“Time to go, Janie,” he said, placing his hand firmly against her lower back, aiming for exactly the spot where Captain America’s hand had been. She raised her eyebrows and opened her mouth. Before she could issue the protest he knew was coming, he closed his mouth over hers, a quick kiss, but a deep, decisive one. One that made his point to her admirer. To her, too. Then he pulled away and said, “Your eggs Benedict awaits.”
Chapter Twelve
Jane might have changed her mind in the taxi if Cameron hadn’t rested his hand on her thigh as soon as he gave the driver her address. She was sober—she hadn’t been lying about that—but once they got outside, away from the weird fairy-tale-hopped-up-on-sex hormones that had been the bachelorette-meets-bachelor party, she started to wonder if someone had roofied her Diet Coke.
Because what in Xena’s name was she doing? She was not a reckless risk-taker. Never in her life had she picked up a guy at a bar. That alone would have been enough, but did she stop there? No, she did not. Forever an overachiever, she had picked up one guy, then left with another.
One who had, not twenty minutes previously, rejected her. If she had any pride, any self-respect to speak of, she would have left with Brian. Bryce? Dang, what was his name? Whatever. Heck, she would have left by herself.
If she had any sense at all, she’d put a stop to this now.
But that hand.
The way it had sought out her back at the bar, with a calm air of possession, like it belonged there.
The way it sat on her thigh now, heavy and solid, spreading heat up her leg and to her center. They were almost at her house, and they hadn’t spoken yet. But they didn’t need to. That hand communicated volumes.
He’d been right, before. She was horny. And it was his fault. He’d planted the idea of this “human touch” nonsense, and she hadn’t been able to get it out of her mind. Maybe he—and Gia, and everyone—was right. Maybe she and Felix simply hadn’t been compatible. Yeah, she’d felt his rejection as a major burn, but maybe she’d been letting it have too much power over her. She was older now. She knew what she wanted and what she didn’t. She was capable of compartmentalizing.
Well, maybe. Regardless, it’s what she wasn’t capable of that was ruling the evening. And she wasn’t capable of shaking that hand off her thigh. She needed that hand.
She needed it all over her.
The taxi pulled up to her house, and she heaved a shaky sigh, feeling like she was one big exposed nerve masquerading as a bridesmaid. Felix had always been frustrated with her because it took her so long to come, if she did at all, but tonight she felt like a box of gunpowder that might explode if Cameron looked at her the wrong way. Or the right way. Or at all.
“You can send me home,” Cameron said, low into her ear, crowding her from behind as she unlocked her front door.
She shook her head, too embarrassed to say anything out loud, to claim her desire for him.
“I can’t be your boyfriend.”
“Oh my God, no!” she answered, suddenly finding her words, then laughing at his mock-offended face as she flipped on the entryway light. “Sorry! It’s just that…I told you I don’t want one of those.” Baby steps—she had only just talked herself into the idea of casual sex.
She kicked off her shoes and—“Oh my God, what are you doing?” He had dropped to his knees.
“I’m looking at these toes that have been tormenting me all night.” He ran a hand from her ankle down over the top of her foot, and she shivered. “One photo of them, and I’ve been thinking about them nonstop. These are some powerful toes.”
“Hmmm. You might even say they have brought men to their knees,” she said, biting back a grin. Damn, she was bad at flirting. But she was rewarded anyway when he barked a laugh, and smoothed a line on the top of her foot where her shoe had dug into her flesh.
“This looks painful.”
“Nah,” she said, wondering if he was planning to stay there on the floor, at her feet. “That’s nothing. Have you ever tried high heels?”
“Can’t say that I have.”
“Well, don’t. They’re torture devices. I am morally opposed to them.”
He looked up at her, and she was startled to find that she’d placed her hand on his head, without even realizing it. His buzz cut was growing in a little, and the fuzz of his hair was surprisingly soft. They stared at each other, and for a moment, fear flared in her belly. The idea that anything could happen. That she’d brought him here planning to invite him into her body. What had she been thinking? It was…too much.
