She only meant it to be one kiss, a quiet show of gratitude and trust, but one touch of his mouth on hers and need exploded within her. Her body trembled with the memory of him wrapped around her, naked and hot. When she pulled back, their gazes locked. His was searching and intense yet so tender she wanted to drown in his eyes. She leaned in again.
This time he leaned with her. Cupping her face in his large, warm hands, he slanted his mouth over hers. He kissed her slow and deep, their tongues twining, flicking together, mimicking the tender act they shared only yesterday until a quiet moan slipped from her lips and she melted into him, lost all track of herself, of her surroundings.
By the time they finally parted, both were breathless. His hands left her face and slid to her hips, tugging her against him. The hard length of his arousal pressed into her belly and his body trembled beneath her palms. For a moment, he closed his eyes, his breathing ragged.
“Good thing Annie’s still awake or you’d be in big trouble. You should not have done that.”
“I’m sorry. I couldn’t help myself.” She hesitated, the need swelling in her chest. “I want you.”
She’d been so wrong about him all these years, and the part of her that yearned for him tossed out every single reason why she shouldn’t let herself get lost in whatever happened between them.
An agonized groan rumbled out of him and he opened his eyes, shaking his head. “I meant what I said, Em. I don’t do serious relationships. I want you so much, but I don’t want to hurt you. I’m no good for you.”
“Maybe you don’t get to decide what’s good for me.” She leaned in, sipping at his mouth. She was delighted in the way, despite his protests, he sought her lips with a fervor that matched her own. “Maybe no strings attached is exactly what I want. Up until yesterday, I was a thirty-year-old virgin. Just once I want to do something completely not me. Get lost in passion for the first time in my life.”
She trusted him because he’d shown her that soft gentle side of him and simply because of what he did for her today. She wanted to lose herself in it, to stop allowing fear to dictate her life. For once, she wanted to close her eyes and jump in anyway.
He stared at her for a long moment, his eyes searching hers, clearly lost in indecision. But with a slow shake of his head he leaned in, whispering against her mouth. “I’m trying really hard to be a gentleman.” He kissed her once, twice, soft and lingering. “You keep saying things like that, and I’m not going to let you leave tonight.”
She bit her bottom lip to keep from grinning. “I’ve got to work in the morning.”
He growled against her mouth and kissed her again. Then he released her and took a step back. Lifting her coat off the hook, he handed it to her. “Then you better go. Before I make good on my threat. I’ll call you tonight.”
He
had
called her. Every night that week at bedtime he called from his office at the club and she lay in the dark, listening to his voice. The thought of those steamy conversations when Emma pushed her way through the thick crowd of the club had heat coiling low in her belly. Slowly over the course of the last week, their conversations grew softer, more intimate. They talked better, more openly when it was just a quiet voice over a phone line. They admitted things she wondered if they’d dare say to each other’s face. They shared dreams, heartbreaks, and visions of the future. He told her about the job he wanted her to do, how his days with Annie went. Told her about the things that made him laugh and even shared his frustrations.
Tuesday night, they both admitted how very much each wanted the other. She lay in the darkness of her bedroom, her body aching for his touch, when he asked, “You’re wearing that nightgown, aren’t you?”
The husky tone of his voice had made her tremble. “Yes.”
He growled low in his throat. “Take it off, Em.”
She did and told him so.
“Be my hands,” he whispered.
He brought her to heights she didn’t know her body could reach, and he hadn’t even touched her. Yet, at the same time, it felt intimate. She closed her eyes, did what he instructed, and got so lost in his voice she was sure, on several occasions, it was his hands and not hers.
Now the thought of seeing him again, after all the things they said to each other, had a knot of nervousness twisting in her stomach. Never in her life had she shared something so intimate with anyone. She had no idea how he’d react, what emotions would light in his candid brown eyes. Those steamy conversations made her feel wanton, wild. Emotions she didn’t know what to do with. She was always proper, responsible. The thought of the way she touched herself while listening to him made her blush.
Yet, they left her with a sense of freedom that made her want to lose herself in it.
