Mac knew Delilah was still talking. He could see her lips moving. But, for the life of him, he couldn’t make out her words. All he could hear was his own heartbeat, fast and fierce and…unimaginably hungry.

The golden ticket. That’s what she called it. But it was more than that. It was the golden ticket, a get-out-of-jail-free card, and a royal flush all rolled into one. Everything he’d never dared to hope for but simultaneously fantasized about. Delilah. His for the taking. With no strings attached. With no chance of heartbreak for…either of them.

He wished he could say he hesitated a moment, really thought about it, weighed all the pros and cons. But he didn’t. In fact, the only thing he thought was git along little doggies. Or, in his case, git it on little doggie. Yeehaw!

He grabbed her around the waist and pushed her across the carpet. Lifting her atop the dresser, he slammed his mouth over hers. And that was it. They went from neutral to overdrive in two seconds flat.

The instant their lips met, their tongues clashed and fought for supremacy, his stroking hers, hers tangling with his. Her hands were everywhere, running over his shoulders, knotting in his hair, grabbing his ass. It was like being caught up in storm. He could feel the crack of electricity that was in the air, highlighting the raw, untamed power of it all. The pleasure was searing, seething, all-consuming.

In the back of his mind, he wondered if he should apply the brakes. At this rate, it was going to be over in minutes. Hot, hard, fast sex atop the Noel Motel’s dresser. Fuckin’-A. But, really, who was he trying to kid? Stopping wasn’t an option. Not when he’d already grabbed the hem of her T-shirt, whipped it over her head and tossed it over his shoulder. Not when he was already cupping her plump, beautiful breast and lifting it, running his thumb over the beaded nipple before ducking his chin to suck it into his mouth.

“God, you taste good,” he moaned, dragging the smell of her in deep, reveling in the delicateness of her skin against his lips. Her nipple was a hard button pressing against his tongue. He stabbed at it and was rewarded with her groan of pleasure.

“Oh, yes, Mac,” she sighed, tossing her head back, hooking her heels beneath his butt in order to rub herself over his raging length. He could feel her through the silk of her panties. Feel how hot she was. How wet. His cock pulsed behind his zipper, begging to be set free, pleading to sink into her soft, sultry depths.

A hundred emotions slammed through him. Joy. Passion. Fear…

Because being here, locked in her embrace reminded him of something. Of what it was like to be…home. But at the same time, he was lost. Lost in the feel of her hands. In the heated wetness of her mouth when she grabbed his face and dragged him up for a ravishing kiss.

She opened her lips wide to the bold press of his tongue. But no matter how hard he pulled her against him or how strongly she grasped him to her, it wasn’t enough. Wasn’t close enough. He wanted to dissolve into her softness and warmth. Wanted to lose himself in her completely. And, holy crow, he couldn’t recall anything ever being this hot. This fast. This…crazy.

He knew the bargain she’d struck with him was doomed. Once wasn’t going to be enough. Not nearly enough. But he’d have to think about that, deal with that, later. For now? There was Delilah. Delilah with her warm, lush breasts. Delilah with her fast, feverish kisses. Delilah with her tempestuous, demanding hands…

She pulled his T-shirt over his head and flung it aside, her breath catching at the back of her throat as her eyes drank him in. And that look right there was enough to make a man think he could leap tall buildings in a single bound.

“Holy crap,” she whispered almost reverently as she ran her hands over his chest, gently tracing the Texas tattoo over his heart. Then her fingers slid down his belly, causing his muscles to quiver and clench beneath her fingers. Delilah didn’t have smooth, delicate hands. No. They were firm, slightly rough. The hands of a woman who’d spent her life twisting off bottle tops and washing pint glasses behind a bar. But the rest of her… Dear Lord, the rest of her was ungodly soft. “You’re beautiful, Mac.”

His lips quirked as he hooked his thumbs into the waistband of her pink, satin panties, the fabric silky against his fingers. He pulled back just enough to slide them down her long, lovely legs, past her delicate, red-tipped toes.

“Isn’t that supposed to be my line?” he asked.

Her eyes were impossibly green when she met and held his gaze. Then she grinned, catching her bottom lip between her teeth, and he was totally dunzo.

Because she was temptation personified. Everything female and wonderful all packaged up and presented in one darling woman. From the gentle slope of her shoulders to the plump thrust of her breasts, from her small waist to the dramatic flare of her hips, she was femininity. Even her goddamned bellybutton looked girlish. Small and oval and begging for the dip of a man’s tongue. His tongue.

“Does this hurt?” she whispered, pressing a soft finger to the fresh bandage over his stitches.

“Darlin’,” he said, rubbing a hand over her hip, moving it around so he could palm her ass and pull her against him. And now, oh, she was really hot. Her wet channel riding the distended ridge of his fly. “Right now, I don’t feel anything but you.”

“Mmm,” she said, bending forward to flick her wicked tongue over his Texas tattoo, then lower, to his nipple. “That’s a really good answer.”

Little Mac jumped with every dart of her tongue, every tug of her lips, and he couldn’t stand it a second longer. Bending to open the middle drawer on the dresser, just a bit, just enough to create a tiny ledge, he placed her heels atop it. Putting his hand on the insides of her knees, he moved back slightly so he could see her, watch her as he spread her thighs wide.

