“Bella?”
“Yes.”
“It’s not working.”
She knew just what he meant. They had moved the conversation from her appliances, to the broken teacups, to him not wanting a beer, to the furniture in her living room, to the movie that had made number one at the box office last weekend like either of them really gave a royal flip. “It’s not?”
“No. It’s okay to feel what we’re feeling right now, no matter what decision you make a week from now. And on that note,” he said, standing, “if you’re sure you don’t want me to help clean up the broken teacups, I think I’d better go before …”
“Before what?” she asked when he hesitated in completing the statement.
“Before I try eating you alive.”
She sucked in a quick breath while a vision of him doing that very thing filtered through her mind. And then instead of leaving well enough alone, she asked something really stupid. “Why would you want to do something like that? ”
He smiled. And the way he smiled had her pulse beating rapidly in several areas of her body. It wasn’t a predatory smile but one of those “if you really want to know” smiles. Never before had she been aware of the many smiles a person’s lips could convey.
In truth, with the little experience she had when it came to men, she was surprised she could read him at all. But for some strange reason she could read Jason and she could do so on a level that could set off passion fizzing to life inside of her.
Like it was doing now.
“The reason I’d try eating you alive is that the other day I only got a sample of your taste. But it was enough to give me plenty of sleepless nights since then. Now I find that I crave knowing how you taste all over. So if you’re not ready for that to happen, come on and walk me to the door.”
Honestly, at that moment she wasn’t quite sure what she was ready for and figured that degree of uncertainty was reason to walk him to the door. She had a lot to think about and work out in her mind and only a week to do it.
She stood and moved around the table. When he extended his hand to her, she knew if they were to touch it would set off a chain of emotions and events she wasn’t sure she was ready for. Her gaze moved away from his hand up to his face and she had a feeling that he knew it, as well. Was this supposed to be a challenge? Or was it merely a way to get her to face the facts of how living under the same roof with him would be?
She could ignore his outstretched hand but doing so would be rude and she wasn’t a rude person. He was watching her. Waiting for her next move. So she made it and placed her hand in his. And the instant their hands touched she felt it. The heat of his warmth spread through her and instead of withstanding it she was drawn deeper and deeper into it.
Before she realized his intentions he let go of her hand to slide his fingertips up and down her arm in a caress so light and so mind-bogglingly sensual that she had to clamp down her mouth to keep from moaning.
The look in the dark eyes staring at her was intense and she knew at that moment his touch wasn’t the only thing making her come apart. His manly scent was flowing through her nostrils and drawing him to her in a way that was actually making her panties wet.
My goodness.
“Maybe my thinking is wrong, Bella,” he said in a deep, husky voice as his fingers continued to caress her arms, making her stomach clench with every heated stroke against her skin.
“Maybe you are ready for me to taste you all over, let my tongue glide across your skin, sample you in my mouth and feast on you with the deep hunger I need assuaged. And while your delicious taste sinks into my mouth, I will use my tongue to push you over the edge time and time again and drown you in a need that I intend to fulfill.”
His words were pushing her over the edge just as much as his touch was doing. They were making her feel things. Want things. And increasing her desire to explore. To experience. To exert her freedom this way.
“Tell me you’re ready,” he urged softly in a heated voice. “Just looking at you makes me hot and hard,” he said in a tone that heated her skin. “So please tell me you’re ready for me.”
Bella thought Jason’s words had been spoken in the huskiest whisper she’d ever heard, and they did something to her both physically and mentally. They prodded her to want whatever it was he was offering. Whatever she was supposed to be ready for.
Like other women, sex was no great mystery to her. At least not since she had seen her parents’ housekeeper Carlie have sex with the gardener when she was twelve. She hadn’t understood at the time what all the moans and groans were about and why they had to be naked while making them. As she got older she’d been shielded from any encounters with the opposite sex and never had time to dwell on such matters.
But there had been a time when she’d become curious so she had begun reading a lot. Her parents would probably die of shame if they knew about all the romance novels Carlie would sneak in to her. It was there between the pages of those novels that she began to dream, fantasize and hope that one day she would fall in love and live happily ever after like the women she read about. Her most ardent desire was to one day find the one man who would make her sexually liberated. She wouldn’t press her luck and hold out for love.
She swallowed deeply as she gazed up at Jason, knowing he was waiting for her response, and she knew at that moment what it would be. “Yes, Jason, I’m ready.”
He didn’t say anything for the longest time; he just stood there and stared at her. For a moment she wondered if he’d heard her. But his darkened eyes, the sound of his breathing alerted her that he had. And his eyes then traveled down the length of her throat and she knew he saw how erratically her pulse was throbbing there at the center.
And then before she could blink, he lowered his head to kiss her. His tongue drove between her lips at the same time his hand reached under her wrap dress. While his tongue relentlessly probed her mouth, his fingers began sliding up her thighs and the feel of his hands on that part of her, a part no other man had touched, made something inside of her uncoil and she released a breathless sigh. She knew at that moment the heat was on. Before she realized he’d done so, he had inched her backward and the cheeks of her behind aligned with the table.
He withdrew his mouth from hers long enough to whisper, “I can’t wait to get my tongue inside of you.”
His words sent all kinds of sensations swirling around in her stomach and a deep ache began throbbing between her legs. The heat was not just on, it was almost edging out of control. She felt it emitting even more when his fingers moved from her thighs to her panties.
And when he reclaimed her mouth again she moaned at how thoroughly he was kissing her and thinking her brain would overload from all the sensations ramming through her. She tried keeping up as his tongue did a methodical sweep of her mouth. And when she finally thought her senses were partially back under control, he proved her wrong when his fingers wiggled their way beneath the waistband of her panties to begin stroking her in a way that all but obliterated her senses.
“Jason …”
She felt her body being eased back onto the table at the same time her dress was pushed up to her waist. She was too full of emotions, wrapped up in way too many sensations, to take stock in what he was doing, but she got a pretty good idea when he eased her panties down her legs, leaving her open and bare to his sight. And when he eased her back farther on the table and placed her legs over his shoulders to nearly wrap around his neck she knew.
Her breath quickened at the smile that then touched his lips, a smile like before that was not predatory and this time wasn’t even one of those “if you really want to know” smiles. This one was a “you’re going to enjoy this” smile that curved the