Fuck analysis.
With that image in mind, there was only one answer, because this was heaven—this was his chance to have his hands and tongue on the woman he’d lusted after, fantasized about and dreamed of, and still keep her in his life as a friend. This was the chance to drive her wild with pleasure and know that the next night, next week, next month they’d still be in each other’s lives. This was having your cake and eating it too.
“You want this, Casey? You really want this? No feelings, no strings, just lessons?”
“Yes. There’s no reason this won’t work perfectly. I mean, except for the fact that it’s one-sided. I’d be getting a lot more out of it than you would. What can I do for you?” she asked, so damn earnest and cute.
He laughed once more. “Trust me. I’ll be getting plenty out of it.”
Namely, he’d be getting her out of his system, and once he did it would be even easier to be around her. Maybe he wouldn’t be in a state of constant arousal every time they went to the movies or dinner.
“Are you sure?”
“Casey. You’re going to need to stop questioning me,” he said in a commanding tone. “That’s your first lesson. The next one starts now.”
CHAPTER FOUR
New Orleans, evening . . .
He threw the napkin on the table and reached for her hand. Her expression was one of complete surprise. “Dance with me.”
Her lips quirked up and she seemed to understand what he’d done. Given her an order. She nodded demurely and he led her to a small sliver of a dance floor, near where the woman with the microphone was singing a Billie Holiday number. He pulled Casey in close. She tensed briefly, as if unsure where to rest her hands, whether on his shoulders or waist. He planted them firmly on his shoulders, and wrapped his arms around her sexy, slim waist that fit perfectly in his hands.
“Just relax and let me lead,” he said, whispering in her ear, a waft of her tropical scent drifting by his nostrils. She shivered briefly against him, and that nearly did him in. He stayed strong, swaying gently, guiding her in slow, sensuous moves. “I’ll show you how to let go, but you have to trust me. And that’s where it starts. With trust. I’m not a Dom, you’re not my Sub—we’re not going to join a BDSM club, or sign a contract. But I can show you how good it will feel when you give up control.”
She breathed in sharply, as if acclimating to new air on a distant planet. “Why do men like a woman to give up control? What is it about the lack of control that men like so much?”
“It’s not that they like a lack of control. But a man wants a woman who gives herself to him. He wants a woman to melt into his arms, to get aroused from a kiss on the back of her neck,” he said, and traced a fingertip gently under her hair, watching her reaction as she drew in a breath. “It’s the hand on her arm.” He trailed his fingers down her bare skin to her elbow as he leaned in to whisper, “Or warm breath near her ear.” She gasped, and he kept going. “He wants a woman who’s so turned on, she’ll nearly beg for it. He wants her abandon. He wants to be the only one to make her feel that way.”
She parted her lips to speak, but he shushed her with his fingertip against them. God, he was so tempted to let her suck on his finger right now, to watch her simulate a blow job, to let her show him what she could do. But that would come later. He needed to kiss her first.
That is, after he teased her.
“At some point soon, some point very, very soon, I’m going to kiss you,” he said, watching the expression in her eyes shift to a heady kind of desire. Her fingers curved into his shoulders, holding on tightly to him. “You’re going to close your eyes,” he said, and then her lids fluttered closed. “And you’re not going to know when it’s coming. You’re going to want it. Your body is going to be crying out for a kiss,” he said, his voice husky and raw as her chest rose and fell, and she moved closer to him as they swayed. He cupped the back of her neck, watching her response to every touch, from the way her lips parted as he threaded his hands through her hair, to how she leaned back into him, almost relishing the way his fingers ran slowly through those soft, wavy strands. A sigh came next, a desperate needy sigh, and a barely-there arch of her back, her body seeking out more contact. “But I might not kiss you yet. I might run my hands down your arms,” he said, then did just that. “Or maybe I’ll stop telling you what I’m going to do.”
He swore she murmured a no, but then her sounds were swallowed by a sexy gasp as he dipped his mouth to her chest, kissing her above her breasts. Immediately, she reached for him, her hands shooting around his neck.