But then he moved his head a little so her hand slid down to his cheek. His breath hitched and his eyes closed as he leaned into her hand, as if he wanted to rest a weary head on her palm.
Was he afraid, too?
He opened his eyes, and she could see that the answer was no. But there was something there, some emotion beyond what she would have expected, that she couldn’t quite identify.
He must have seen the question in her eyes, because he whispered, “It’s been a long time.”
“Since you’ve been back, you still haven’t…”
“No. Well, that’s true, but beyond that, it’s been…since before I last deployed.”
Wow. Wow. She had kind of imagined him sleeping his way through Iraq, though that was probably stupid since she’d just found out he’d had a girlfriend during the deployment. And even though it had only been a day since their trip to Niagara, when he’d assured her he hadn’t reneged on their various bets, they hadn’t made another one to cover the time since then. There had been nothing stopping him from spending all day today working on his stupid “list.” Knowing that he hadn’t caused a surge of emotion. Guilt for having thought so poorly of him that she’d even entertained the notion. But also pride, as if he’d somehow been faithful to her, which was ridiculous.
Lust. There was also lust.
And it was stronger than the fear.
So she used her hand to gently tug upward on his chin, communicating her wish that he rise.
He did. She took his hand and led him toward her bedroom, but at the last minute he surprised her by stopping at the threshold of the office. “The good stuff’s in here,” he rasped, pulling her inside and then against him.
She buried her face in his chest, embarrassed in a way she hadn’t been when they were discussing her vibrators before. That had been a theoretical discussion, and this was…not theoretical. “We don’t need those,” she whispered, but she very much feared that she did.
She felt rather than saw his shrug, since she was still hiding her face. “Maybe we don’t need them; maybe we do.” His warm palms came to rest on her cheeks, and he gently tipped her head up to force her to look at him. “Regardless, we might want them. Either way, a man likes to be prepared.”
It was the perfect thing to say. The kindest, sexiest, most astonishing thing, and those few sentences somehow tipped a giant weight off her shoulders. Men were the ones who were supposed to have performance anxiety, but she’d been tied up in knots. The idea that he didn’t have a particular vision in his head of how their encounter would unfold, that there was no script, was strangely liberating. Insanely sexy.
She lifted herself up onto her tiptoes, intending to kiss him, but he didn’t seem to be getting the message. He still had his hands on the sides of her face, so she put hers on his in a mirror-image gesture and tried to tug his head down. But he resisted, stared at her with a small smile.
“Kiss me, you idiot,” she said.
He laughed. “I’m going to. I just need…a minute.”
“For what?” To change his mind? Like hell. She was standing there, panties wet and nipples almost painfully tight, a caricature of sexual desire. She hadn’t confronted her big emotional block about casual sex only to have the proceedings derailed now. She pulled harder on his head and bounced a little on her toes. Maybe this was one instance in which high heels would actually be worth the pain.
The smile disappeared, and for a moment she feared she’d offended him, that he was going to call the whole thing off. “To pause and take things in. To pause and take you in. Because once this starts, Jane…”
“What?” she whispered.
“We’re going to set this fucking house on fire.”
He didn’t wait for her to respond, just lowered his head—finally!—and oh, if she thought she’d been turned on before, she hadn’t realized. If she’d thought their kiss at the falls had been hot, she’d had no idea.
His tongue plunged into her mouth, but it might as well have been between her legs, because the shot of desire through her core was almost painful. She hissed against his mouth, and he started to pull away, but that wasn’t happening. So she slid her hands, which still rested on his cheeks, around his neck and hitched herself up on his body, wrapping her legs around his waist, and oh, her aim had been accidentally perfect. It was his turn to hiss as the very center of her slammed against his erection.
He didn’t miss a beat, though. His hands came around to cup her bottom, and he took two steps until her back was against the wall and pressed his hips against hers even as he returned to working her mouth with his. She arched her back, seeking more pressure, and he knew what she was after, because he ground into her, making tight circles with his hips, never letting up in the way a thrusting motion would have.