The Night Remembers (30 page)

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ONE NIGHT WITH YOU

The Heart of the City Series

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Hollywood Nights

Book One

Excerpt from

One Night With You

The Heart of the City Series

Book One

by

Candace Schuler

Bestselling, award-winning Author

ONE NIGHT WITH YOU

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Affaire de Coeur

"I want you, Desiree."

"I want you too, Jake," she said clearly, and offered him her parted lips.

He kissed her, taking her offered mouth with a fevered eagerness that excited her already aroused emotions to an almost unbearable point. She strained against him, making a small sound of unmistakable need.

Jake cupped her buttocks, lifting her from the floor, and her slim legs locked themselves obligingly around his waist. He took three steps and then turned and fell backward onto the bed, taking her weight on top of his.

The short fall dislodged their lips and hands and Desi lay still for a few moments, panting lightly, her hot face hidden in the curve of his neck. She felt his hands in her hair, smoothing it through his fingers and down her back. Her tongue snaked out experimentally to taste him, and then her lips opened to feed greedily on that vulnerable place where his neck began to curve into his broad powerful shoulder.

Jake groaned and his hand stilled on her hair. He made a movement as if to roll over but Desi sat up abruptly, her wild hair foaming over her shoulders like a coppery cloud, and he lay still, waiting to see what she would do, staring up at her with hungry passion-glazed eyes.

"What are you thinking?" he asked.

"About how beautiful you are," she said. "You're the most beautiful man I've ever seen." She smiled a siren's smile of pure provocation. "And for tonight—all night—you're mine." Her hand trailed over his mouth and chin and throat to the top button of his shirt, "And I want to see more." She had the first button undone. "Much more," she said teasingly.

Slowly, then, and in a tense, tingling silence, she finished unbuttoning his shirt, running her fingers lightly over his broad furred chest as she went, and tugged it free from the waistband of his slacks. Her slim fingers hovered uncertainly over the buckle of his belt.

She could see the smooth muscles of his stomach tense in anticipation, waiting for her next move and, perversely, instead of doing what he expected her to, her hands went to the buckle of her own belt. She unbuckled it, tossing it carelessly to the floor and, in one swift movement she grasped the hem of her tunic in both hands and pulled it off over her head.

The peach-colored, lace-trimmed camisole she wore beneath her tunic, with tiny bows at the shoulders and between her breasts, was an intriguing contrast to the almost boyish appearance of her outer clothes. Her hands went to the first bow between her breasts and pulled it loose. The look in Jake's eyes began to burn hotter. Not melting, now, or even smoldering, but a raging inferno of desire as he lay there, very still, watching her undress for him.

The look in his eyes scorched her, making her clever fingers suddenly clumsy with nervousness and trembling excitement. The second bow snarled, refusing to come undone. "You do it," she invited him, leaning forward so he could more easily see the tiny bows. One hand held her hair back out of the way and the other touched the middle of his broad chest lightly, balancing herself as she leaned over him.

It took several seconds—an eternity—to untangle the second bow, and she realized that his chest was heaving under her hand, as if he had run a long way, his heart thudding against her palm. A faint sheen of perspiration glistened across his powerful shoulders as he worked impatiently at the bow. Suddenly it came free under his fingers. Then there was only the third and last bow on the front of her camisole and the tiny ties on either shoulder. The silky garment slid slowly down her body, revealing to his avid, hungry gaze the creamy perfection of her pale breasts with their small reddish-brown nipples puckered and straining for his touch.

Jake levered his torso up from the pillows, fastening his mouth greedily to one hardened nipple, and twisted his body so that Desi was turned onto her back beneath him. He seemed frantic, suddenly, to have her completely bare. As his lips and teeth tenderly ravaged her breasts, his hands were busy peeling her, and himself, out of the rest of their clothes.

Desi helped him as best she could, kicking off her sneakers, lifting her hips as he tugged her slacks and then her bikini panties off her hips and down the long slender length of her legs. She reached for him as she lay back, grasping his forearm to bring him down on top of her. He parted her thighs with his knees, settling his hips between her legs, and thrust into her. Desi received him into her as impatiently and eagerly and as passionately as he took her. There was no holding back for her with him. No coyness, no shyness, just an aching hunger. Her thoughts, her desire, her very being were all focused completely on him at that moment—and for all the moments for the rest of that long, lovely, magical night. One night of heart-stopping, head-spinning passion with the man who had invaded her deepest dreams ever since the first time she had seen him, nearly six years ago.

And it was enough, she told herself sternly, determined not to cry when she woke up the next morning with only the scent of him still lingering on the empty pillow next to her to reassure her that she had not merely dreamed it all.