He leaned against the bathroom door frame and, with one flick of his wrist, undid the top button of his trousers. “Yes, Ella. I am.”
“How can you be so sure?” she asked, voice strangled.
He pinched the zipper tab between thumb and forefinger. “I haven’t been able to stop staring at you all night. That dress... God, Ella. That dress. I want to peel it off you slowly, but I’m afraid I won’t have the patience. I want to see you bare, wearing nothing but candlelight, far too badly. I want to touch you, to find out if your nipples are a similar pink to your toes or if they are, in fact, paler.”
Ella traced a hand along the outside of her breast, his eyes following her every move. It was thrilling, knowing she had seduced this man simply by being herself. Erotic in a whole new way.
Liam’s gaze slid back to hers. “I’m done chatting, Ella. Lose the dress.”
She smiled, the coquettish move morphing to something more carnal as her gaze dropped to the smattering of dark hair revealed just above Liam’s zipper. He had an impressive erection going on. Mouth dry, she forced herself to swallow. “We need to set the ground rules.”
“Fine, but be quick about it.” He pulled his zipper down an inch.
“What happens inside this bungalow has no bearing on what happens outside.”
“Spell it out clearly, Ella.”
“What we do here, privately, has nothing to do with who we are professionally. The two—personal and professional—are essentially two different people.”
“I’m fine with that, but I’m more interested in the rules that apply right here. Right now. Tomorrow will be whatever it is.”
Ella licked her lips. Liam’s gaze zeroed in on the movement, and her nipples pearled.
“Lose the dress.”
“Bossy bastard.”
He shrugged, eyes blazing with unchecked desire.
Clutching the bodice of her dress with one hand, she reached up and untied the slender bow at her nape. Strings fell away and the dress sagged around her, held in place but not covering much. “Bedroom rules are simple. If either of us doesn’t like something, we say so, and whatever it is stops.”
“And if you don’t tell me to stop, Ella? What then?”
“Then take it as an official endorsement—hell, take it as a challenge—to pull every other damn word in the English language out of my mouth using only your body. Make me scream, Liam. Make me forget my name. Make me forget every man who has been here before and be the man I’ll compare every future lover to.”
Liam’s lip curled. Before Ella could ask what his issue was, he’d dropped his pants, stepped out of the puddled linen and started toward her, his long strides eating up the distance between them with alarming quickness.
He stopped so close to her she could smell the fragrant musk of his cologne. “Here’s hoping you have a huge vocabulary, Ella. Challenge accepted.”
Then he kissed her.
Ella’s self-control dissolved under Liam’s undivided attention. She let her dress fall to the floor, the silky fabric puddling around her feet like spilled ink. Kicking free, she moved closer to the scalding heat of Liam’s bare skin. She gave herself free rein to explore his chest’s contours with hands and lips, discovering the sculpted hills and salty valleys of muscle defined in stark relief in the moonlight. She shoved his shirt off his shoulders and let it go. It landed somewhere. They’d find it later. For now? There was only her.
Him.
Them.
And the moment demanded her full attention if she was going to keep up with his agenda.
As if he read her mind, he broke away from the kiss and leaned in to nip her earlobe. “Stop trying to make sense of this, Ella. Let it be what it is.”
“And what is this?” she whispered, letting her head tip back, exposing her neck.
His answer, whispered in kind, raked over her skin. “Madness.”
Madness.
She intended to respond, but Liam chose that moment to dip lower and, lifting the globe of her breast, take the nipple into his mouth, where he attended it with lips and tongue and teeth. An invisible line ran through her breast, down her abdomen and settled in her sex. It was hot, tantamount to a lit fuse, and it promised an explosion when it reached her core. Already the embers were burning.