Fortune's Forbidden Woman. Heidi Betts

him kiss her, hold her, want her.

      Forever, that’s how long. Since she and her mother had moved into the Fortune Estate and she’d first been introduced to the brooding, much older young man who towered over and intimidated her. Even as a shy, somewhat awkward girl, she’d known her own heart, and her heart had wanted Creed Fortune.

      But she’d never truly believed she could have him. Not when he took every opportunity to make it clear she was nothing but a thorn in his side. An uninvited sibling, forced upon him by an unexpected romance between his father and her mother.

      Now, though…now she knew she’d been wrong. He’d done a good job of hiding it, but apparently he shared her feelings and wanted her as much as she’d always wanted him.

      His kiss was sweltering, raising her temperature and causing her to break out in beads of perspiration. He worked her mouth as if she was a decadent dessert and he couldn’t get enough.

      Tongues tangled, teeth nipped and clashed. She pressed herself close to his tall frame, letting her breasts brush the solid wall of his chest, the insistent bulge of his arousal nudge the space between her legs.

      This was better than anything she’d ever experienced. Better than any other kiss she’d shared with any other man. Better even than all the times over the past year that she’d tried to relax enough to make love with Brad, but ended up pulling back at the last minute.

      It was better, she knew, because it was Creed. And with him she wasn’t afraid, she wasn’t shy, she wasn’t self-conscious.

      With him she didn’t recall his long-ago accusation that she acted like a slut, but instead remembered all the times she’d wanted him, lusted after him, dreamed about him.

      And now, finally, she could have him.

      Her arms tightened around his neck, her fingers playing in the ends of his short, dark brown hair. She whimpered and wiggled in his hold, striving desperately for something she couldn’t name.

      He pulled away, chest heaving, breathing ragged. His blue eyes glittered as he held her gaze.

      Muttering a heartfelt curse, he shook his head, then swooped in to take her mouth again.

      This time he didn’t settle for just kissing. His hands clasped her waist and swung her around, manipulating her as easily as a tailor’s mannequin. Without breaking the contact of their lips and tongues, he walked her backward through the living room and hall, up the staircase and into her bedroom.

      She didn’t stop to wonder how he knew his way through her house or which bedroom was hers; she was simply relieved by his focus and excellent navigational skills. And she clung to him, wrapping her legs around his waist halfway up the stairs to aid his progress.

      He carried her into the room and straight to the bed, laying her on top of the covers, rumpled from where she’d thrown them off when he’d woken her with his pounding.

      Her nightshirt bunched to her waist, the rough denim of his jeans rubbing against the soft skin of her inner thighs. His hands sneaked over her hips and waist, beneath the hem of the shirt, pushing it higher as his fingers moved toward the swells of her breasts.

      His lips caressed her chin and jawline, brushing the lobe of her ear before trailing down her throat in a series of nips and licks. When she felt a gentle pressure beneath her arms, she lifted them willingly above her head and let him pull the nightshirt off entirely.

      The cool evening air blew across her naked breasts and torso, and she quickly lowered her hands to cover herself.

      “Don’t.”

      Creed’s fingers circled her wrists like manacles, slowly tugging her hands away to reveal her nudity to his hungry gaze.

      “Don’t hide,” he said again, his voice low and strained. “I want to see you, all of you.”

      He ran the side of his thumb over the tip of one breast, grinning when it puckered and swelled beneath his ministrations.

      She sucked in a breath of air, her back arching into his touch. Her face felt flushed, her entire body a wriggling mass of fever-hot nerve endings, even as she fought not to let her natural tendency toward embarrassment take over.

      He had her hands pinned above her head, the rest of her pinned by his weight and bulk. And the look in his eyes was that of a hungry wolf—fierce, predatory, determined.

      “Lovely,” he murmured, then swooped in to lick a tight, budded nipple.

      She gasped, her fingers clenching into fists above where he held her arms down. He licked the other nipple, just a quick, light swipe, before settling in with more thorough, undivided attention.

      His tongue rasped like sandpaper along her sensitive nerve endings. He turned her flesh hot with his mouth, then cool with the soft hush of his breath. After creating a world of sensual devastation at one breast, he moved to the other and did it all over again.

      When he lifted his head, he was grinning. “Like I said, lovely.”

      His fingers loosened from her wrists, but she didn’t bother attempting to lower her arms. She didn’t have the strength, even if she’d wanted to. She simply lay there like a rag doll, depleted of energy or the will to move.

      Still smiling, he skimmed the underside of her arms, the sides of her breasts, her waist, until he reached the top of her high-cut bikini panties. They were nothing special, just plain lavender cotton. But then, she hadn’t known anyone would be seeing them when she’d dressed for bed a few hours ago.

      Her choice of undergarments didn’t seem to bother Creed, though. He brushed his lips around her navel and along the waistband of the panties, then slowly began to drag them off.

      A flutter of self-consciousness rippled in her belly, and she had to curl her fingers into the sheets to keep from covering herself again or trying to wiggle away.

      If Creed noticed her sudden bout of discomfort, he didn’t acknowledge it. Instead, he kept his gaze locked on the dark triangle at the apex of her thighs that he was revealing inch by agonizing inch. He pushed the panties down her legs, slipping them over her feet and letting them fall to the floor beside the bed.

      A moment later he pushed to his feet and straightened, all six feet, two inches looming above her.

      For a second Maya thought he meant to leave…leave her there, naked and flushed, and walk away. But then his arms lifted and his fingers began to deftly release the line of buttons at the front of his shirt.

      One by one, he slipped them through their holes, and little by little his chest became exposed. The bronzed skin. The firm muscles. The light sprinkling of dark hair.

      Maya’s mouth went dry and she had trouble breathing. He was so beautiful. Tall, athletic, sculpted like some sort of Greek god, or the epitome of the perfect man every woman fantasized about.

      He was certainly her idea of the perfect man.

      Tugging the tails of his shirt out of the waistband of his jeans, he released the last couple buttons before shrugging out of the shirt and letting it drop to the floor. He started to kick off his boots, at the same time unzipping his trousers.

      He pushed everything, jeans and underwear, down his legs and off. But instead of leaving them in a pile on the floor, he withdrew a rear pocket, pulled out his wallet, then dug out a small plastic square. Dropping the clothes, he stepped intently back to the bed in all his naked glory.

      He was the first man she’d ever seen completely nude, but for once, she wasn’t flushed with embarrassment. She was…awed.

      Amazing didn’t quite cover it. Neither did fabulous, marvelous, or any of the other two hundred adjectives that flitted through her mind. A few of her more precocious students might say hubba-hubba, and that came close.

      His shoulders were broad, his waist flat and tapering down to narrow hips, his legs long and well-muscled. But it was what hung between those legs that held her rapt attention.

      Admittedly,