“I want you, Lauren,” he said, not allowing himself to think about what he was doing, about how she might read his actions when he confessed all to her. There were only the consequences of doing nothing, and those, he simply couldn’t live with. He stepped forward, closed the distance between them. He slid a hand to her cheek. “You have to know that by now.” He bent his head, brushed his lips with hers, a soft caress meant to seal his message, meant to be brief. Her arms uncurled, her hands settling on his chest, the touch searing him with the promise of more. She swayed toward him, her body seeming to melt into his. Suddenly, the brush of his mouth over hers turned to something more passionate, something he’d vowed to leash.

He started to pull back, he meant to pull back, but she moaned, soft and sexy, and he had to have another taste of her just one last taste and then he’d leave. He’d leave but she’d know he wanted her.

Somehow, he ended that one last kiss several kisses later, and before she could protest, he bent down and scooped her into his arms. This woman wasn’t just any woman. She was his duty and… more. She was more. He didn’t know why. He didn’t need to know why. He simply needed to do what was right. And though stripping her na**d and burying himself deep inside her might sound pretty darn right it wasn’t, not now, not tonight. But later. Oh yeah, later, he was going to do that and so much more.

He crossed the room and sat down on the couch the same one he’d imagined her na**d and beneath him on settling her back against the arm and backside across his lap. Over the thick ridge of his c**k he had no hope of hiding.

“We need to talk,” he said, brushing ringlets of long auburn brown hair out of her eyes.

She blinked and shifted just enough to press her soft, round bottom a bit more directly against his erection. “Don’t do this,” she pleaded. “Don’t make me think. Don’t make me analyze or worry. For once, I just want to escape it all.”

He knew that feeling, knew it all too well. And he also knew it was dangerous; it drove exactly what he didn’t want regret. “Why tonight, Lauren? Why me?”

“I don’t want a politician, or someone my father would approve of, or someone who”

“I get it,” he said, cutting her off, stopping the rest of an answer that had come too fast, too easily, when he was tormented by this woman, by what he was feeling, by why her ‘be careful’ had tightened his chest.

“I’m your rebellion sex, the guy who isn’t good enough for you except when you want to get back at your father? Is that the deal here, Lauren?”

Her eyes went wide. “Oh, God, no. That’s not what I was saying.” She brushed her lips over his. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t love that you’re everything I never allow myself to experience. You’re… ”

“What?” he asked, feeling a gnawing in his gut. “I’m what?”

“Everything I want to be and I’m afraid I might never be,” she whispered softly, her lashes lowering with the confession. Her emotion, and more of that delicate vulnerability she’d shown him earlier, washed over him, softening him. It hit Royce then just how much trust she’d given him by showing him this side of herself, by declaring her reasons for doing so. Trust he didn’t deserve, trust he was certain she would regret. Resolve formed inside him. He was destined to fail her, but that failure wasn’t going to be now. He wasn’t going to leave her believing she wasn’t gorgeous and desirable.

He scooted her off his lap and settled down on the floor in front of her, his hands sliding up Lauren’s calves, to her knees that she’d primly pressed together. The heady scent of her perfume, her home, her very feminine presence, seeped into his senses.

She stared down at him, a soft ‘doe in headlights’ look on her face. “Royce?” His name was a soft plea on her lips, filled with uncertainty. He’d confused her, sent her mixed messages, in his effort to do what was right.

He felt like a wolf, a hungry wolf who wanted to devour this woman, and there was no way that didn’t show in his eyes, no way the energy, the need he felt for her, didn’t radiate off of him.

“You’re beautiful,” he said, softly, calmly, when the rage of hormones inside him was anything but. He kissed her knees, one and then the other, reaffirming his decision to let her pleasure be his tonight. “And I’m going to show you how much I mean that.”

She swallowed hard, her delicate, kissable throat bobbing with the action. “I’m not sure I know what that means.”

He brushed her dress up her thighs. “You will,” he promised and kissed her delicate little knee again.

She laughed a nervously feminine sound. “I’m not sure I know what that means either.”

“You don’t need to know what it means,” he said, his fingers tracing the lace of her thigh high pantyhose, the sexy lingerie choice confirming what he’d always suspected. Lauren might be prim and proper on the outside, but there was a sensual woman beneath the exterior who wanted to come out and play and he wanted to be the man who she played with. He wanted to be that man tonight, but no matter how tempting that might be, tonight wasn’t the night. But he’d be damned if he’d allow her to doubt his desire for her, his absolute, complete attraction to her. “You just need to know how it feels.” His hands slipped inside her thighs, easing her legs apart, his lips trailing a path up one of them.