reserved around her.
Tonight she’d felt the force of that sexy smile, the intensity of his midnight blue eyes directed at her, and she’d liked it. She was surprised to discover a want inside her, a desire to throw caution to the wind, abandon her good senses and go crawl into his bed.
Mindless pleasure between two consenting adults. Would it really be wrong? She was on her feet at the side of the bed before she realized she’d consciously made up her mind.
Before she could change it, she walked out of her bedroom and into his. The moonlight in his room was brighter, drifting through a bank of floor-to-ceiling windows on the opposite side of the large room.
He sat up, a dark silhouette in the king-size bed. “Greta? Do you need something?” His voice sounded deeper, huskier than usual. She walked to stand at the very edge of his bed, his features now visible to her.
Hunger. It shone from his eyes and stole not only her power to speak but also momentarily her ability to breathe. He didn’t say anything. He lifted the sheet that covered him and she slid in beside him.
“Are you sure?” he asked softly.
“I’m here,” she replied.
She tried to tell herself it was the dizzying effect of the wine, the stress of the past five months in her life. She tried to believe that she wasn’t herself, that she was acting irrationally, but the truth was she just wanted him to make love to her.
He pulled her into his arms and took her mouth with his in a fiery openmouthed kiss that heated her from head to toe. He continued to kiss her until she couldn’t think. At the same time his hands moved languidly up and down the back of the T-shirt, stopping just shy of her bare buttocks.
She ran her hands across his shoulders and back, vaguely surprised by the play of hard muscles beneath his warm skin, muscles that were usually hidden beneath crisp white shirts and expensive suit coats.
He wore a pair of boxers, and those and her T-shirt were the only barriers between them and total naked flesh.
A small moan escaped her lips as his hands moved beneath her T-shirt at the same time his mouth slid down the length of her throat. He nibbled and teased her neck and then sucked one of her nipples through the thin cotton material. Flames of desire flared hot through her.
She reached down, slid her hand beneath the band of his boxers and grasped him. He was fully erect and after that everything happened in a haze.
T-shirt and boxers were gone, leaving them naked and gasping.
He teased and tormented her, stroking every inch of her body. He was confident and masterful in his touch and shot electric pleasure through her.
He followed his heated caresses with his mouth, kissing her in places she’d never been kissed before.
In turn, she did the same, stroking his smooth, muscled back, kissing down his neck and across his broad chest.
She was on fire and only he could put out the flames. She moved her hips against his, wanting...needing him to take her.
When his fingers danced across the place where she needed him to touch her most, she gasped in fevered delight.
His fingers pressed harder, moved faster against her sensitive center, and a rising, overwhelming tension filled her.
As it peaked she rode the wave of a climax that left her shuddering with the force of the release. He didn’t give her time to catch her breath. He moved between her thighs and took her.
He stroked deep and slow, and the rise of her pleasure began to build again. She moaned his name and he increased the speed of his thrusts. Her hips met his as they moved in a frenzy.
They ended together, with her crying with her own climax as he groaned and finished, as well.
When it was over, he held himself above her with his weight on his elbows. His eyes gleamed with the satisfaction of his possession. “I knew you’d be the perfect lover for me,” he whispered.
“And I knew this was a huge mistake.”
He frowned and rolled to the side of her. “Why was this a mistake? It was just as I imagined it would be...beyond wonderful. We fit together so well.”
She sat up and grabbed the sheet to hide her breasts. She couldn’t tell him it was a mistake that she wanted to repeat again and again, but that was the truth.
She’d never felt so wonderfully out of control as she had when he’d made love to her. She’d never known the intensity of the electric sensations he’d pulled from her. He’d tapped into a part of her that she hadn’t even known existed.
“I’m not in the habit of falling into bed with men I don’t love,” she finally replied. She certainly wasn’t in the habit of falling into bed with men who didn’t love her. “I’m not a one-night-stand kind of woman.”
“I’m hoping this isn’t a one-night kind of thing,” he replied.
His words shocked her almost as much as her uncharacteristic actions so far this night. “What exactly did you have in mind?”
He reached up and gently shoved a strand of her hair away from her face. “I was hoping that you’d meet my horse in the morning and agree to work with her. It’s too long of a drive for you to come back and forth from Tulsa every day, so I figured you’d move in here, where you’ll be available to work whenever you want to. And if you’re staying here, why not sleep in my bed each night?”
“Did you manipulate things so that this would all happen?” She gazed at him searchingly. “Did you decide to alibi me knowing that Mark would break off our engagement, that I’d come here to speak to you and that I’d wind up in your bed?”
He laughed, a deep low rumble that she found ridiculously pleasant. “You’re giving me far too much credit as a super mastermind.” He sobered and his eyes took on that glow that created a new heat to flow through her.
“I waited five days before coming forward with that alibi. I had assumed Mark would do something to help you. When he didn’t, I stepped forward. I knew there would be repercussions to my actions, but I certainly didn’t anticipate you’d wind up here in my bed. But if I’m perfectly honest with you, it’s what I wanted. It’s what I’ve wanted for a very long time.”
“You never gave a hint that you were interested in me before.”
“I told you that I would have never interfered in your relationship with Mark if I truly believed the two of you really belonged together. But it was obvious when Mark didn’t even bother to visit you in jail that you deserved better than my brother. Marrying him would have been the biggest mistake of your life.”
Greta felt as if her head were about to explode. The night had been a surprise on so many levels. She scooted toward the edge of the bed.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
“I’m going back to the guest room, where I probably should have stayed.”
“There’s no reason you can’t finish the night out here,” he countered.
“I don’t want to make this into anything but what it was, an impulsive sexual encounter with a man I barely know. I won’t wake up in your bed, because that makes what we just did into something different.” She frowned, knowing he probably didn’t understand, but it didn’t matter. “I’ll just tell you good-night.”
She slid out of the bed and found the T-shirt on the floor. She pulled it on over her head and then left his room and went back to the guest room next door.
She went directly to the bathroom, turned on the light and stared at her reflection in the mirror. What on earth had she just done? What had she been thinking?
As if her life weren’t complicated enough already, she’d just had mind-blowing sex with Tyler Stanton. And he’d made it clear that he didn’t intend