And talk about femininity. There was the heart of her. Right there. Right in front of his face. She was flushed and pink. Ripe and swollen. Her small patch of pubic hair was auburn, shaved into a tiny triangle just above the entrance to the wet, warm wonder of her center. He couldn’t see her clitoris, but he knew when he brushed his thumb up her silky channel, he’d find it distended, throbbing.

He dragged in a shuddering breath, and the smell of her, the smell of desire and sex and woman filled his nose, causing saliva to pool in his mouth, hot and heavy, causing his balls to pull tight against his body.

He glanced at her then, gauging her mood. Was she embarrassed by his blatant study? Some women didn’t understand or appreciate the beauty of their bodies, their sex in particular.

But he shouldn’t have worried. After all, it was Delilah. Bold, brazen, fearless Delilah. There was not one ounce of bashfulness in her expression, not one drop of chagrin. Just the opposite in fact, one elegant brow was arched, the light in her eyes nothing less than breathtakingly carnal.

“Jesus,” he breathed in awe, trailing his hand up from her ankle to her calf, standing when he reached the soft, white expanse of her thigh. She didn’t have thick thighs, no matter what she said. Like the rest of her, her thighs were soft and satiny and wonderfully, exotically feminine. “You’re absolutely perfect,” he told her, delighted by her low, husky chuckle.

“Hardly,” she said. And then he couldn’t pay attention to her next words, because she reached for his zipper…

* * *

Delilah was on fire.

From head to toe, she burned, ached, throbbed. And she needed Mac. Needed him to take her, fill her…fuck her. She wanted to revel in the sensations. In the feel of his callused hand rubbing a slow trail up her inner thigh. In the smell of him, so hot and male and uniquely Mac. In the taste of him when he leaned forward to claim her lips…

Fumbling with his zipper, she cursed against his lips when it snagged. His big hands came up to help her, his fingers long and tan and deft. The scrrritch of the metal teeth sounded far away when he slowly unzipped his jeans, hard to hear over the rushing of blood between her ears.

Pulling his Glock from his waistband, he checked the safety before setting it aside. Then, with one deft move, he shoved his Levis and boxer shorts down his thighs. And there he was… Thick as her wrist, violently red, and heavily veined. The head of him was plump, weeping, twitching beneath her ravenous, startled gaze.

And he called her perfection.

She could hardly breathe, hardly think for the sheer, masculine beauty of him. And she wanted him. All of him. Inside her. Pumping, straining, coming. But…he was…big. And it’d been four years, and—

She stopped thinking altogether when he reached forward with one hand, gently spreading her labia, finding her clitoris in an instant and pressing it with his thumb. Sensation exploded through her, the ache skyrocketed to an intolerable level.

“Oh, God,” she breathed, taking him in her hand, wondering at the sheer heat of him, the sheer breadth of him that strained the capacity of her grip.

“So soft,” he murmured, stepping forward to seal their lips. His tongue slid into her mouth at the same time one thick finger slid into her body. She moaned. He answered in kind.

“Stroke me,” he growled, and she hastened to accommodate him. Rubbing her fist up his shaft and back down again. She rejoiced in the throb of his veins against her palm, in the silky wetness that seeped from his tip, in the satiny skin that moved over a core of hot, living steel.

A second finger teased at her opening, playing, petting.

“Open yourself to me,” he demanded, and she usually didn’t like anyone telling her what to do. But when it came to Mac and sex, she appreciated the caveman that came out in him. It only added to the pleasure, the excitement.

Repositioning her heels on the lip of the dresser drawer, she spread her thighs wider. He rewarded her obedience by slowly, so unbelievably slowly, working his second finger inside her. It was a struggle to accommodate him, but she loved the stretch, the burn. It both soothed the ache and simultaneously ratcheted it up another notch.

“So tight,” he said against her lips, nipping, laving, sucking. “So damned tight.”

And, God, it felt good. Felt good to be filled, to be brimming with warm, male flesh. But it wasn’t enough. The nerves inside her cried out for more stimulation.

“Mac,” she begged, “please. I need—”

“I know exactly what you need, darlin’,” he said, and he wasn’t lying. Because he began to pump his fingers in and out of her, slowly at first, and then more quickly, all while rubbing the rough pad of his thumb back and forth over the distended nub of her clit.

And that was it. Her climax slammed through her violently, arching her back, straining the tendons in her neck as she held back a scream of unimaginable pleasure. When her thighs tightened around his hand, she didn’t know if she was groaning, or if it was him, or the both of them together.

* * *

Delilah didn’t climax. She detonated. Squeezing his fingers so hard his knuckles rubbed together, screaming and melting and coming and coming and coming.

In the back of Mac’s mind, he did some quick calculations. Seven feet. Seven seconds. That’s how far it was to the nearest bed, and that’s how long it would take him to pick her up and cart her there.

They weren’t going to make it…

Not when she was so soft and wet. Not when she was throbbing around his fingers. Not when her hand was stroking him toward insanity, stroking him until he was so hard and hot he hurt. Sweet Jesus, he couldn’t seem to draw breath for what she was doing to him.

No. They were definitely not going to make it to the bed.

He needed to be inside her. Needed to feel her sultry walls closing around him. Now. Thirty seconds ago when she first exploded. He slowly withdrew his fingers from her body, glancing down to find her labia quivering, pulsing slightly with the aftershocks of her monumental orgasm.

She was sucking in great gulps of air, whispering his name over and over again. He couldn’t help himself. He lifted his fingers to his lips, licking away the evidence of her passion, savoring the earthy smell of her, the salty-sweet flavor of her, until he couldn’t take it a second more.