THE PERFECT TEN (Boxed Set)

alcoholic, but there was no mistaking the taste of scotch whiskey on his tongue. Yet beneath the smoky, slightly mossy taste lay pure Delano. Dizzy with the pleasure of it, she pressed closer.
    His hands still cupped her head, and she desperately wanted them on her body. On her breasts. On her ass. And oh, yes, between her thighs. She wanted it with a violence that left her trembling. She wanted him buried deep inside her, with his mouth at her throat, gleaming cuspids elongated and grazing her skin, tantalizing her with the promise of a joining more intimate, more thrilling, than anything she’d ever known.
    But dammit, she also wanted this slow torture. She wanted to spin it out as long as they could possibly stand. This first exquisite exploration came only once.
    He pulled back again, but this time she didn’t protest. This time she trusted him. And she wasn’t disappointed.
    Winding one hand into her hair, he tugged her head back, exposing her throat.
    Okay, straight to the main event. That worked too.
    Her pulse leapt, and she closed her eyes. In her mind’s eye, she saw herself as he must see her, her throat exposed and vulnerable. Raw excitement shot straight to her core as she waited for him to lower his mouth to her throat, to rake his teeth over her skin…
    “Ainsley, look at me.”
    Dazed, she opened her eyes to find him looking at her with an expression that seemed torn between scorching need and tortured regret.
    Regret?
    He released his grip on her hair, but he didn’t pull away as she half expected. Instead, he lifted his hand to her mouth, drawing the pad of his thumb across her lower lip. Swollen and sensitized as her flesh was from his thorough, meticulous attention, the light caress made her shiver.
    He closed his eyes, as though to better absorb even that fleeting sensation. When he opened his eyes again, they blazed with a ferocity that should have frightened her.
    She opened her mouth on his thumb, and let the salt taste of his skin bloom on her tongue, mingling with the whiskey taste his mouth had imparted.
    “Delano—”
    “God, I love your mouth.” His words were thick. “It was made for this.”
    Unbearably aroused, she bit the fleshy pad of his thumb.
    “Ainsley!”
    His body went rigid, but she wasn’t sure if it was rigid good or rigid bad. But he hadn’t withdrawn his thumb, so she ran her tongue over it. Soothing, soothing.
    Then she bit it again.
    His control snapped. Suddenly, his hands were everywhere she’d wanted them to be, hard and demanding, his mouth fierce on hers. Oh, yes, please. He pushed her up against the nearest workbench, the better to grind his lower body against her. The urgent thrust of his arousal against her belly inflamed her beyond reason, and his hands left trails of fire on her skin.
    Mindless with need, she rubbed her breasts against his chest. God, was that her making those noises? He was making her crazy. She wanted him to tear her clothes off before she burned up. She wanted to hook a leg behind his and take him down to the floor. She wanted to free the impressive erection straining against his trousers, and climb onto it. God help her, she wanted to scream, “Fuck me already!”
    Instead, she did the next best thing. She insinuated her left hand between them to cup the bulge of his erection. Oh, Lord, it was nice. She squeezed gently.
    He growled against her mouth, and she swallowed the gratifyingly desperate sound. Then, before she could guess his intention, he lifted her and deposited her on the edge of the workbench. She felt something hard poking into her back, but then he moved between her spread thighs and she forgot about the discomfort. All of her attention focused on the hard heat of him pressed against the center of her universe. Could he feel how wet and ready she was?
    “Del—”
    He covered her mouth, cutting off what surely would have been the plea she’d suppressed a few seconds ago. He thrust his tongue into her mouth, penetrating it in the way she wanted his engorged—
    The thought died when she heard the unmistakable sound of a pistol being cocked.
     
     

 
    Chapter 10
     
    “HI, GUYS. Did you miss me?”
    Delano’s blood froze. Goddammit. He was the world’s biggest idiot. Worse than an idiot. He was a fool.
    He released Ainsley, careful to pull her t-shirt down from where he’d thrust it high atop her breasts before moving the shield of his body away.
    “Okay, Eli,” he drawled. “Point made. That was