He brushed his thumb beside her breast, coaxing her skin awake.

“You’re really good at that,” she told him as he moved to kiss the side of her neck.

“At kissing?” He playfully bit her ear.

“At making me feel like the only woman in the world.”

His hand left her breast and moved to her cheek. He leaned back and she opened her eyes to find him staring at her with his dark, blue eyes. “You are the only woman in my world, Eliza.”

Who knew Carter’s thoughts ran deep? The compassion she found behind his eyes made her admit something she’d never done before. “It’s Lisa. My name before…it was Lisa.”

His hands hesitated on their discovery trip over her body, and he lowered his voice to just above a whisper. “Have you ever told anyone else that?”

“No,” she whispered. “I never wanted to until now.”

The smile on his face reached his eyes, and he held her closer. “When we’re here, I’ll use your real name.”

Tears welled in her eyes, which was silly. Her heart wasn’t filled with sadness, but joy in having trust in another human being. “I’d like that.”

She slid her thigh between his and moved deeper into his embrace. She sought his lips and languished in his taste. His stiff arousal pressed firmly against her stomach. He sleeps in the nude. She notched the information into her brain and soaked in his slow, titillating touch.

The leisurely kisses proved maddening as her skin heated and her body began to ache. Carter didn’t seem to feel the same urgency to move faster, and yet he kept devouring her mouth, face, and neck.

Eliza found a sensitive spot on his hip and dug her fingernails into his dense muscles, marveling at his perfection. Everywhere she touched she liked, wanted more. Soon, the friction of his leg pulsating between hers wasn’t enough. She followed his hip and ran the tip of her finger over his erection.

Carter groaned and moved his lips and tongue to the flesh below her collarbone. Her br**sts ached, wanting his touch. With a gentle nudge, she guided him to where she wanted him. Lord he took his time pushing away her nightgown before swirling his tongue around one pert nipple. He licked her as if she was made of the finest cream, and he wasn’t going to stop until the bowl was empty.

Suddenly the clothing she wore felt like a noose around her neck and the urgency to feel him skin to skin overwhelmed her. She stopped teasing his erection and tugged at the fringes of her lingerie. He took the hint and stripped it away.

High color reached his cheeks as his gaze traveled her naked body.

“I work out,” she teased.

“I can tell. I always knew you’d be spectacular.”

She squirmed under him, constantly aware of his heated sex and how close it was to bringing them both pleasure. “You thought about me?”

“All the time.” He kissed her nipple again, and the one scrap of clothing she had left on dampen.

“Even when we argued?”

He moved lower, kissing under her breast and tasting her stomach. “Especially when we argued. You’re all fire and passion. I’ve always wanted a sample of that.” He ran a finger under her panties.

She gasped when he found her moist aroused state.

“You’re killing me,” he said.

She laughed and lifted her hips to help him ease off her panties. He watched as she wiggled her hips.

“Death by sex. I don’t know if that’s happened in real life. Fiction maybe.”

He found her sex again, the way he had before all those weeks ago in her kitchen. “I want to taste you…all of you. But I don’t think I can wait much longer,” he told her.

The waiting was killing her, too. “Then don’t wait, Hollywood.” She opened her thighs a little wider, enticing him.

Carter reached to the table on his side of the bed. There he found a condom he must have placed there the night before.

“I’m on the pill,” she told him.

He hesitated with the package. “Are you suggesting we don’t use this?”

Am I? She was a twenty-first century woman, she never slept with a man without one. The risks weren’t worth the pleasure. “I-I don’t…I’ve never not,” she told him. “But if we wanted to…” What am I saying? “If we didn’t use it, we’d be safe. We’ve never talked about these things.”

He palmed the condom, leaned in, and kissed her again. “I’m clean,” he whispered between kisses. The awkward moment she’d just had disappeared like pixie dust on the wind.

He stopped kissing her long enough for her to open her eyes.

“Make love to me without a barrier, Lisa.”

Hearing her name from his lips for the first time made her want to cry. “I’d like that.”

The grin that stretched over his lips spread for miles. He tossed the condom to the floor and moved between her legs.

He gazed into her eyes as he slowly pressed his heated flesh into hers. It had been quite a while for her, but Carter murmured for her to relax and take him in. His eyes rolled into the back of his head, and he dropped his forehead to hers. “So wonderful,” he whispered.

And it was. The heat, the tenderness of his touch. The trust she felt for the man making love to her. She’d trusted men before him, with her body, but never without protection and never with her given name. He was her husband and somewhere this felt more like an act of love than just sex.

The word caught on her mind, and she swept it away. Love opened people to vulnerability and Lisa hated feeling vulnerable.

With a tilt of her hips, Carter was seated inside her and releasing tiny gasps. His fit was perfect. She was already contracting around him, wanting more.

Eliza never imagined Carter to be so complete in his lovemaking. She’d fantasized about him in bed more than once, but never thought he would make her want to roll him on his back and take over, yet at the same time, want to wait and see what he would incite from her next.

“Carter?”

He thrust his hips to hers and pulled away slowly. “I feel like a teenager again. I want to devour you slowly one minute and work you over the next.”

She wrapped her legs around his waist and grinned. “You’ve devoured. It’s time for the work over.”

“Thank God. Hold on.”

For a minute, Eliza thought he was teasing, but then he started to move. Holding on became increasingly difficult as he pressed her deeper into the bed with each pass of his sex over hers. The intensity of his pace and the speed in which he brought her desire to a peak startled her. He found the perfect stroke and friction.