“Screw you,” she breathed, pissed at his casual assurance. She should have listened to her voice of reason downstairs and kept walking when she had the chance. Now she wasn’t so sure she could.

“Hey. I’m barely holding it together, too,” he gruffly retorted. But rather than explain, he put his hand over her mouth-the male answer to baffling doubts. Abruptly dipping his head, he opened her dewy cleft with his fingertips and ran his tongue up her slick tissue with delicacy and finesse, with perfect GPS know-how in terms of nerve locations. He could have been thoughtfully arranging a fantasy dessert to best effect, so exacting was the placement of his tongue and fingers. As though he knew to perfection how to turn her on-or maybe the scores of women before her had been a universal sisterhood when it came to getting off this way.

In due course, when her labia-major and minor-had been excited to a frenzied nicety, he turned his attention to her clit, and if being out of control had once been an issue, it no longer was.

Complete and absolute sensation took precedence.

Carte blanche, as it were, on the road to ecstasy.

For the next blissful interval only Liv’s breathy moans and orgasmic cries punctuated the silence of the loft. Jake deftly brought her to climax once, then twice, and lifting his head slightly, he paused, waiting for some cue about a possible third time.

Stabbing her fingers through his thick hair, she jerked his head back.

Definitely a cue. He got back down to business.

And Liv gave herself up to raw, over-the-edge, soul-stirring rapture that insinuated itself into every sensitive, greedy nook and cranny, every rapt nerve and throbbing bit of flesh previously unaccustomed to such neon-lit carnal splendor.

Not that she was currently in the right frame of mind to consider that past discrepancy.

For his part, Jake found Liv’s total abandon appealing. That she was completely genuine in a world given increasingly to spin and pretense held a distinctly down-home charm. Or perhaps it was disarming only in contrast to his glitterati world where poseurs were the norm.