know, for a moment, in public, fully dressed, that Zack was attracted to her. It was another to suddenly forget a lifetime’s insecurity. To wonder if it would be Hannah on his mind.
They were in the bedroom. And her eyes were fixed on the bed, that invitation to decadence, to passion unlike anything she’d ever known. With the man she loved.
She sucked in a breath. She wasn’t going to worry about how attracted he was to her, where she ranked with his other lovers. This night was for her. It was the culmination of every fantasy, every longing she’d had since Zack had walked into the bakery she worked at seven years ago and offered her a job.
He pulled her to him and kissed her. Hungry. Wild. She felt it, too, an uncontrollable, uncivilized need that had no place anywhere else in her life. No one had ever made her feel like this. No one had ever made her want to forget every convention, every rule, and just follow her body’s most untamed needs.
But Zack did.
“I want you,” she said, her voice breaking as they parted. She had to say it. Because it had been building in her for so long and now she felt like she was going to burst with it.
“I want you, too. I’ve thought of this before,” Zack said, unbuttoning his shirt as he spoke, revealing that gorgeous, toned chest. “Of what it might be like to see you.”
“To … to see me?”
“Naked,” he said.
“You have?” she asked, her voice trembling now, because she’d hoped, maybe naively, that he would want the lights off. She didn’t want him to see her. Touch, yes. Taste, sure. But see?
“Of course I have. I’ve tried not to think about it too hard. Because you work for me. Because you’re my friend. And it’s not good to picture friends or employees naked. In my life, everything has a place, and yours was never supposed to be in my bed. And I was never supposed to imagine you naked. But I have anyway sometimes.”
“I have a hard time believing that.”
“Why?” He shrugged his shirt off and let it fall to the floor, then his hands went to his belt and her breath stuck in her throat.
“Because I’m … average.”
He chuckled, his hands freezing on the belt buckle. “Damn your mother for making you believe that garbage.” He took a step toward her and put his hand on her cheek, his thumb sliding gently across her face. “You are exquisite. You have such perfect skin. Smooth. Soft. And your body.” He put his other hand on her waist. “I thought of you last night. Of this. Of how beautiful you would look.”
Reflexively she pulled back slightly.
“What?” he asked.
“I’m not … What was Hannah? A size two? I’m … I’m not a size two.”
“Beauty isn’t a size. I don’t care what the number on the tag of your dresses says. I don’t care what your sister looked like, or what your mother thought you should look like. I know what I see. You have the kind of curves other women envy.” He reached around and caught the tab on her summer dress with his thumb and forefinger and tugged it down partway.
Her hands shook, her body trembling inside and out. She felt like she was back beneath the spotlight again. Just waiting to have all of her flaws put out there for everyone to ridicule.
“Wait,” she said.
His hands stilled. “I don’t know if I can.”
“Please. Can were turn the lights off?”
There was only one lamp on. It wasn’t terribly bright in the room, but she still felt exposed already, with the zipper barely open across the top part of her back. She felt awkward. Unexceptional. Especially faced with all of Zack’s perfection. He didn’t have an ounce of spare flesh, every muscle perfectly defined as though he were carved from granite.
He put his hands on her hips and pulled her to him. She could feel his erection again, hard and hot against her. “You are perfect.” He moved his hands around to her back, to her bottom, cupping her. She gasped. She’d never been this intimate with a man. She wondered if she should be more or less nervous that it was Zack she was finally taking the step with.
No one had seen her naked, not since she was in diapers. She didn’t even change in public locker rooms. She would hide in bathroom stalls, needing the coverage of four walls and a door. And Zack wanted.
“Please.”
“Let me see you first.” Her eyes met his and she drew in an unsteady breath. “It’s me, Clara.”
“I know,” she said.
“When you’re ready.”
She took a breath and turned away from him, catching the zipper and tugging it down the rest of the way, letting her dress fall to the floor. Zack moved behind her, his arm curving around her, his palm pressed flat against her stomach.
He swept her hair to the side and pressed a kiss to her neck. “As I said. Perfection.”
He turned her slowly, keeping his arms around her, holding her against him, his hard body acting as a shield. Cocooned in his arms, she didn’t feel quite so naked.
She looked at his eyes, so familiar, yet different at the same time. Zack’s eyes, filled with a kind of raw lust she’d never had directed at her before. Not by him, not by any man. The enormity of the moment hit her then. She was about to be with Zack. About to make love to him.
She started shaking then, her hands, her entire body, from the inside out. He wrapped his arms around her and held her against him. “Are you okay?”
“Yes,” she said, her voice shaking. “I’m okay.”
“Why are you shaking?” She couldn’t answer. “Be honest,” he said.
“Because it’s you.”
He tilted his head to the side and kissed her. She closed her eyes determined to do nothing more than luxuriate in the moment. The heat of his mouth, the slide of his tongue. She was going to believe, in this moment, that she could be the woman he wanted.
He reached around and unhooked her bra. He pulled back from her for a moment so he could remove it the rest of the way, leaving her exposed to his hungry gaze. “I said you were perfection, but I didn’t know just how true that was.”
A hot flush spread over her entire body, heating her. Embarrassment battling with desire.
He cupped her breasts, sliding his thumbs over her nipples. And that was when desire won. She shook with pleasure, her stomach tightening, her internal muscles pulsing, her body ready, demanding, more of him. Demanding climax. She was close to finding it, with just the touch of his hands. Maybe it was because in her mind she had found pleasure with him so many times, in reality, it was effortless to get close to the peak.
A hoarse sound caught in her throat and she felt herself go over the edge. She gripped his forearms, her fingernails digging into his flesh. As soon as the numbing pleasure washed away, embarrassment crashed in on her. She couldn’t believe she’d come so quickly. Telling in so many ways. She hadn’t realized just how impossible it would be to keep secrets when they were like this, hadn’t realized just how intimate it would be.
“I …” She looked at his face, and his expression stole the words from her lips. A look of pure masculine satisfaction, combined with total arousal. The embarrassment dissolved. She reached forward and put her hands on his belt buckle, undoing it and pulling his belt from the loops.
He pulled her to him again, kissing her like a starving man. She reached between them and undid the closure on his pants, pushing them down his hips, along with his underwear. She felt his bare flesh against her for the first time, so impossibly hot and hard.
She wrapped her fingers around him and squeezed. She wasn’t sure why, only that she wanted to. That she wanted to touch him,