Something About Joe (12 page)

Yet.

Her lips parted under his gaze and he saw
them tremble. The tip of her pink tongue darted out to moisten
them.

His self-control was bursting at the
seams.

“
Do you want
coffee?” he managed to get out. He could not look at that sweet
mouth, smell that alluring perfume, be as close to that curvaceous
body for a second longer or he wouldn’t be responsible for his
actions.

“Hey, after midnight I’m boss of my own
kitchen,” she said. “I’ll fix you coffee. How do you take it?”

“
B
lack. Please.” He needed the
caffeine to keep him alert, so he wouldn’t be dazed into
insensibility by her closeness.

He couldn’t take his eyes off her as she
sashayed into the kitchen. Was she deliberately swinging those
shapely hips to entice him? She turned her head back over her
shoulder and smiled at him, a sensuous curving of her lips.

There was
something different about her tonight. A sassiness, a confidence.
He couldn’t put his finger on it. It perturbed him.

Had Clive caused it? Jealousy cut through
him again. He couldn’t bear to think of her with another man.

He followed
her into the kitchen. She was reaching above her to get coffee from
a cupboard. Her dress was pulled up to just below the curves of her
luscious bottom, revealing every inch of those long, long
legs.

So she
wasn’t wearing stockings and garters. But her legs looked
sensational in shimmering, silky pantyhose.

He was right behind her when she turned.

A startled
“Oh,” was all she said, her eyes widening. He was so near he could
feel her breath on his face; so near he could see a pulse beating
erratically at the base of her throat. He inhaled the heady smell
of her: rich perfume, a hint of shampoo, and a musky, womanly scent
that was pure Allison.

She didn’t try to move away.

He took the
coffee jar from her unresisting fingers and put it on the
countertop.

He ignored
the clamo
ring of the alarm bells that
sounded urgently in his head. The alarm that warned this woman was
forbidden territory.

He pulled
her to him and claimed again that sweet, lovely mouth. Her lips
were soft and yielded under his and she tasted as delicious as she
smelled—honey with a hint of spice, sugar with a tang of
salt.

He tightened
his arms around her so her breasts were crushed against his chest.
Her warm body fit perfectly in his arms, as if she belonged there.
Had always belonged there. He groaned as he pulled her even closer.
Exulted as he felt her respond. That sassiness had been for
him
.

A
shiver of desire ran through
Allison as Joe kissed her. His mouth was firm and warm and
insistent and he tasted deliciously salty.

She couldn’t recall any reason she shouldn’t
be kissing him back. Not one.

She wound her arms around his neck and
pressed her body against his. Met the tip of his questing tongue
with her own in an exquisite duel of sensations. Gave herself up to
him with a shudder of utter pleasure. Desire throbbed through every
vein and a wonderful weakness suffused her limbs. Her knees felt
rubbery and she had to cling to him for support.

Being in Joe’s arms felt so right. Like
coming home. Not a one-night motel stop but home. Not just passion
but something else, something deeper, something more than lust.
Something surprising. Something she hadn’t expected.

She could
feel his heart thudding against her; her own was pounding as loudly
and as urgently. His other kisses had been nothing like this. He’d
been holding back then, she realized that now.

This
was the kiss she’d been fantasizing
about—passion unleashed and relentlessly demanding—and the reality
was far more exciting than the imagining. They’d only known each
other for a heartbeat, but the time between meeting and this moment
had seemed like an age.

He pulled
away from the kiss, gradually, as if he didn’t want to stop.
Disappointed, her eyes flew open. She felt dazed, disoriented,
achingly bereft of his warmth, of his strength.

But only for seconds.

He freed his
right arm and then traced the contours of her face, as if he were a
blind man seeing her with his fingers. Down her face he stroked,
around her eyes; he pushed her hair away from her temples and
stroked the delicate rim of her ear.

Every cell
came alive to his touch, clamo
ring
urgently for more. Then in an exquisite torture, he outlined the
shape of her mouth, softly, teasingly until she yearned, ached, for
the greater pressure and pleasure only his mouth could
bring.

He sought
her eyes with his own;
his eyes clouded
by a desire that ignited an answering need in her. She could not
have broken away from his gaze even if she had wanted
to.

This was a look of passion and possession
and she thrilled to the recognition of it as women had been doing
since the dawn of time. Joe wanted her and she wanted him. Now.

His hand
dropped from her face and stroked her body once more. She tilted
her face upward, hungry for his kiss. But her mouth was left
throbbing and aching with need as his lips followed the same path
as his fingers.

Tiny,
nibbling kisses blazed a path of pure delight on her eyelids, her
nose. His tongue gently caressed the rim of her ear. The almost
imperceptible pressure of his teeth on her earlobe sent an
involuntary shudder through her whole body.

When at last
he reclaimed her mouth, it was with a hunger she eagerly—greedily—
matched. She twined her arms around his neck and pulled his head
closer to hers. Closer. Closer. Closer.

The growth
on his chin rasped against her cheek but it was a pain that was
exquisitely pleasurable. The smell of his skin, of his hair was
intoxicating. Her breath came faster and faster.

Her nipples
tingled as they hardened and she pressed them urgently against the
powerful strength of his chest, her hips against his
pelvis.

He held her
so tightly against him, she could feel the hard throb of his desire
for her. The knowledge of his arousal was more fiercely exciting
than anything, and somewhere deep in the pit of her stomach she
felt herself melting and softening and unfolding like the petals of
a rose.

C
ontrol, Joe,
control
. Cool it. The alarm bells were
clanging insistently.

But Joe
couldn’t stop from stroking her neck and the swell of her smooth
cleavage. He ached to caress her lush breasts. He had ached to
explore them since that first day—when she’d greeted him at the
door in that barely decent robe.

