Best of Three (Counting on Love) by Erin Nicholas

least. She thought she had him wrapped around her finger. She thought she was in control.
    She was wrong.
    “Kiss me,” he commanded softly.
    He felt her hesitation. Yep, he’d surprised her.
    “Two simple words, Emma. What’s the problem?”
    “No problem at all.” She rose onto her tiptoes and put her mouth against his.
    It took two seconds for him to forget the point he was trying to make.
    She tasted amazing—hot and sweet and oh so willing. That was what he wanted. What he needed. She could talk, flirt, lick her lips, wink, wiggle her hips… act …however she wanted when they were in the full light and she could gauge his responses and expressions and body language and adjust accordingly. But here, in the dark she had no idea what he was thinking or doing. And her reactions were one hundred percent honest.
    He backed her up against the door, dropped his hands to her ass and deepened the kiss.
    She arched against him, moaning.
    Hell yeah, baby, and that’s just a start.
    Her fingers dug into his back muscles, pulling him closer. Nate complied. He ran his hand down her thigh, hooked behind her knee and drew her leg up, then leaned in, fitting his pelvis to hers. She gasped and he ran his hand to the curve of her ass, then down between her legs, his fingertips brushing the satiny material of what he could now tell was a thong.
    Emma ripped her mouth from his. “ Nate .”
    He brushed over her clit, thin silk all that separated his fingers from the sweet flesh.
    He felt the shiver go through her and had to hold back from grabbing hold of the thong and ripping it from her body.
    “I’m feeling better,” he told her huskily.
    And he was. Oh, he was. He was hot, throbbing, needing , but he felt great. Emma wanted him. He could make her moan. She was on the verge of losing control. And it wasn’t an act.
    “I’m feeling damned good myself,” she said. She ran her hands down to his ass and pulled him close again. “I can’t wait to see how I feel when we have a horizontal surface.”
    The things he was going to make her feel…
    Nate caught himself a breath away from kissing her again. He wanted to go there with her. He wanted to make her scream, make her beg, make her his .
    And that wasn’t ever going to work.
    He wanted to conquer her, possess her, tame her.
    He generally preferred his women already…tame. Sweet, unassuming and totally fine with him setting the pace and tone of their interactions.
    For him, it was part ego and part convenience.
    It made life easier because he wasn’t waiting on someone else’s decision and didn’t have to deal with them making the wrong one. He’d experienced having someone else call the shots in his life—and call them badly. He wasn’t doing that again.
    That’s why he and Rebecca, the woman he sometimes kind-of dated, worked so well. They’d met in medical school and had hooked up at a fundraising dinner a few years later. She came to town every couple of months to visit her parents for a week, and had no problem letting him make all the plans and decisions while she was here. She sat back and enjoyed what he came up with. Then she left.
    Emma, on the other hand, was the type of woman to demand a man’s attention—and to take it from other things. She was the opposite of unassuming. And she wasn’t going anywhere. Not only did she live here, but she was one of his teammates’ sisters. A teammate who was also a friend.
    Getting involved with Emma was a bad idea. A really tempting, potentially world-rocking, disastrous bad idea.
     
     
    “Let’s go back to your house. Or my house. Or the nearest hotel,” Emma said, running her hands up and down Nate’s back. The guy was built. She’d known it, and admired it, before, but touching all those hot, hard muscles was so much better than she’d imagined. Now if she could get her tongue on them, things would be fantastic.
    “We’re not going anywhere, Emma. I’m here to make sure Michael’s okay.”
    Damn,