Apparently, Ross Bencher didn’t look at it that way. He didn’t just kiss—he made love with his mouth. He leaned her back against the counter and focused all his attention on her lips, caressing them to plump sensitivity before seeking further entry. When she did part for him, he created a slow web of seduction, all by delicately licking, stroking, and sucking the tender flesh of her mouth. By the time his lips began to trail a heated path down her neck, she was lost.
Utterly and completely lost.
She recognized only dimly when he took hold of her waist and lifted her up onto the counter. Her legs wrapped around his hips, pulling him tightly against her. He slid his hands under her shirt and skimmed his fingers up and down her spine, sending tingles of sensation driving through her body. She relaxed her head backward, arching her back. He seemed to understand her silent request and moved his mouth lower, capturing the hollow at the base of her neck. One of his hands slid around and brushed over her breasts.
The sensation shuddered through her and she had to stifle a moan.
“Ross, are you sure…” Her voice was a low, throaty whisper, almost unrecognizable to her own ear. Her hands flitted over his back, felt the rigid strength of his muscles. He was taut, restrained.
“Just let me kiss you,” he said. “I need to kiss you.”
Mutely, she nodded and leaned back on her elbows. When he nipped at her ribs, muscles from her stomach to toes twitched with pleasure. With a firm hand, he pushed up her shirt and then glided his hands over her sensitive nipples, weaving circles around them until she began to pant, desperately wanting more but unable to move, captive to the spell he had woven on her body.
He unbuttoned her shorts and eased them off her hips. She stifled a cry when his lips moved below her navel to the top of her mound.
She meant to say something like, “We should stop,” but the sound that came out of her was more like, “ngahh…” or some similar combination of vowels and consonants that really just meant please keep going.
Her legs seemed to part of their own volition, and then she melted into his mouth. The firm pressure of his tongue teased her clitoris with a steadily increasing rhythm. When he sucked on the nub at the same time his fingers found a path to her core, she jerked with a sudden, fierce orgasm.
As soon as her body stopped shaking, Kelsey pushed her limp muscles to sitting. Ross was gazing at her, his eyes glazed with desire. Then they heard a door in the hallway upstairs, and the sound of footsteps.
She jerked up the panties that still hung around her heels and dove for her shorts. Even as she pulled them up another door shut down the hall.
“One of the kids going to the bathroom,” Ross said, his voice strained.
She froze, heart racing. Without speaking, Ross pulled her against him. She could feel his breath on her hair as his heart thudded in his chest.
“Shit, I’m sorry I—”
He slid his hand down the back of her head, interrupting her apology with a kiss that left her breathless all over again. “We need a room with a door. And a lock.”
“Are you sure? Maybe I should go.” She felt somehow guilty, as if she’d coaxed him into doing something he shouldn’t.
“Not a chance,” Ross said. He tugged her hand gently, leading her toward the office. “But Luke’s a pretty light sleeper. We’ll have to stay down here.”
She stifled a giggle at the absurdity of the moment. His determination. Her fear. Sneaking around like a couple of teenagers trying not to wake the parents.
He pulled her inside the office and closed the door behind him, turning the lock and rattling the handle to make sure it was secure. The windows faced the backyard and the mountains beyond. Soft light spilled into the room from a distant moon.
Kelsey shifted from one foot to the other, suddenly shy. Ross had changed into a T-shirt and shorts when he came home, and now he pulled the shirt over his head, exposing the chiseled muscles of his chest and a mat of dark hair.
She looked around the room, wondering where she should go. He answered her unspoken question with a low voice. “Take off your shirt.”
Startled, her gaze leaped back to his face. Electricity surged between them. She complied, dropping the offending garment on the floor next to her feet.
“Now the panties.”
Mesmerized, she slid the silky material over her hips. She was still wet and warm from their kitchen encounter, and the heat in his gaze left her tingling all over again.
“Turn around.” His voice was suddenly hoarse.
Astonished into complying, she spun on the ball of her foot to face the door to the room. He took her hands and placed them high on the door, above her head, weaving a line of kisses down her back and caressing the soft skin of her waist. She could no longer see or touch him but she could feel the heat of his body just inches away. Instinctively, she arched her back, and was rewarded by the feeling of the hard length of him against her buttocks. Her eyes slid shut and she lost herself in the sensation.