She swallowed, looked down at his hand covering hers, and already her imagination revved into hyper-drive. Long, strong fingers. Big hands. Holding her down. Pinning her.
He seemed to sense where her mind had gone, or maybe he just felt the tension radiate from her body, because he didn’t move away as he paid for the drinks. Before she knew it, his fingers were laced through hers, and he was holding her hand at the bar.
She’d never known holding hands would feel so erotic, but with the charge in the air between them, this was no kids’ play. It was almost like . . . foreplay. Then, it most decidedly became the start of something when he stroked his thumb over her palm, tracing lazy circles on her skin, a promise of what he might be able to do with those hands. She nearly combusted from the spark he’d set off inside her body, like a fireworks twirler lit up and racing.
She shut her eyes briefly, breathed out, her body betraying her. There was no hiding the lust she felt radiating in the air. It was like heat in the desert, shimmering on the horizon. Undeniable.
He was a stranger who wasn’t quite a stranger, and he was the only thing she was thinking about right now. Her mind was one hundred percent here, and nowhere near her past, nowhere close to anyone else, not lingering whatsoever on the man she had thought she loved for years. Nope. She was present, only present, and she enjoyed this moment so much that she hoped it lasted and knit itself into the rest of the evening.
Into sex with a stranger.
Because that was some of the best sex there ever was. No holds barred, no past, no future, no emotions or history to cloud the moment.
She knew what she wanted tonight. A night with him.
CHAPTER THREE
ONE NIGHT WITH HER
Wet Kisses
He was no virgin. He was no saint.
He’d had a quiet year by choice. Guilt had clawed at him, and though he’d had plenty of chances, and plenty of attempted set-ups from women in his office who wanted to introduce him to their sisters, or their best friends, or their cousins, Jack had kept his nose to the ground and his pants zipped. He was a mess in the head, and a fuck-up in the heart, and that had kept him out of the bedroom.
A self-imposed monkhood, his sister had called it.
But hell, he wasn’t thinking of his sister right now.
He was thinking how much he’d like that dry spell to end tonight. Maybe even in the next hour. Because this woman was everything he wanted—sharp, clever, playful and hot as fuck in that blouse and skirt. She had the perfect body for that businesswoman look she had going on, with the skirt down to her knees that made him think of her in a boardroom, crossing her strong, sexy legs as she sat at the head of the table. She probably ran her own business, and that made her even sexier. He was drawn to the kind of confidence that a high-powered woman possessed. And he particularly liked that this high-powered woman had no clue he ran Joy Delivered, because that meant she was actually interested in the guy she’d met tonight, and not the label that sometimes lured others. With the years he’d spent in the military after college as an army intelligence officer before founding this company, he’d been labeled by the press as the Soldier-Turned-Sex-Toy-Mogul. It wasn’t the sort of a title that could be bestowed very often, but it was part and parcel of who he was. Though it didn’t bother him one bit, he also didn’t mind not being that person tonight, along with the baggage attached. He could be himself again. Not a man with a past tethered to him, or a sandwich board slung on his chest.
And so the last half hour with Michelle with two Ls he’d been precisely that—himself. They’d polished off another round of drinks and he’d held her hand, touching her in a way he hoped was driving her wild, and enticing her as much as her sexy librarian look and smart conversation was luring him in. The business meeting with Henry and the councilman was in the rearview mirror; he no longer had politics or problems on his mind. He and Michelle had talked about baseball, and beaches they wanted to visit, and Jack had even admitted that he had a buddy who’d made it his mission to have unusual questions at the ready, should he meet an interesting woman. Michelle didn’t seem bothered that he’d borrowed his friend’s body part question.
“I like that you just confessed. It makes you seem like you’re not just a smooth and polished James Bond lookalike, all dashing and debonair and able to fire off witty questions like that,” she said, snapping her fingers.
“James Bond,” he said, running his fingers down his tie. “I’ll happily take that comparison. Dashing and debonair, too—I like that as well.”
“Well, you are all of the above. So, Just Jack, what exactly is it that you just do?”