He teases my nipple with his tongue and lets me feel the sharp edge of his teeth.

I gasp and hold him tighter.

“Do you like that?” he asks, moving up to my neck and whispering there.

“Yeah.”

My voice is breathless, quiet under the noise of my pounding heart.

I arch my back and spread my legs as he slides the palm of his hand down my body. Breasts, ribs, belly, hips. He touches and spends time on everything before he’s moving over my clit and pressing lower.

“Oh, God,” I pant, turning my face against the pillow as he pushes a finger inside me.

“You’re fucking wet,” he growls, kissing along my jaw. My cheek. I feel him smile. “I like that, darlin'.”

Darlin’.

God . . .

I can’t believe this is happening.

I can’t . . . believe . . . this is happening.

And it happens again, and again . . . and again.

CJ spends his time on me and I spend my time on him, touching and learning what the other person likes. We’re slow until we can’t stand another second of waiting and wondering, and then we’re desperate. It’s unreal. He’s everywhere, all over me, his mouth and his hands and the needy, broken words he presses into my skin as we explore every inch of each other. I’m dizzy and delirious before he even fucks me.

And then he fucks me.

And if it’s possible to look inside another person’s soul, I swear CJ doesn’t just peer at mine. He stares and studies it like I mean something to him. Like this is important.

Between the rough and the dirty he gives me sweet as if he really cares and this really matters, and my little naive heart believes it.