Wild Invitation

lifted up the suit bag he’d carried inside. “I got a packmate to drop by my house and bring this to the picnic. Want to make a good first impression on your folks.”
    Her stomach sank. “It probably won’t make any difference.”
    “I told you, don’t worry.” Draping the suit bag over the back of her sofa, he prowled over. “Go, shower.” It was a whisper that implied all sorts of sinful things. “I’ll just sit out here and imagine the droplets racing over your skin, touching you…stroking you.”
    She felt her legs tremble. “Come in with me.” It was the boldest invitation she’d ever made.
    He smiled. “I plan to. But not today.” He brushed his lips over hers. “When I shower with you, I don’t want a time limit.”
    “Oh.” Her mind bombarded her with images of the undoubtedly delicious things he’d do to her in the shower. “I should go…”
    He rubbed a thumb over her bottom lip before shaking his head and pulling back. “Go, before I forget my good intentions. We’d never make it to the dinner then.”
    She hesitated.
    He tapped her lightly on the bottom. “Don’t even try it. I’m meeting your parents.” So he could look them in the eye and let them know that regardless of what they thought of him, hewas now in their daughter’s life, and they had to deal with it. No more blind dates.
    “Bossy.” Annie shot him a scowl but went into the bedroom to grab her stuff.
    She was going to be all hot and wet and naked soon.
    “Christ.” Shoving his hands through his hair, he tried to get the hard thrust of his cock to settle down. It refused. Especially since he could hear the rustle of cloth sliding over skin, of boots hitting tile, of lace being peeled off…or maybe that was his imagination.
    But he definitely heard the shower come on. Groaning, he began to pace around the room, distracting himself by looking at Annie’s things. Aside from books, she had several holoframes on the walls. Family photos, he guessed, noting her resemblance to the older woman in the central portrait. The man in the photo—her father, he assumed—was smiling genially, but there was something about him that struck the cat as distant.
    The shower shut off.
    “Shower’s free!” came the call a few minutes later.
    He gave her another couple of minutes to close herself in the bedroom, not sure he’d be able to resist if he saw her swathed in the tempting impermanence of an easily removable towel. When he entered the small, tiled enclosure at last, it was to find it steamy with the lavish scent of some feminine lotion. But the soap, he was glad to see, was nothing too girly. A man had to have standards, he thought, and programmed the shower to freezing.
    It finally succeeded in cooling down his body.
    •   •   •
    ANNIE sat in Zach’s car in her parents’ drive and twisted her fingers in her lap. “I’ve never brought a man home,” she blurted out. “It didn’t seem worth the fuss.”
    “I’m flattered.”
    She frowned at him. “Don’t tease me now.” But she felt her nerves loosen a fraction. “Come on, we might as well get this over with.” Opening the door, she stepped out.
    They met at the front of the vehicle. “At least it’s a nice night,” she said.
    Zach put an arm around her with the lazy grace of the leopardhe was. “I like your dress,” he murmured, playing his fingertips over her hip.
    “Oh.” Her nerves frayed again, for a different reason. She’d chosen the black crossover dress because it would give her mother nothing to complain about. But Zach’s words made her realize it might actually qualify as sexy. “You don’t think I’m not thin enough for it?”
    “I’ll tell you tonight…after I unwrap you.” He made her sound like a present.
    She felt her eyes widen, her pulse jump. “Behave.”
    “Do I still get to unwrap you?”
    A moment of silence, the night sky cut with shards of glittering diamond.
    “Yes.” She wanted to dance with the wildness in him, wanted to feel what it was to be treated like a beautiful, sensual woman. But more, she wanted to lie with this man who’d already made a place for himself in her heart.
    She knew she was about to break one of her most fundamental rules in deepening this relationship, in putting her heart on the line, but she also knew that if she didn’t love Zach, she’d regret it for the rest of her life. Perhaps, she thought for the first time, perhaps her mother’s choices hadn’t been as