Even through
the fabric of her dress he could feel her hard, aroused nipples,
and her response excited him to fever pitch. He struggled for
control but lost the battle. He wanted Allison more than he had
ever wanted a woman. No way was he going to stop.

He slid his
hand down her neckline, lifted the lace of her bra and pushed it
away. He cupped her breast, kneading the hard nipple between his
thumb and forefinger. She shuddered at his touch and thrust her
breasts harder towards him. Then he claimed the other nipple and
brought it to the same nub of throbbing arousal.

He was going to make it slow for her, slow
and lingering and thorough, until all she could feel was desire.
Until she craved him the way he was craving her.

Starting
right here he was going to explore every inch of her body, with his
hands, with his mouth, with all of him. Then he would carry her
upstairs and pleasure her like she’d never dreamed she could be
pleasured. His breath sounded ragged in his own ears and her
breathing echoed his.

He kissed a pathway down her soft neck, her
throat, to the edge of her bra, pulling it with his teeth. If she
liked what he did with his fingers, she’d go crazy with what he
would do with his tongue.

He reached down and cupped the cheeks of her
bottom and pulled her even closer to him. Then he pulled her dress
up, seeking her panties...

A
llison’s heart stopped beating
for a moment as Joe’s hand slid inside her panties. Anticipation
built as his hand slid over her belly and tangled with the curls he
found below. Once he went further, she wouldn’t be able to stop.
She’d be a tease to permit such an intimate caress and not follow
through to the ultimate conclusion.

But was having sex with Joe what she really
wanted right now? It was difficult to think straight through the
tremors of desire that racked her body. Then Joe’s fingers explored
further...

She pulled
away from him, gasping, and wrenched down her dress. “Joe. No. It’s
too much. Too soon.”

Joe’s face
was dark with passion. Even as she backed away from him, Allison
thrilled at the sight of it. For a long, breathless second she was
tempted to abandon all sense, all caution and push her way back
into his arms. Go out of control.

She wanted him, wanted him so badly that she
could scarcely think of anything but making love with him. Never,
ever had she felt this reckless, unreasoning desire. But she wasn’t
ready for that kind of physical commitment with a man she scarcely
knew. It went against everything she had always believed in.

“
I’m s...
sorry,” she whispered, scarcely able to speak from the
breathlessness of arousal. She looked into his eyes. “I...I don’t
mean to be a tease. But I don’t want to go any further.”

She forced
in a deep, shuddering breath to help her control her voice. Her
knees felt so shaky and weak she wondered if she would be able to
remain standing. She was stunned at the force of the passion that
had engulfed her.

It
frightened her. She’d dreamed about being in his arms. Fantasized
about kissing him, about making love to him. But she hadn’t
expected fantasy to so quickly become reality. That she’d be faced
with the chance of having sex with this man she’d known only for a
few days, a man she still knew very little about.

Yet...
a few moments ago she’d
thought she’d known everything she needed to know about
him.

She stepped
away from him, and was relieved when he didn’t try and stop her.
She didn’t trust she’d have the willpower to stop him again. Her
body wanted him badly—so badly that her hormones could easily
vanquish her good sense.

With hands
that weren’t quite steady, she pushed her hair back away from her
face. Her cheeks felt flushed and hot, her whole body alive and
invigorated. Her heart was still tripping at a million miles an
hour.

Joe was
still dangerously near;
she swore she
could hear the thudding of his heart.

“
I’ll...uh…
I’ll get on with fixing
that coffee,” she stammered, her voice sounding stilted to her own
ears.

“
It’s not
coffee
I want,” he said in that husky
voice, rich with sensual invitation.

She flushed
and dropped her gaze from his. “I know,” she said. Coffee was the
last thing she wanted, too. She ached for him—but she wanted to be
able to live with herself in the morning. She turned away from him
to face the countertop.

Crazy,
irrational thoughts raced through her head as, with trembling
hands, she measured the coffee into the glass coffee pot, adding an
extra measure for Joe. She’d bet he liked his coffee strong; even
past midnight he wouldn’t be a de-caff kind of guy. She poured in
the boiling water. She couldn’t bear to turn around and meet his
gaze as she waited for the coffee to infuse.

Her thoughts
tumbled and churned. It didn’t matter he had no money. She could
earn enough for them both. Especially if he was looking after
Mitchell. Role reversal. She, the working mom; he, the stay-at-home
dad. It could work.

Fiercely she
pushed the plunger into the coffee pot.
Enough.

She had to rein in her fantasies before she
saw herself walking down the aisle. To what? A fanfare of revving
Harleys?

J
oe throbbed with frustrated
desire. Watching Allison prepare the coffee was torture; keeping a
distance while he could still taste her kiss, smell her on his
skin, took all his self-control. He couldn’t keep his eyes off of
her. Couldn’t stop thinking about how her curves felt pressed
against him, how her warm skin felt under his hands.

He wanted
more. He wanted to thrust aside her protests, carry her up the
stairs, and spend what was left of the night exploring every inch
of her seductive body.

She leaned
down to a cupboard, her bottom thrust provocatively back at him,
her dress rid
ing high. Did she ever wear
a garter belt and stockings on those sensational legs? Black. Black
lace against creamy, satiny thighs...

He stifled a
groan of agonized need. He wanted this woman so
bad
. Wanted her to laugh and cry and lose
herself with him in releasing their passion. He wanted to make love
to her all night, and again when she woke in the
morning.

He had to
draw on every reserve of his willpower not to march over to her and
pull her into his arms. Then stifle her protests with kisses and
caresses until she begged him to make love to her. It wouldn’t be
difficult—she wanted him, too.