My mind latches onto the prospect of . . . screwing Ryder Lockhart.
Having sex with the most handsome man I know.
Getting horizontal with this gorgeous, witty, generous man who’s willing to give me a piece of himself.
My stomach has the audacity to swoop.
My skin prickles as my mind fills with images. Undressing him. Undoing his zipper. Guiding him inside me. I lick my lips. My nipples tighten.
Oh dear Lord in Heaven.
It sounds dangerous and divine.
Truth be told, it sounds like a faster route from A to B, too.
And it’s also eons easier than the other way. This is the way it’s done. He’s asking to make my life simpler and to give me my greatest dream.
All I have to do is get naked for him and spread my legs.
Why on earth am I weighing pros and cons? This is all pro.
“You think we could pull this off?” I ask. “Working together and taking baby-making to the next level?”
He scoffs as if it’s incredulous that we couldn’t do that. “You and me—we’re pros. Who else can approach sex from such a practical angle?”
“And this is the practical way to achieve a goal?”
He shrugs playfully. “Practical and more pleasurable. Besides, we’re mature adults, and this is a quicker and better solution.” He takes a beat and pins my gaze. “Unless you don’t think we’d have fun in bed . . .”
I swallow and quickly dispel that notion. “Oh no. That’s not a worry at all. I’m sure it would be fun.”
He lifts a hand and fingers the end of my hair. “What do you think? Still think I’m a good guy?”
The swoop revisits my belly when he touches me. I nibble on the corner of my lip and fiddle with his collar. “Want to know what I’m thinking?” I ask, coy and flirty.
“That I now win the weirdest thing someone has asked you?”
“Would it be weird? Sex with you?”
“Do you like it weird?”
“I like it hard. I like it good. And I like it a lot.”
A groan echoes in his throat.
I tap-dance my fingers down his chest. “And I think I’m going to find out if you’re as good in bed as I’ve always thought you might be.”
“You’ve thought about me in bed?” he asks in that deep sexy voice, and oh, how this moment has shifted from baby planning to something dirty and delicious. Something I didn’t expect to happen tonight. But my body likes his plan, since it’s getting hot and bothered.
“I might have let my mind wander from time to time,” I admit.
Dropping a hand to my hip, he yanks me close. “What do you say we test out how it’s going to be with a kiss?”
“We get to kiss, too?” I tease.
“Woman, I’m not just going to fuck you. There’s going to be kissing and fucking. Fucking and kissing. And coming.”
That swoop in my chest settles between my legs now, like a pulse beating.
He bends his face to mine, and he dusts his lips to my forehead.
I shiver.
He presses a soft kiss to one eyelid then the other.
I tremble.
Then he rains kisses down my face, my cheeks, my jaw. Kisses that make me feel as if we’re under a streetlamp, the roads slick from an earlier rain.
My lips part, and he seals his mouth to mine.
It’s like that kiss on the silver screen when time stops. His lips are all I know. The world is this slow and gentle slide. The wet delicious taste. The feel of this man’s mouth pressed to mine for the first time.
Strangely, or perhaps not so strangely at all, I’m barely thinking of babies.
I’m thinking of bodies. Of my own, and how it reacts to being so close to his.
The hair on my arms stands on end as he kisses me with more softness than I ever expected. He’s tender and gentle—this is how you take a woman into your arms after you’ve told her you’ll help her dreams come true. You give her a kiss that makes her feel like starlight.
I sigh, sinking into it, savoring every wondrous second of his lips on mine. I’m not sure I’ve been kissed like this in ages. This kiss is a luxury. We are living in a slow torch song.
Lips glide. Tongues touch. Breath mingles.
He tastes like spearmint, clean and sexy, and I absolutely love that combination in a man.
He groans against my mouth. That sound, carnal and masculine, lights me up.
He slides his hand up the back of my neck, and I wobble the slightest bit. He steadies me with a hand on my hip. His fingers resume their path, climbing upward. He ropes his hands in my hair, and he tastes me more deeply. More insistent.
I let out a little moan when he nips my lips, and then our slow, deep, wet kiss shifts. It becomes a little harder, a bit faster, a lot closer. I might be panting when we stop.