Free The Value of Vulnerability by Roberta Pearce Page A

him, this total stranger. This predator, this seducer. Maybe because he had made no overt attempt to initiate sex once in the privacy of the car. No cheap feels, no force. Most guys —even some otherwise decent ones—would have been all over a girl.
    If that wasn’t a man who could be trusted . . .
    On that baseless, rather stupidly instinctive sentiment alone, she put a hand to his face. “Ford.”
    He didn’t hesitate, merely bent his head and touched his mouth to hers.
    Her lips parted slightly, and he took her lower lip between his, sucking gently, encouragingly. Murmuring an incoherent sound, she sent the tip of her tongue in an investigative probe of his upper lip, and Ford caught the explorer, sucking on that instead, gradually pulling it into his mouth, touching his own to hers.
    The silken rasp of his tongue on hers finished her. Hot, wet kisses destroyed resistance that was all but gone anyway. She gave no thought to where it was obviously leading, and didn’t care that she was being reckless. He tasted of rye and some other flavour that she could only identify as his own—utter nectar. And when he turned her in his arms so that she was cradled against his chest, her head pressed to his shoulder, and she stretched her legs along the seat, she could only think of how comfortable she was in this new position as his mouth continued to unhurriedly plunder the depths of hers. Blood flowed sluggishly in her veins, cooking in the fire.
    Her hand slid into his hair, holding his head, keeping him close while his fingers made short work of the buttons on her coat. When his hand slipped inside to glide over her belly to her ribcage, she arched in a little gesture of encouragement.
    He required no more than that small act of consent, and he cupped a full breast, gently caressing. Nipples hardened in painful response and those talented fingers feathered tantalisingly over the hard buds through the material of her dress, assuaging the ache and leaving raw need.
    The fact that the car had stopped penetrated her fevered brain. But she didn’t care. She only wanted more kisses, more caresses. She wanted to be naked, her skin exposed to that touch that aroused and mollified all at once. Desire tightened her belly, and throbbed between her legs.
    She was going to make love to him, here and now, in the backseat of the limo. Or invite him in. Mistakes be damned.
    She dispensed with his tie as if it were nothing, a mere annoying scrap barring her from access. Buttons on his silk dress shirt were ejected from their holes with equal ease, exposing the smooth skin of his throat and neck to her uninhibited caress.
    “ Erin! ” He said her name on a groaning sigh as her mouth left his to explore the strong column of his neck, nipping and licking an urgent path to his chest. The spicy, clean, masculine taste of him, seasoned with salt from light perspiration that broke out on his skin, only fed her craving.
    “Yes,” she breathed as his hand slid beneath the skirt of her dress, his fingertips sliding along the lacy edge of a thigh-high stocking, teasing the naked flesh above.
    “No,” he chuckled roughly, and withdrew his hand. “I am not having sex with you in a car.” Threading fingers into her long hair, he made a fist and drew her head back slowly and inexorably, denying her the tang of him.
    They stared at each other in the semi-light, breaths coming in shallowly and exhaled in harsh puffs. She licked her lips, tasting him there. Something in his eyes spoke to her, and sanity started making the long trip back to her conscious thoughts.
    Her entire body slumped as she groaned. “You’re right. Thanks.”
    Hadn’t she predicted that he would be a rock-star lover? Of course she had melted and capitulated , and of course, he had not forgotten time or place. Probably he was doing advanced mathematics in his head while kissing her and feeling her up.
    And just because he was hard as a rock didn’t prove he hadn’t been