A few minutes later, Dillon stood in the exact same place he was in the last time she came into the club—at the bar, surrounded by a throng of women. She stopped halfway down the bar from him, her hands trembling when she eyed the women. All those childhood insecurities twisted in her stomach. Two blondes and a brunette, all three of them tall and model beautiful. She couldn’t compete with that.
He turned his head. Heat flashed in his eyes, subtle but intense, and a warm smile twitched at the corners of his mouth. He touched the elbow of the brunette, his mouth moving, but his gaze remaining locked on Emma when he made his way in her direction. He made her feel like the only woman in the room.
She fisted her hands and squared her shoulders, butterflies tumbling in her stomach when he stopped in front of her.
He stood a little too close. “You came.”
“I wanted to see you.”
All those steamy phone conversations zipped between them. The tempo of the music slowed, became a sensual, throbbing beat, and he held his hand out, palm up, his eyes burning into hers. “Dance with me.”
She left her coat on a stool at the bar then slipped her hand into his. He led her through the throng of people onto the dance floor, then turned and pulled her against him. So close the undeniable proof of his arousal pressed into her belly, echoing her own immense desire.
He wrapped his arms tight around her. She slipped hers around his waist and she lay her head on his chest. She lost herself in the music, in the feel of his body swaying against her, and his heartbeat beneath her ear. It was a delicious sensation that made her ache and yet filled her with a sense of warmth and safety. She could stay there all night, in the circle of his embrace.
Eventually the song ended, a quick upbeat rhythm pounded around them and she lifted her head. His eyes smoldered, making her tremble. Without a word, he took her hand, leading her around the edge of the crowd, and up the stairs into his office.
The door barely closed behind them before he turned, pressing her back against the solid wood, and seizing her mouth. One large warm hand cupping her cheek, he devoured her, his kiss hard and hungry. He left her breathless, trembling in his arms and craving the soft heat of his bare skin against her.
“The things you do to me.” His voice rumbled against her throat when his lips left her mouth and trailed kisses down her neck. “I can’t resist you.”
“I want you.” She pressed herself into him.
He lifted his head and caught her gaze, his eyes searching hers. He looked lost in indecision, and then finally shook his head. “Not here.”
She waited hours for him to come home, tossing and turning on the bed in the guest room. She listened to Annie’s soft, even breathing, and unable to fall asleep. When his engine rumbled in the driveway, her heart picked up pace, desire pooling in her belly. Finally, when the soft click of the front door closed, she slipped out of bed, the need to see him winding through her.
Dillon stood in the kitchen at the center island and looked up when she entered the room.
“You’re awake.” His tone of voice was cool and detached, his expression hard to read.
“Couldn’t sleep.” She waited for him to move, to say something else, her hands trembling with the need to go to him, to touch him. He didn’t move, and frustration sang through her. Apparently, it would have to be her decision.
With a boldness brought out by overwhelming need, she closed the distance between them. She pressed herself along his length, leaned up on her toes, and kissed him, once, then again.
A low groan rumbled out of him, his mouth seeking hers with a hunger that stole the breath from her lungs. For long moments, she lost herself in him, in the heady taste of his tongue, and let her hands wander over the solid planes of his body.
With an agonized groan, he gripped her by the shoulders and pushed her away. He stared down at her with misery in his eyes and shook his head. “I don’t want you to wake up tomorrow with regrets.”
She drew in a deep breath, sucking up the last ounce of her courage.
In for a penny, in for a pound.
Keeping her gaze locked on his, she took a step back, pulled her nightgown off over her head, and let it drop to the floor behind her. “This sure enough for you?”
One dark brow arched. Desire flared in his eyes when his gaze slid over her. She fisted her hands, her entire body trembling while she waited for him to say something. She’d never done anything near this bold before. It was exhilarating and terrifying all at the same time. Like a baby bird taking the first step off a branch in its effort to learn to fly.
Just when she thought she’d go mad waiting, he slid his hands onto her hips and pulled her against him.
