Her hips pushing back into the strong thighs braced behind her. Her lips parting on a ragged breath.
“God, I love coming home to this.”
To this.
Not to her.
He loved this heightened, ever ready state of semi-arousal that had been the hormonal flip side to all those months of nausea. It wasn’t news. And it wasn’t a blow.
It was a reality she’d accepted and made peace with a month ago. Embraced. Because with his mouth moving against her skin, his thumbs making one slow circling pass over her nipples after another—she was so sensitive—his erection thickening long and hard against her bottom, she loved it, too.
She loved the release. Loved how sexy he made her feel. Loved the hot look he was giving her now.
And more than that, she loved the way this man never stopped surprising her. She loved the spontaneous unstoppable side of him that, last week, had him pulling her out of her seat at the tapas bar they frequented and spiriting her off for a night flight over L.A. in his helicopter. She loved that low growl rumbling against her neck every time he put his arms around her and the way, just before he fell asleep, he always pulled her that much closer.
She loved that he held her hand when they walked along the beach and, no matter where they found themselves, a gallery, the symphony or local market, the insatiable man always had something decadent and outrageously wicked to whisper in her ear.
And she loved that he knew it drove her wild.
It was so good. Like nothing she’d dreamed could be possible.
Not enough.
The words whispered through her mind, unwelcome, but not entirely unfamiliar.
Only she wasn’t supposed to want more. She knew better.
But how was she going to give this up? How was she going to give him up when she’d already fallen—
“What’s the matter?” Jeff asked, a furrow between his brows, his hands on her breasts still.
She shook her head. “Don’t stop.”
He stared at her through another beat, those too-perceptive eyes searching until she bit into her bottom lip, drawing his focus back to the need between them both. Then, “Please.”
Their time was limited. She didn’t want to waste a second.
* * *
The balmy night air surrounded them as Jeff watched Darcy suck and lick her last spoonful of brownie batter ice cream, if not totally immune to what she was doing to that spoon, at least in a place where he could control his physical reaction to the pleasured moans accompanying it. Though possibly his newfound control had more to do with knowing an hour before, he’d been the reason for Darcy’s moans, and they’d put this paltry ice cream business to shame.
Still. He leaned close to Darcy’s ear as they walked. “You know my ego’s working itself into a snit right now.”
Darcy slanted him a questioning look, her lips still wrapped around the spoon.
“With all that moaning, he’s going to have something to prove in a serious way when we get home.”
Her brows pulled together in some sort of faux apologetic look totally belied by the deliberate way she then slid the spoon in and out between her lips, adding a sultry little moan wholly different from the unconscious ones she’d been delivering moments before and Jeff’s head shot around looking to see if anyone on the street was watching. But thankfully no one seemed aware, and then Darcy was just laughing, filling the street around them with that easy gorgeous sound he couldn’t get enough of as she tossed her empty dish into a trash.