After her quick shower, she’d changed into a casual, oversized sweatshirt with a wide neckline, and loose drawstring leisure pants. The clothes weren’t all that complimentary, but they were easy to remove, and she knew she wouldn’t be wearing them for long.
When Jett’s hand traveled down her spine to the waistband of the pants, then slipped inside to knead her backside, he discovered her lack of panties.
“Damn, woman,” he rasped against her throat. “You know how to make me burn, don’t you?”
Natalie couldn’t reply, not with him touching her, drifting his fingers around to her belly, down between her legs. She went on tiptoe in reaction, her head back, her shoulders pressed hard to the wall.
Voice low with satisfaction, Jett said, “Ah, baby, you’re already wet for me.” While teasing her with his strong fingers, he lightly kissed her throat, behind her ear. “Been thinking of me?”
“Yes.” Always, Natalie could have said, but she held back that telling confession. Right now her involvement with Jett was uncomplicated and burning hot.
So what if she occasionally got the urge to just talk to him? Thanks to a father who didn’t care, a mother who’d left her and suitors who’d cared more about impressing her father than her, she’d learned to keep her relationships simple. If Jett got to know her, he’d get to know her family and the very misleading background of wealth.
Then how could she ever trust him again?
She’d found out the hard way that when most men looked at her, they saw only dollar signs. Never again would she put herself through that.
Near her ear, Jett whispered, “Hey, where’d you go, Natalie?”
Her heart softened; Jett was so attuned to her that he always sensed her mood, and he never failed to react to it.
She forced away the faint edge of melancholy, the niggling urge to reach for more than this, and said, “I’m here, with you, getting dangerously close to coming.”
“Not yet,” he told her. He took one step back, and when she reached for him, he caught her hands. With a level look of instruction, he kissed each palm and pressed her hands down at either side of her hips.
Breathing hard, Natalie acquiesced with understanding. Jett often liked to take control sexually, always with combustible results. He never, ever hurt her, never even caused her a twinge of discomfort. He was an openly giving partner, unselfish and talented. Regardless of any details that Natalie didn’t know about him, she knew him. She didn’t have a single doubt that anything Jett wanted to do to her was for her pleasure.
She could hardly wait.
After licking her lips, she said, “Why don’t you take off the towel?” Looking at his body always thrilled her. She loved it that he was all man, hairy in the right places, solid and hard, so much taller and stronger than her.
“You first.” He caught the hem of the sweatshirt and tugged it up. “Raise your arms.”
When she did, he lifted the sweatshirt off over her head, baring her breasts.
Cool air-conditioning drifted over her skin. Her nipples were already tight, aching.
“Stand still.” Jett lowered his head to dampen each one with his tongue, teasing, circling.
Her thigh muscles tensed, her belly hollowed. She waited for him to suck—but he didn’t. He just kept teasing, lightly kissing, licking, but stopping short at what she wanted most.
She closed her eyes on a wave of sensation that felt sharpest between her thighs. “Jett…”
“Shh.” He straightened again, cupped both her breasts in his hands and used his thumbs now to circle her wet nipples. “God, you have the most gorgeous body ever.”
Both she and her sister were large-breasted, but the rest of her? Average at best. Not that you could tell that by the way Jett reacted to her. From the beginning he’d seemed very drawn to her physically.
While working her nipples with his thumbs, Jett took her mouth again. He kissed her soft and deep, and he kept on kissing her long after she needed and wanted more.
Growing desperate, especially with the mounting sensitivity of her breasts, Natalie turned her face away to catch her breath.
He recaptured her mouth, not giving her time to think, to speak. When she moaned, he only tilted in his hips, pressing his solid erection to her so that she’d know he was in the same shape. Situated between her thighs, he stroked against her in a parody of sex but without the ultimate satisfaction.
She loved how Jett built the need until her entire body felt alive, every nerve ending sparking. Sometimes he kept it up until she couldn’t take it anymore.
She was there now, and still he seemed relentless.
When he pulled away suddenly, a haze of lust left her disconcerted. Without giving her a chance to regroup, he knelt and tugged the pants down to her ankles. “Step out.”
Using his shoulders for balance, Natalie lifted each foot free and he pushed the material and her flip-flops away from her.
She was now naked, and he was still on his knees in front of her.
Her lungs struggled to get enough air. Slowly, far too slowly, Jett slipped his hands around her hips to her backside and held her secure.
Knowing what he would do, her voice quavered. “Jett?”
He leaned in, nuzzling against her, breathing deeply of her scent, and Natalie thought her knees would buckle. She wove her fingers into his cool, silky hair and inadvertently tightened them when she felt his open mouth against her. “Oh, God.”
His tongue moved over her, in her, and then suddenly he stood to take her hand in a rush. “You’re killing me, honey. Let’s go before I lose it.”
At that moment, “losing it” seemed like a pretty good idea to her. She gave him a look, letting him know that sex in his foyer worked just fine for her.
Wearing a half smile, Jett shook his head. “Sorry, honey, but tonight, that’s not part of the plan.”
“What plan?”
“Shh. Just wait.” Gently, he urged her toward his bedroom. So that he could keep his gaze on her, he back-stepped all the way, staring at her breasts, how they jiggled with each step. His gaze sharpened and his jaw firmed; he made a sound of appreciation.
Beside his already turned-down bed, his voice gravelly with need, Jett said to her, “Lie down in the middle of the bed, on your back.”
Natalie had no issue with that. Anything to hurry him along worked for her.
But the second her head rested on a pillow, Jett dropped the towel and came over her to straddle her hips. She was just reaching for him when he caught her wrists and raised them up over her head.
“Jett,” she complained. She didn’t think she could wait much longer. She wanted to touch him. She wanted to feel him alive, throbbing in her palms.
“Not yet.” Holding both her hands loosely in one of his, Jett fiddled with the headboard—and then she felt the smooth, braided rope slipping over her hands, felt it pull taut with a gentle tug from him, closing around her wrists like a noose.
Alarm slammed into her.
She jerked her arms, but they remained secured over her head. “Jett?”
He surveyed her upper body, his face taut with lust. “Relax. You’ll like this.”
“But…” Again she pulled, and accepted that there was no way for her to break the hold. Her heart began pounding for an entirely