Call Me Irresistible (Wynette, Texas #5)(59)

He smelled so good, tasted so good, felt so good. The heat of his skin, the feel of sturdy muscle and hard tendon. It had been so long.

He didn't grab her ass or shove his hand under her shirt where he would quickly have discovered lots of bare skin bisected only by that fragile ivory thong. Instead, he concentrated on her mouth, her face, her hair-stroking and exploring, sliding his fingers through her curls, finding her earlobes with his thumbs. It was as if he'd memorized a diagram of all the nonobvious erogenous zones on her body. It was heady and thrilling and oh so arousing. 

Their mouths parted. He pressed his forehead to hers and spoke softly. "I'd like to go to my place, but I'm not risking having you change your mind on the way, so it'll have to be here." A nibble at her bottom lip. "Doubt it'll be the first time two people have got it on in that choir loft, although I thought my days of getting sweaty on a futon had ended when I graduated from college."

She tried to get her breath back as he caught her wrist and drew her out into the church. "Stop." Her heels skidded on the old pine floor. "We're not taking another step toward that futon until we have The Conversation."

He wasn't dumb. He groaned, but he stopped walking. "I'm disease free. There's been nobody since Lucy, and since that was four fricking months ago, you'll have to understand if I'm a little impatient."

"Nobody since Lucy? Really?"

"What part of four fricking months don't you get?" He regarded her stubbornly, as if he expected a fight. "And I don't go anywhere without a condom. You can make whatever you want out of that. It's just the way it is."

"You being Ted Beaudine and all."

"Like I said."

"Four months, huh? It hasn't been nearly that long for me." A lie. Her disastrous affair with Daniel, the Aussie river-rafting guide, had ended eight months ago. She'd never indulged in one-night stands, something she attributed to the conversations her mother had initiated about sex. Unfortunately, those conversations hadn't kept her from making some bad choices. More than one of her friends had said Meg deliberately chose men she knew would never commit because she wasn't ready to be a grown-up herself.

"I also am disease free," she said loftily, "and I'm on the pill. Don't let that stop you, however, from using one of those condoms you undoubtedly purchase by the gross. Since this is Texas, land of the barely concealed weapon, if I got pregnant, I would locate one of those weapons and blow your brains out. Fair warning."

"Good. We're clear." He caught her wrist and dragged her up the winding choir loft steps, not that he had to do much dragging.

"I also don't do one-night stands," she said when they reached the top. "So consider this the beginning of a short-term sexual commitment."

"Even better." He whipped off his T-shirt.

"And you can't let me get fired from the club."

He stopped. "Hold on. I want to get you fired."

"I know," she said, "but you want uncomplicated sex more."

"Good point." He dropped the T-shirt.

Before she knew it, they were on the lumpy futon and he was kissing her again. His hands curled around the bare cheeks of her bottom, and a thumb slid into the top of the silky floss that rode in her crack. "I pretty much enjoy it all when it comes to sex." His erection pressed hard against her leg. "You be sure to let me know if I do anything that scares you."

The blood supply that normally fed her brain had surged to other parts of her body, so she had no idea whether he was putting her on or not. "You worry about yourself" was the best she could do.

He played with the floss for a long, heated moment, then withdrew his thumb to drag it over her dragon tattoo. Although she loved the fantasy of having a man slowly undress her, she'd never known one of them who did it really well, and she wasn't giving Ted a chance to be the first. Sitting up on the narrow space beside him, she leaned back on her heels and pulled her T-shirt over her head.



       
         
       
        

In the age of silicone-enhanced breasts, hers weren't particularly memorable, but Ted was too much of a gentleman to criticize. He paid attention, but he didn't make any clumsy grabs. Instead, he curled his fingers around her rib cage, pulled himself up using only his spectacular abs, and bestowed a slow trail of kisses across her midriff.

Her skin pebbled. It was time to get serious. She was naked except for her thong, but he still wore his khaki shorts along with whatever was or wasn't underneath. She tugged the fastener to find out.