“Smart? You will lecture me on smart? This from the man who mutilates his body on an annual basis? I’d say that the smartest move you could make was to—” she waved a fill-in-the-blank hand “—make a move.”
Silently he stared, but she was winning, and now they both knew it. It was there in the furtive glances that dipped beyond her Pilates-flat belly, toward the front of the sheer, extraordinarily sheer, black lace panties.
Boldly she opened her legs, splayed them in a triple-X move that was designed to draw attention to her pelvic region.
His gaze locked there. Glazed. Almost Pavlovian. Fascinating.
“I’m still leaving in the morning,” he stated firmly, ceding the battle but claiming the war.
As if.
Jenna smiled her sweetest, most innocent smile and stood. She reached behind her, trying to unhook her bra, but the clasp was stuck or maybe her fingers were swollen. Whatever the case, she couldn’t undo the tiny eye hooks. Who the hell had designed this sucker? Master Lock?
Before she made a complete fool of herself, he turned her, and she felt his hands on her back. Some of the cold melted away. He had nice hands. Large, rough palms and long fingers that were destined to know the secret of the bra clasp.
But he didn’t undo it right away. Instead, those big hands slid beneath the strap, stroking, caressing.
“What are you doing?”
“Touching you. I thought that was the idea. You’re very touchable.”
The long strokes continued, up and down, excruciatingly gentle. “I thought you were a builder,” she murmured, tilting her head back, eyes closed, in imminent danger of losing all sense of balance.
“Yeah. So?”
“You don’t have a builder’s hands,” she said, her breath escaping on a whisper.
“You don’t have a doctor’s breasts, but you don’t see me ragging on you about it.”
“What sort of breasts do I have?” she asked, swallowing when his hands moved up, curling around her shoulders, her neck. Not content, those hands slid down her front, slipping beneath the silken fabric of the bra, freeing her breasts.
“Soft to the touch, highly sensitive.” His thumbs flicked over the twin nipples, toying them to attention, and Jenna felt her knees start to tremble. He pulled her closer, bracing her from shoulder to knee. She felt the bulky chest, the rough friction of his jeans against her bare skin, and the long piece of his cock that was pressing impatiently against her ass.
He continued the sure movements with his hands, a slow languid survey that was turning her to a boneless mass of tissue and nerves. It had been so long since she’d felt like this. Relaxed, pleasured…healed. Next his clever mouth explored the slope of her neck, finding an erotic little spot behind her ear that she didn’t even know she had.
“There?” he asked.
“There is nice,” she said on a sigh.
While his mouth dallied, his hands moved lower, beneath the band of the panties. “You don’t have a doctor’s underwear, either.”
“You have a problem with that?” she asked, liking this teasing, liking the touch. He’d surprised her with this. Surprised her with his patience. It wasn’t easy for her to relax; there was always something else on the list to be done. But right now, she only wanted to do this.
“I want you to lose them,” he whispered, sliding the scrap of material down her legs, until it fell to the floor, leaving her bare except for hose and heels. Yes, it wasn’t completely comfortable, but she was okay with that, because she was starting to feel…sexy.
His rough thumbs traced over her cheeks, parting the highly charged flesh, and making her hips tighten with his flirting touch. “So soft, so tempting. An ass this fine should not be covered.”
“There are a lot of nerve endings there,” she explained, not that he needed the anatomical education, but by talking, by keeping her mind focused on the logistics of what they were doing, she didn’t feel quite so…emotional.
Not that emotional was a bad thing, but she did twelve-hour rotations with her feelings packed in ice. Letting go wasn’t easy for her. Letting someone else take over wasn’t in her nature.
In fact, her body jerked in protest, just from the feel of his hands. He cupped her cheeks, kneaded, and her body jerked again. Toward him. “It’s a very sensitive area,” she hissed, her eyes desperately locked to the view from his window. She wanted him to stop touching her, even while she could feel the moisture beading down her thigh. Her instinct was to turn to see, to watch, to know what to expect, but the complex sensations that were roiling inside her kept her frozen, nervous and highly aroused.