Holding her breath, she lifted her bent leg, drawing it back off his groin. Slowly, oh, so carefully. But when she shifted a little too low, and her jean-clad thigh brushed against the money-spot on the front of his trousers, she stopped with a gasp. Because those trousers were not flat anymore. Definitely not.
He was hard, erect, aroused.
And, she greatly feared, awake.
He confirmed it by dropping a big hand onto her arm, holding her right where she was—right against him.
“Stop.”
“Uh…how long have you been awake?”
Please don’t say long enough to know I’ve been climbing all over you in your sleep. Though, judging by the ridge in his pants—the big, mouthwatering ridge—that seemed pretty certain.
“I just woke up a few seconds ago,” he claimed.
He could have been telling the truth, the gravelly note in his voice hinted at sleep. So maybe his body had just been doing its nocturnal thing. Perhaps the fact that her thighs were spread and practically begging to be parted further didn’t factor into the big erection pressing against the seam of his pants.
Stop thinking about his pants. And what’s in them.
Yeah, fat chance of that. Every cell she had was on high alert, and her blood roared through her veins. She might have told herself a thousand times that she never wanted to see Ross again. But being here, in his arms, knowing his body was reacting to her even if his mind didn’t know it, was the most exciting thing she’d experienced in ages.
There was no sense denying it, at least to herself. She wanted him. Against all reason and all common sense.
Or maybe not. What if it was reasonable? Maybe it made perfect sense to take this unexpected moment and wring whatever she could from it.
She and Ross had been a perfect sexual match once. Lucy had spent six years learning that was a pretty rare thing. Other men had given her orgasms…nobody else had made the earth shake. Plus, she was no longer the inexperienced twenty-two year old who confused sex with love. She and Ross didn’t need to love each other to experience pure, undiluted pleasure in each other’s arms.
At least…as long as he wanted to. His body apparently did, but his mind had to be engaged in the decision-making process. Ross had walked away without a backward glance once before, so maybe this tension she was feeling didn’t mean as much to him as it did to her. If not, she needed to know that before deciding whether to slide onto him and kiss his lips off, or roll over, get out of the bed and demand that he let her out of the building. Facing a blizzard sounded more appealing than admitting she wanted him and finding out he didn’t really feel the same.
“You could have woken me up when you realized I was here. Why didn’t you?”
“Maybe because I just wanted to sleep with you one more time,” he admitted.
Nice.
Then, with a sigh, he added, “Plus I knew if I woke you up you’d put all those defenses back into place and insist on leaving in the middle of a blizzard.”
She ignored the comment, since she’d pretty much just decided to do exactly that.
“So you just crawled in and curled up next to me?”
“As I recall, you were the one doing the curling,” he said, his tone lazy and amused. Which confirmed he’d been awake a little longer than he’d let on. Hell.
“So,” he continued, “what’d you forget?”
“Excuse me?”
“I think I put everything together—you must have forgotten something this afternoon, come back to retrieve it, then gotten stuck in the building when Chip went outside and had a heart attack.”
“Oh, no! Is he okay?”
“The cop who called me said he thought he would be.”
“I hope so. He was very nice, letting me come back in because, yes, I did forget something.” Embarrassed to admit it, since every photographer considered their camera an extension of their own body, she explained, “I left my camera bag and my specialty lens case.”
He chuckled softly, obviously reading between the lines, knowing he’d flustered her enough to make her forget her equipment. The man had always been a little too perceptive. Damn it.
This conversation wasn’t going the way it was supposed to. She’d broached the topic, hoping to hear him say he’d climbed into bed with her because he wanted her so desperately.
Now they were talking about cameras and cops. Ugh.
The wind howled, and though the temperature hadn’t fallen too much inside, she instinctively curled closer to Ross. They both fell silent, as if totally comfortable with the fact that they’d ended up in bed together by accident—which she still wanted to discuss, by the way.
But later. Not now. Not when he was so warm and strong, when his breath teased her hair, and his hard thigh fit so nicely between hers. Not when she was trying to breathe ever deeper, intoxicated by the warm, spicy scent of his skin.
Not when she needed to know if he really wanted her—Lucy Fleming—and not just the female body that happened to be beside him in the bed.
If he did, Lucy intended to let herself have him. Ross would be the ultimate Christmas present. Just this once, just for tonight.
As if he knew she had no intention of putting some distance between them, Ross lowered his hand to her wrist, lazily tracing circles on the pulse point. Like he had every right to touch her. Lucy sighed, shocked at how evocative that touch felt. Her already moist sex grew hotter, wetter, as she remembered how those strong but gentle fingers used to slide across her clit, making her come with a few deliberate strokes.
Stretching, he shifted a little, and she felt the flex of the powerful muscles in his shoulder. She’d noted earlier that his body had changed—he was bigger, broader across the chest and shoulders, though his lean hips would still be easily encircled by her thighs.
It was far too easy to visualize that. To visualize everything. In fact, she was having difficulty focusing on anything else.
Without warning, Ross moved his hand, dropping it to her hip, tugging her more tightly against his body. For warmth? For old time’s sake? Because he had nothing better to do?
Oh, God, he was driving her crazy!
He continued with that steady, even breathing, remaining silent, and didn’t reveal by word or deed whether he was just killing time or trying to start something.
Finally, unable to take it anymore, she sat straight up in the bed and glared down at him. “Well, are you going to do something about this?”
She was asking a lot more than that. Are you interested? Do you feel this? Do you want me?
He didn’t respond for a second, didn’t reply with a confused, Like what? But then, just when Lucy was about to launch herself out of the bed and call him an idiot, he moved, quickly and deliberately.
Between one breath and the next, Ross sat up, pushed her onto her back and slid over her, his powerful body pressed hard against hers. His face lowered toward her, and Lucy’s heart thudded with excitement as she saw the hunger in his expression.
Then he said two words…the only two she wanted to hear.
“Hell, yes.”
After that, no words