As she’d already told him once, he was definitely the hottest thing she’d ever seen.

Suddenly, he pulled back, reaching down to grab her and haul her up to him. His chest heaved, and she pushed herself against him, needing every inch of his body next to every inch of hers. She caught his c**k in her hand and gripped him tight at the base, seeking to stem any impending eruption. He throbbed in her hand, and, glancing down, she saw he was flushed dark red with the rush of his blood. Damn, she wanted that inside her. He was as hot in her hand as he had been in her mouth. As he would be in her aching pu**y. She wanted to feel his pulse against hers in that most intimate of places.

“Don’t want to mess up this pretty face,” he murmured, planting little kisses along her lips and stroking her cheek with his thumb.

“I’d have swallowed you, baby,” she whispered. “Every drop.”

“Fuck,” he breathed.

She stepped back, letting go of him and turning, giving him a playful eye over her shoulder as she moved toward his couch. “Too bad. Missed your chance. I want something else now.”

He never let her put much distance between them, dogging her steps until she stopped near his couch, turned and slipped her hands under his T-shirt. “I’d ask again if it’s always about what you want, but you’d tell me it’s not,” he said.

“What’s so bad about that, anyway? What I want is very important to me.”

“As it should be. I’m just wondering how the hell you were ever refused, Gabriella.” His lips grazed hers, and she smiled against them.

“I think I like the sound of that.”

“That I’d give you any f**king thing you wanted, if it was in my power?”

“Everything I want right now is well within your power, Ian.” She let her hand drift down to his c**k again and stroked it base to tip. “Right here.”

“There’s nothing else you want?”

“Of course. But contrary to popular belief, I usually know when what I want isn’t within my reach. Usually.” She gave him a crooked smile. “I have my lapses.”

“Don’t we all.”

He didn’t press further. She was glad, because right now she didn’t want to delve too deeply into the disturbing things she wanted. Slowly, so slowly it agonized her, he began to undress her, kissing every area of intimate skin he exposed. From the gentle, nipping kisses he placed on her sore, swollen br**sts, to the thrilling little lick on her clit as he pulled her jeans and panties down. Before he was done removing them from her feet, she was nearly lying over on top of him. She had to straighten when he stood again.

“Goddamn,” he murmured, tracing his fingers around her ni**les. She shivered.

“I’ve already gone up a freaking cup size,” she muttered.

“You’re gorgeous.” As tenderly as he’d kissed her, he took her br**sts in both hands, and she wanted to roll her eyes into the back of her head at the pleasure of having that achy weight supported in his warm hands. She fit him as if she were made for him. “I could spend all night doing this.”

“I could let you. Mmm.”

“I have to warn you, I have no idea about this pregnancy stuff. If I’m doing something wrong, you have to tell me.”

“Oh, I will. Don’t worry. Right now, the pregnancy stuff is just making me horny as hell.”

“Is that what it is?”

“That and you.”

He dropped his hands, and she wanted to chase after them and put them right back where they’d been. But when he grabbed her ass and pulled her tight against him…yeah, okay, that was good too. Because she was pretty achy in other places as well. “Just so you know, I think you’re only trying to avoid the matter at hand here,” he growled against her neck. “But I’m gonna keep giving you what you want, Gabriella Ross, because I don’t know what else to do. And I’ll lose my f**king sanity if I don’t get back inside you soon.”

All that stuff he’d said to her at Dermamania flashed through her head. He thought about her all the time. He couldn’t sleep. She couldn’t sleep either. What if he really was falling for her? Even worse yet, what if she was falling for him? And soon there would be a baby between them. They could be setting themselves up for a lifetime of misery if they didn’t stop—if she didn’t stop—until they figured this whole thing out, until they saw how it was going to go.

He might be on to something... This was somehow safer than facing their problems. As long as he was touching her, wanting her, everything was okay. And she couldn’t stop. This man was too scrumptious, too hard and hot and dirty, and she’d never experienced anything like it. She wasn’t ready to let it go yet, dammit.

“Do it,” she said. “I need you. I promised we’d talk. I meant it. You haven’t been absent from my mind all this time, Ian. I think about you too. I want to know you in more ways than this.”

“What if you don’t like what you find out?”

A chill went through her. “Then I’ll deal with that when I have to.”

His mouth crushed down on hers, and he toppled them back on the couch. Her heart leaped into her throat, nearly choking her with the force of its pounding. For the first time, a little fear coursed through her. She was pregnant with the child of someone she didn’t know. Someone who might have a few skeletons in his closet. Already, he’d told her about his troubled childhood, and her heart had broken for him. What else could he be hiding, though? She’d trusted him because she trusted Brian not to have anyone shady working at his establishment.

Now she was here spreading her legs for him again, spending most of her waking hours consumed with thoughts of him.

No. It might be naïve of her, but she refused to believe he was anything but honorable, no matter the darkness he hinted at. He could be testing her, seeing what she was made of. She’d show him now.

His kiss was nothing less than savage, but his hands were gentle, and he was careful to keep his weight off her. Pushing her thigh up the back cushion, he dove between her legs, and she writhed as his tongue zeroed in on the one little needy place that craved his attentions. He kissed her there like he’d kissed her mouth. Deep. Tugging lips, swirling tongue. She arched into his mouth. Oh, Jesus Christ, she was going to come already… Her belly tightened, the sensation strange and different than it ever had been, more focused. His fingers slipped deep inside her, adding to the maelstrom threatening to sweep her away. Slow, deliberate thrusts, too slow. He even moved his tongue higher than her clit, too high to throw her over but not so far away she couldn’t feel the distant sensations stoking her flames.

“Oh my God, let me come, Ian,” she cried, grasping frantically at his head with both hands.

“You’ll come on my c**k or you won’t come at all,” he growled against her.

“Then give it to me!”

“I’m having too much fun like this.” He gave her one more thrust with his long fingers, held them deep, then pulled them out and let her watch as he put them in his mouth and tasted her.

Her hips churned with the emptiness at her core. “Please,” she whispered, almost at the end of her strength, reaching in vain for that pleasure that just wouldn’t come. “Please.”