Holiday in Stone Creek by Linda Lael Miller

was actually considering it.
    Letting herself go. Doing something totally irresponsible, just for the hell of it. Tanner went hard, and he was glad she couldn't see through the tabletop.
    "No strings attached?" she asked.
    "No strings," Tanner promised, though he felt a little catch inside, saying the words. He wondered at his reaction, but not for long.
    He was a man, after all, sitting across a table from one of the loveliest, most confusing women he'd ever met.
    "I suppose we're just going to obsess until we do it," Olivia said. Damn, but she was full of surprises. He'd expected her to be talking herself out of going to bed with him, not into it.
    "Probably," Tanner said, very seriously.
    "Get it out of the way."
    "Out of our systems," Tanner agreed, wanting to keep the ball rolling. Watching for the right time to make his move and all the time asking himself what the hell he was doing.
    He stood up.
    She stood up. And probably noticed his erection.
    Would she run for it after all?
    Tanner waited.
    She waited.
    "Can I kiss you?" he asked finally. "We could decide after that."
    "Good idea," Olivia said, but her pulse was still fluttering visibly, at her temple now as well as her throat, and her breathing was quick and shallow, raising and lowering her breasts under that soft blue sweater.
    She didn't move, so it fell to Tanner to step in close, take her face in his hands and kiss her, very gently at first, then with tongue.

    W HAT WAS SHE DOING ? Olivia fretted, even as she stood on tiptoe so Tanner could kiss her more deeply. Sure, it had been a while since she'd had sex--ten months, to be exact, with the last man she'd dated--but it wasn't as if she were hot to trot or anything like that.
    This... this was like storm chasing--venturing too close to a tornado and getting sucked in by the whirlwind. She felt both helpless and all-powerful, standing there in Tanner Quinn's dreary kitchen--helpless because she'd known even before they left Stone Creek Ranch that this would happen, and all-powerful because damn it, she wanted it, too.
    She wanted hot, sticky, wet sex. And she knew Tanner could give it to her.
    They kissed until her knees felt weak, and she sagged against Tanner.
    Then he lifted her into his arms. "You're sure about this, Doc?"
    She swallowed, nodded. "I'm sure."
    Ginger raised her head, lowered it again and went back to sleep.
    His room was spacious and relatively clean, though he probably hadn't made the bed since he'd moved in.Olivia noted these things with a detached part of her brain, but her elemental, primitive side wanted to rip off her clothes as if they were on fire.
    Tanner undressed her slowly, kissing her bare shoulder when he unveiled it, then her upper breast. When he tongued her right nipple, then her left, she gasped and arched her back, wanting more.
    He stopped long enough to shed his suit coat and toss aside his tie.
    Olivia handled the buttons and buckle and finally the zipper.
    And they were both naked.
    He kissed her again, eased her down on the side of the bed, knelt on the floor to kiss her belly and her thighs. "Where's the whipped cream when you need it?" he teased, his voice a low rumble against her flesh.
    "Oh, God," Olivia said, because she knew what he was going to do, and because she wanted so much for him to do it.
    He burrowed through the nest of curls at the apex of her thighs, found her with his mouth, suckled, gently at first, then greedily.
    He made a low sound to let her know he was enjoying her, but she barely heard it over the pounding of her heart and the creaking of the bed springs as her hips rose and fell in the ancient dance.
    He slid his hands under her, raised her high off the bed and feasted on her in earnest. The first orgasm broke soon after that, shattering and sudden, and so long that Olivia felt as though she were being tossed about on the head of a fiery geyser.
    Just when she thought she couldn't bear the pleasure for another moment--or live without it--he