Harlequin Romance March 2021 Box Set Cara Colter (the mitten read aloud TXT) 📖

‘Callie.’

She obeyed the command in his voice to lift her head and meet his gaze. Then he stared at the row of buttons that ran down the length of her dress and his eyes darkened almost to black. Her fingers tightened against his biceps when he licked his lips.

‘Undo your buttons.’

His words were part plea, part command, and all sin.

He made her feel powerful and wholly desirable. He made her want to slowly undo each button—to unwrap herself for him—until he was nearly out of his mind with need and greed and impatience. But if she did that there’d be no turning back.

The tips of his fingers had slipped beneath the edge of her panties and they caressed her bare skin, sending ripples of pleasure radiating outwards and making the very centre of her ache with need. She wanted those fingers exploring further, to more intimate places, but…

‘I figure you’d be less than impressed if I tore all those buttons off that pretty dress.’

‘No tearing,’ she panted.

He stilled, as if sensing her hesitation. ‘Do you want to stop?’

‘No, I just…’ She shook her head, trying to clear it. ‘I can’t help feeling we should think this through more. When we were at Ellerslie we said it was a bad idea…’ It didn’t feel like a bad idea. It felt like the answer to all her prayers. ‘But the minute I—’

She slipped her top button undone. She hadn’t meant to, but her fingers, it appeared, had other ideas. Owen swallowed, and she almost tore open the rest of the buttons then and there.

His fingers tightened on her buttocks, as if he were trying to get a grip on his own wayward desires, but in doing so he only fed hers.

‘Callie, I have no answers about any of this. I only know I want to keep seeing you. I’m attracted to you—there’s no denying that—but I like you too. I trust you. When I’m with you I’m…happy. Knowing you has made me feel hopeful again.’

How could she resist that? How could any woman resist it?

‘I know you said this was the wrong time for you to start something new,’ he went on, ‘but I promise not to stand in the way of your job. I don’t want to stand in the way of any of your dreams. But if you’re planning to remain in the States then I don’t see why we can’t keep seeing each other.’ He hauled in a breath. ‘If you want to.’

They could…

‘We can take things as slowly as you like. I’ve no desire to rush you. We can stop right now if that’s what you want.’

She didn’t want to stop. And everything he’d just said sounded perfect.

Her fingers went back to her buttons and she slid each one from its buttonhole with fingers that were suddenly sure. His lips parted with undisguised hunger when she pushed the dress from her shoulders to pool at her waist. If possible, the bulge pressing at the juncture of her thighs grew bigger and harder when she unclasped her bra and dropped it to the floor behind her.

His expression made her feel like the most desirable woman on earth.

‘Utter perfection,’ he murmured, his gaze caressing her skin before he leaned forward and drew one nipple into the heat of his mouth, suckling hard.

Callie cried out, arching into him, her fingers digging into his shoulders, urging him on.

‘I only date exclusively.’ He laved her nipple with his tongue, sending a cataclysm of delight dancing across her skin. ‘If you can’t agree to that then we need to stop before this goes any further.’

When he pulled her other nipple into his mouth, grazing it gently with his teeth with such loving attention, she surrendered utterly. ‘When you do that, Owen,’ she gasped, ‘you can have anything you damn well please.’

* * *

Owen knew the exact moment Callie woke. He registered her sleepy realisation that she wasn’t alone, the slight pucker of her brows and then the clearing of her frown. She opened her eyes and her smile came without hesitation.

‘Good morning.’

Her husky morning voice could devastate a mere mortal, and Owen felt himself falling hard. Not that he had any intention of saying as much and scaring the living daylights out of her.

Instead he grinned back. ‘Good morning.’

And then he kissed her, revelling in her warm sweetness and the way she pulled him closer, as if she couldn’t get enough of him. He couldn’t stop his hands from roving over her delectable curves. Not that he tried too hard to resist the temptation. They’d made love several times last night, but the way her clever hands touched him—a deliberate boldness and teasing flirtatiousness, mixed with wonder and hunger—undid him.

Nobody had ever touched him like that before—as if his body had been made for her hands alone. And he made love to her again now with a newfound tenderness, losing himself in her breathless sighs and the way she whispered his name. She cried out as she came apart in his arms and light splintered behind his eyelids as he followed her into a kaleidoscope of ecstasy more intense than any he’d ever experienced.

It took a long time for their breathing to return to normal. He turned his head on the pillow to find her curled up on her side, watching him. Late morning sunshine spilled into the room, highlighting the creamy warmth of her skin and the rosy plumpness of her mouth.

‘Okay?’ he murmured.

‘Very okay. You?’

‘Never better.’

She frowned, but it wasn’t the kind of frown to reach her eyes. ‘I’m happy.’

He reached out to trace a finger along her cheek. ‘That surprises you?’

‘I thought I might wake up this morning with…’

His chest clenched. ‘Regrets?’ Had he pushed too hard last night? Should he have given her more time?

‘Not regrets. I was never going to regret making love with you, Owen.’

He was glad she called it making love rather than sleeping with or hooking