He frowned. “Well, I…” His throat closed down as he looked into her eyes, their unmatched color making him unsteady on his feet.
Of course he remembered her confessing to Gabe that she craved contact, but since then he hadn’t been able to convince himself it was true. Except now, now there was something in her eyes, or maybe just something he wanted to believe he could see… In any case, that damn weather vane in his pants was suddenly declaring clear skies and hot nights ahead.
God, he probably was an idiot. He probably was an idiot who had sucked down too much booze, yet he still couldn’t stop himself from taking a step closer to her. Then another, telling himself that when she backed up he’d take the hint and leave. Surely that would happen any second. Yet her pretty bare feet stayed stuck to the floor.
His head lowered toward hers and her breath rushed out, warm, and he detected the slightest scent of chocolate.
A song he remembered from the sandbox floated through his head. Not the boost-your-shit-kicking-attitude heavy metal music he’d been reminiscing to with Dean back at the guesthouse. What he heard now was one of those oozing, aching, gotta-get-me-a-girl songs that could have all the guys groaning and heading off for the showers or off for some private time with a pinup or just their personal prurient fantasies.
The words of the song slithered like seduction through his head. They reached into his pants like a slim, warm hand. “I smell sex and candy,” he heard a voice croon in his brain, and then he had to taste it. Taste sex and candy, and the most dangerous taste of them all.
Hers.
Without more thought, his mouth found Juliet’s lips and they parted on another little whoosh of sweet, decadent breath. His belly clenched, hard, harder, because this kiss was no damn accident. He couldn’t tell himself this time that it was just a harmless, unintentional tail end to her friendly hug.
This wasn’t friendly. And when his hands slid down over that slinky fabric to find her elegant ass and draw her hips against his, well, that wasn’t any hug.
That was hell-o, hail Mary, thank Jesus for being born a man so he could press the stiff weight of his cock into the softness of her female mound.
He didn’t hesitate sliding his tongue into her mouth. It was wet and hot inside, more than he remembered, and it had him thinking of the other wet, hot place of her body he could explore. But he might not get that far, he might not have that long, so he hauled her even closer against him and pressed his hip bones into her belly and damned the consequences.
She opened to him, she softened to him, and heat flashed like fire down his spine and rushed around to his groin. Though his head was buzzing with sexual glee, he recognized the yielding give of her breasts against his chest and his hand slid upward to cup one’s supple weight. Her nipple stabbed his palm and they both groaned.
His fingers tightened and she did that signature Juliet move on him again—sucking on his tongue and shattering his sense so that he was only about sensation, the stiff nub of her nipple under the brush of his thumb, the sweet taste of her chocolate-Julietness on his taste buds, the velvety smoothness of her belly skin beneath his fingertips.
Yeah. He was going for the gold.
Oh, Christ. But he couldn’t stop himself, even as he wrenched his mouth from hers to press kisses to the corner of her lips, the edge of her jaw, the sleek velvet column of her neck.
She was holding her breath, he thought. He could feel the trembling tension in her body as his forefinger flirted with her belly button. “Relax,” he said, though his voice was rough and tight and he couldn’t command his own muscles to let go. “Relax.”
Of course she didn’t. And of course he was at the whim of his lust, so far gone that as his fingers found no obstacle on the way to the apex of her thighs, he couldn’t stop himself from testing his teeth against the edge of her elegant chin. She jerked into both touches, and then his mouth found her wet mouth again and his fingers—
Also found wet. Heat.
Her outside flesh seemed to flutter around his fingers, and against his other hand, her nipple tightened further. In another second he was going to explode. For the first time in all these damn months of half-guilty fantasies, he had Juliet as he’d imagined.
At the mercy of his lust, of his lo—
He halted the thought by moving his middle finger lower, deeper. Her breath hitched. More heat, more wetness flowed into his hand, and then he was inside her.
His tongue thrust into her mouth and she held him there…and there. Sucking, tightening, taking. They had each other. It was sweet and carnal and more than he’d ever expected out of life.
I smell sex and candy… Then that croon made way for another voice.