He leaned down and nipped at her bottom lip, growling against her mouth. “You are the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen.”
She let out a nervous laugh. “I was afraid you’d turn me down.”
He shook his head and kissed her, tasting her once, twice. His hands slid up to cup her breasts in his heated palms. “I have absolutely no resistance against you.”
She gasped and let her head fall back, arching into his hands, and trembling with an exhilarating sense of freedom and raw need.
He knelt at her feet, sliding his hands down her body, fingertips skimming lightly over her skin. His large, warm palms slid up the insides of her thighs and spread them apart, then slid around to cup her bottom and pull her to him. His tongue found her heated core. All thinking fled. The exquisite feel of the intimate touch overwhelmed her. She’d never felt anything like it. The sensations quickly became too much and not enough. The sweet tension gathered in her belly and burst so quickly, her knees went limp. She shuddered in his arms, vaguely aware of the soft gasps escaping her mouth.
When the tremors began to ease, he stood and pulled her against him for a kiss. Then he swept her off her feet and carried her into the bedroom. Once there, he lay her on the bed. His eyes smoldered at her. He shed his clothing and joined her, lying against her side. He claimed her mouth, his kiss slow, hungry, and needy. His hands slid down her body to her hips, and he rolled onto his back, taking her with him, until she lay on top of him, along his length.
She straddled his waist and bracing her hands on his chest, pushed upright and sat back on his thighs. He reached into the nightstand drawer and pulled out a small foil package, his mouth curling into that heart-stopping grin when he handed it to her.
“Be gentle.” His voice drifted low, husky and suggestive in the space between them, and an answering smile spread when she took the package from him.
Her gaze locked on his. She leaned forward and dragged the tips of her nails lightly down his chest, delighting in the way his body trembled beneath her touch. His breath caught, his chest rising and falling at an increasing pace. When she skimmed her nails along the skin just above where she knew he wanted her to touch him, his stomach muscles jumped, his hips rocking forward beneath her.
She closed her hand around him, delighting in the feel of him, the soft, silky skin. She loved watching his face. He squeezed his eyes shut and clenched his jaw. He looked like he was in agony and it made her desire that much headier and drew her own out to a feverish pitch. It gave her a delicious sense of freedom, of feminine power, to know she had that much affect on him, that she did to him what he did to her.
All too quickly, his eyes popped open and his hands shackled her wrists. His heavy-lidded eyes blazed at her. “You keep that up, and it’ll be all over before it even starts.”
Grinning, she tore open the foil package and sheathed him, pleased beyond measure when his eyes slid shut again, then she moved up his body. The tip of him nudged her heat, but she held herself out of reach, rolling her hips, teasing him.
Mischief danced in his eyes. His soft hands caressed up her thighs to the juncture in between, then dipped in, finding her center. He massaged her, drew her need out to a feverish pitch, and she closed her eyes, tipped her head back, and let him take her. Just when she reached that fine, sweet edge, he stopped, his fingers skimming away, circling around the aching bundle of nerves, deliberately not stroking her. He left her trembling on that precarious, sweet edge.
“Dillon…” His name left her lips on a needy moan. “Please.”
His hands seized her waist and his hips rocked forward. At the same time, he pulled her down onto him, burying himself within her in one swift stroke. The pleasure engulfed her, and she shattered, gasping for breath. He began to move within her, his fingers resuming their gentle stroke over her sensitive nub, drawing her climax out to near unbearable heights. She came apart in his hands. On some vague plane, she heard his name roll off her tongue on a desperate needy cry.
They spent the next several hours wrapped around each other, feasting on each other. Dillon’s patience awed her. He indulged her, allowed her the luxury of exploring every inch of his body, letting her take her time. She luxuriated in his reactions, the way he responded to her touch.
Not once did he ever rush her. He merely gave himself over to her, made love to her slowly, bringing her to heights she was once sure only couples in romance novels ever experienced. The soft, gentle side of him set her at ease, told her without a doubt she wasn’t wrong about him, and a piece of him stole inside, a piece she knew would be there forever.