The deepest show of love is when you surrender your mind, body and soul to me to use as I please, trusting that when I take you to the brink of my self-control, I'll bring you back more whole than before.

Then Ben__ mouth descended again and her thoughts, as fickle as tiny fish, swam out of her head. Gentle brushes of his lips turned into more insistent strokes of his mouth. Sexually frustrated widow or not, there was little doubt the man could kiss her into a melted puddle of goo.

This kiss was different from the first one under the olive tree. That one had been unplanned, she was pretty sure. This kiss had intention and hunger branded all over it. It was like one of those kisses you read about in fairy tales__ut Alana had never imagined that such a kiss could cause bone-trembling shivers as well as bliss. She__ never considered the downside of the awakening kiss, of how the princess felt when the hero tore through the thorns or scaled the tower and speared heat and sex and life-changing energy into the princess__ world.

Be myself. If only I remembered what it was like to be myself. I__ a fucking waitress in a crappy bar in a small town in the middle of nowhere. I was going nowhere. I had nothing to give him beside myself and my heart and he denied me.

Don__ cry,__ he breathed out so very close to my face. Just a little closer and I__ feel his lips ghosting against mine. __t__ like a punch in my guts when you cry.__ __ou shouldn__ touch me,__ I said, but despite my words, I didn__ try to move away from his touch. A tear ran to my upper lip and I tasted it with the very tip of my tongue. Nolan__ eyes darkened when he followed it, not straying from my mouth. I could see goosebumps over his skin on his neck and on his forearms. __olan?

He gently sucked on my lower lip, biting it carefully with his teeth. It sent tingles all over my body and I had to hold on to his strong shoulders, firm under my fingers. I opened my mouth and tugged once on his lip ring. What happened next was the best sound I had ever heard before. He groaned so deeply that I couldn__ keep my answering moan quiet.