Before he could lean in to claim her mouth again, Annabel used the small distance he’d put between them to push a hand against his chest. ‘Taxi,’ she panted. ‘Now.’
He’d already forgotten. ‘Wait right there.’ He tore himself away, heaved the door open and raced for the stairs before his synapses could relay the urgent message to stop and turn around.
He was back in less than five minutes. And she was waiting for him. Watching through her little spyhole. Flinging the door open before he had to knock.
Then he was inside again, noticing she’d ditched the coat as, without a word, he pushed her back up against the wall and kissed her hard until neither of them had any breath left.
She pulled away first, sucking in air through lips his rough kiss had left red and swollen. Her hands were busy with the remaining buttons of his coat while his skimmed down over the tailored curves of her waist and hips.
‘Off!’ She wrenched the lapels back over his shoulders. He took his hands from her only long enough to help shake the coat from his arms and then he put them right back where they’d been.
‘Your turn,’ he ordered, bending to kiss her jawline while his fingers began gathering the fabric of her skirt, rucking it up. ‘Lose the jacket.’
Annabel moaned and let her head drop back against the wall, surrendering to his mouth as it closed over the pulse banging below her ear.
Hands working urgently in the tight space between their torsos, she managed to wrestle her jacket off while he got her skirt bunched up around her hips. As he felt her palms clasp his shoulders, his own slid downwards over her newly exposed thighs. What his touch discovered there had him smiling against the tender skin of her neck.
Straightening, he looked down into her upturned face. ‘Tights, Ms Frost?’ he questioned with a whiff of disapproval, as he’d done once before – on the day he’d decided that the only way he’d ever get past his manager’s frosty defences was to risk something daring. ‘Really?’
Her eyelids snapped open at the words and, when she would have lifted her head, he wrapped a hand around her throat, setting the pad of his thumb against her chin to hold her where she was.
‘Remember what happened the last time I found you in tights?’ he asked, because he sure as hell did. He recalled every heart-pounding second of the scene that had started as a tease and had spun way out of control down in the wine cellar of Cluny’s, leaving Annabel standing in a ruined pair of tights and him wondering if he’d lost his job as well as his sanity.
Her throat moved against his palm as she swallowed. ‘How could I forget? You were so over the line I should have had you charged with indecent assault.’
He flashed a grin. ‘Indecent?’ He leaned close to bring his mouth to hers and licked slowly from one corner of her bottom lip to the other. ‘I doubt you have the first clue of just how indecent things would have become if I’d not called a halt to that little episode – if I’d carried on and done all the things I’d wanted to do to you.’
‘I would have stopped you,’ Annabel said, baited no doubt by his deliberately cocky tone.
Although the heat sparking in her eyes had little to do with anger.
‘Would you?’ he asked, unable to resist teasing her a little more. ‘So far as I remember, you didn’t look like you were up for stopping much of anything.’
She stiffened. ‘Of course I would have. I didn’t want it.’ She tried to escape his hold, but he tightened his grip at hip and throat and lowered his mouth to hers again. This time he captured her bottom lip between his teeth and sucked on it until her eyelids fluttered closed and he felt her annoyance start to melt back into desire.
He loosened his hold on her hip and ran his fingers along the leg seam of her briefs, tracing the inward line through the sheer barrier of the tights. Releasing her lip, he murmured, ‘Do you want it now?’
Her lashes parted to give him a flash of green as she sighed and murmured back, ‘Fuck yes.’
With that he hooked his fingers into the sheer fabric and with a sharp tug, tore through the tights.
Annabel jolted, her mouth and eyes rounding in shock. While he locked his gaze onto hers he ripped an opening large enough to allow him access, then his fingers were burrowing into her silky underwear, brushing against soft curls and into the slick, soft heat of heaven. He groaned deep and low in unison with Annabel – felt her push against him, forcing his touch to slide deeper into the welcoming wetness.
God Almighty. He wanted her naked and on her back now. Wanted her legs spread and his face buried hard between her thighs. Wanted her mindless and arching against his mouth as he tasted every inch of her and drove her to come on his tongue.
Withdrawing his hand, he silenced her sudden aggrieved growl with a deep, demanding, open-mouthed kiss that conveyed the promise of the more intimate kiss to come. Enfolding her in his arms, he lifted her off her feet and made his way down the hall.
The feel of Annabel’s legs wrapping around him, the plucking of her fingers at his clothes as he carried her towards her bedroom, only maddened his lust further. He heard her shoes hit the floor behind him as he turned into the darkened room and kept walking until he met the edge of the bed. Toppling forward, he released her at the last minute and caught himself on his arms as he lowered her to the mattress. Enjoying the feel of her smaller, curvier body cushioning his, he let his weight settle on her. She seemed to enjoy the sensation too, grasping his face as they continued to kiss, and tightening the legs still wrapped around him so she could grind her pelvis against his.
And suddenly, thoughts of getting her naked could wait. They both needed his mouth on her. Now.
He broke the kiss and levered himself back onto his feet, running his hands down over Annabel’s breasts and ribs and stomach as he did so. When her legs fell from around his hips, he caught them behind the knee, pushed them wide and dropped to kneel between them.
He slid his palms up her inner thighs, hooked his fingers into the tear he’d already made in her tights and pulled to make it larger. With the only illumination in the room the light filtering in from the hall, he turned his attention to the scrap of lacy silk underwear still keeping him from his goal. As it shredded like tissue paper in his fists, he hoped it wasn’t her favourite pair.
‘Hey–eee!’ Annabel’s yelp of outrage turned to a squeal of pleasure as his mouth found her. Under the fast, furious strike her whole body convulsed. Instinctively, her thighs tried to clamp shut but he pushed them apart, opening her to him, holding her there as he lost himself in the womanly taste of her.
A second later her fingers were tangling in his hair, her nails sharp against the top of his scalp as her hands balled into fists and pulled him closer. ‘Yes!’
She wanted more? He was only too happy to oblige.
Using his thumbs to spread her wider, he homed in on her clitoris, working her with his tongue. Bit by bit he felt the tension ratchet tighter until her entire body was strung taut. As the tension snapped, allowing the first quivers of release to set her limbs trembling, he changed tactics and sucked, holding her fast as she bucked and shuddered against him – wringing throaty curses and every last pulse of pleasure from her until her hands fell away from his hair and she was nothing more than a twitching, gasping wreck.
He surged to his feet, dug into his hip pocket and wrenched out his wallet, fingers scrabbling to locate the condom there. Laid out before him like an erotic dream in the half-light, Annabel was limp, dazed, so beautifully fuckable in her state of dishabille that he knew there was still no time to get naked. He needed to get inside her before he exploded in his own pants.
Condom found, he tossed the wallet aside and attacked the fastenings of his jeans, relying on brute