Man of Her Dreams by Debra Webb (good ebook reader txt) 📕

here and there where they didn’t completely meet. Shadows and light played around the room, reminding her all too much of last night’s journey into the depths of nature’s primordial world. She scratched the back of Wiz’s head as she passed the sofa. She’d filled his food and water bowls and changed his litter box after letting him in this morning. Obviously she wasn’t the only one who’d spent the night prowling around.

Her breath caught as the door to her apartment opened. She relaxed when Aidan stepped inside. He’d apparently gone to his own place across the hall to shower.

Heat infused her as her gaze paused first on his bare chest where that trademark black shirt lay open. Clean black trousers had replaced the ones he’d ruined in the murky swamp. And his feet were bare. She smiled, suddenly fascinated by the shape and length of those masculine feet.

“You need sleep,” he said, that deep voice rougher than usual. The sound rasped over her nerve endings, made her shiver. “I’ll keep watch.”

She moved closer to him, reveled in watching him watch her. “And what about you? Don’t you need sleep as well?” She thought about the way he’d carried her through that swamp for hours. His strength was incredible, unending. How was it possible to have such physical endurance? Maybe it wasn’t. Maybe she’d imagined the whole night. Then she remembered the way he’d kissed her beneath that dark water. The way he’d held her close to his chest, close to his heart, while he trudged through that swamp. Need shuddered through her. He was truly incredible.

Another memory bobbed to the surface. The way he’d been afterward—mechanical…autonomic. Even his voice, the cadence of his speech, had been different. Just how much of himself had he been forced to shut down to go above and beyond normal physical limitations?

“You must be exhausted,” she suggested. It wasn’t a question. He had to be. No normal human could have done what he did and not be totally wiped out.

“I’ll be fine. You should sleep.”

That handsome face was carefully schooled to a neutral expression. He didn’t want her to know…wouldn’t let her see what he really felt.

She moved another step closer. “I don’t want to sleep.”

“When the adrenaline wears off, you’ll want to sleep,” he countered.

She took a position less than a foot away from him and tilted her head back to look at him. “What do you suggest I do until then?”

He licked those sexy lips and opened that amazing mouth to make some response but words, apparently, failed him.

“Kiss me, Aidan,” she murmured. “Kiss me like you did when you were trying to save my life.”

Long, slender fingers cupped her face. Artist’s fingers, she mused. But so strong, so skilled in far more things than she knew. As those sensual lips descended to meet hers, one thought rose above all others.

Secrets.

This man had many, many secrets.

His mouth moved slowly at first, savoring, teasing, softly, tenderly, as if he had forever or wanted desperately to memorize every detail of her taste.

She stopped thinking, lost herself in his kiss. His lips were firm and yet soft at the same time. He controlled the pressure, the depth of the kiss.

But she wanted more.

Her arms went up to his shoulders. She pushed the shirt away and smoothed her palms over his wondrously sculpted torso. Flames roared through her, igniting every part of her as she felt the smoothness of his skin, the hardness of male muscle covered in sleek satin. Up and over that sensual landscape her fingers reached until they found a home in his silky hair. And then she traced the planes and angles of his face.

As good as his kiss felt, she had to see. She pulled away to allow her mind the added stimuli of seeing what her fingers felt.

He stood very still as she learned his lips with the tips of her fingers…felt the heat and softness. The squareness of his jaw, the lean planes of his cheeks. High cheekbones, the slender bridge of his nose. A strong brow, unlined by age. He couldn’t be much older than her.

Her heart bumped against her sternum with each frantic beat, with each shallow breath. She couldn’t get enough air into her lungs, couldn’t stop touching him. She wanted to know every part of him.

He lifted his hands to her face and touched her the same way. His own respiration grew rapid and shallow, a perfect match to hers. He pulled a handful of her hair to his face and inhaled deeply, closed those glittering dark eyes as if that were very nearly more than he could bear.

She tugged free the sash to her robe and shrugged out of it, allowing it to fall to the floor in a half circle around her feet. His eyes opened and that impassioned gaze traveled down the length of her and back, then settled on her eyes.

“You are so beautiful.”

He turned her around and pulled her back against him, held her that way, with his arms cradled around her waist and his chin against her hair until she could no longer bear the friction of his trousers against her bare bottom, the feel of his hardened sex restrained behind the fabric.

As if reading her mind or sensing her need, he drew back a few inches and kissed her naked shoulder. Slowly, he kissed his way down her back, moving her long hair aside as he went. When he reached the curve of her hip, he knelt, his hands bracketing her waist. He kissed her hip, then lower, until he reached the next curve where her bottom met her thigh. Then he turned her around.

The image of him kneeling before her took her breath away. His gaze never leaving hers, he leaned forward and pressed a kiss next to her belly button. Her entire body quivered in response.

His fingers glided over her skin, the caress so light she wasn’t even certain he actually touched her though she watched