“Oh I beg to differ,” he told her with a wicked glint in his eyes. “Between our great chemistry and your instincts, I think the heat levels’ climbing up the charts.”
She squirmed excitedly in his lap and felt his erection against her hip. He shifted his arms and hooked one under the backside of her knees. Lifting her slightly, he placed her on the cushion next to him, so she lay against the plump pillows piled in the corner, while her legs draped over his thighs, the midnight-blue satin covering the lower half of his body.
He propped himself up on one elbow alongside her as the other hand skimmed over her thighs and across her belly, making her flesh quiver. His fingers grazed her rib cage and then he palmed her breast, giving it a scintillating squeeze.
As his thumb swept across her hard nipple through the lace covering it, he kissed her neck and then her cheek and then, finally, her lips.
He kissed her provocatively as he pinched and rolled her nipple before smoothing the pad of his thumb over it again. Tension coiled in her stomach and her pussy ached for him. His fingers whisked aside the lace and his mouth left hers to gently suckle her puckered nipple. Ginger moaned, low and deep. Her fingers plowed through his hair and she held his head to her breast as he alternately flicked his tongue over the taut peak and then drew it into his mouth.
Her back arched and more of her throaty sounds bubbled up to fill the room.
“Ginger,” he whispered against her skin, his warm breath teasing her nipple. “God, you make me hot.”
She found this ironic, since he was the one making her burn with desire.
He kissed her again as his large hand slid behind the lace that covered the other breast. He toyed with the tight bud, making it harder. Ginger writhed beneath him as heat blazed through her body.
When she couldn’t stand the sharp stabs between her legs a second longer, she gripped the hand on her breast and guided it down to the apex of her legs. Through the thick satin, he rubbed her pussy lips as his mouth grazed her throat, his teeth lightly nipping.
“Ryan,” she muttered, hearing the tension in her voice. The plea for release.
His gaze met hers, his blue eyes clouded by passion and his obvious, contradictory need not to push her boundaries. “Are you sure?”
A strangled cry slipped out. She said, “You have no idea how restless you make me. How desperately you make me want to feel your hands and mouth on my body. Everywhere.” She gave him a pointed look. Being a virgin did not preclude her from knowing what she was getting herself into. She’d read plenty of naughty books and knew there were many, many ways a man could pleasure a woman.
Ginger wanted to experience them all…with this man.
Chapter Four
Ryan’s adrenaline was already pumping at max capacity. His cock strained against the fly of his pants and his gut was so twisted in knots, it was a wonder he could even think straight. Eve
rything inside him felt tight and fiery. And his heart… It hadn’t beat normally since Friday night.
Yeah, he was way in over his head with Ginger. From the moment he’d laid eyes on her while sitting at the window in the diner, he’d found it damn difficult to curb his desire for her. Or slow his raging pulse. Or calm the riotous emotions colliding within him, tightening his chest, gut and groin.
She had him thinking crazy thoughts, along the lines of how he could spend every night for the rest of his life with her. How he could come home from work to find her in something lacy or satiny, waiting for him with a glass of wine and a smile on her beautiful face. How he could begin every evening cuddling and kissing on the sofa before whisking her off to bedroom to make love to her all night long.
He’d do the dishes. He’d take out the garbage. Whatever he had to do to free up her time so she could spend it with him.
He was a goner emotionally, he’d pretty much deduced that from the onset. Even when they were kids, he’d had a soft spot for her. He’d felt protective of her and had always wanted to do what he could to help her out. She’d always been in the back of his mind, even long after he’d graduated and left Wilder. And when he’d returned… That first night at her shop when he’d stared into her big green eyes and had seen the pain, the anger and the fear in them, he’d been furious someone had hurt her and he’d instantly designated himself her protector.
But now she wanted more than kissing and light foreplay. He didn’t think she intended to go further than him fulfilling a need for her, nor did he intend to make love to her tonight. For one thing, he didn’t have a condom and he seriously doubted she kept her own stash, given her virginal status. Plus, he really didn’t want to rush sex with her.
Yet as her eyes beseeched him to take the edge off, he knew he couldn’t deny her. Hell, he wanted to touch her as badly as she seemed to want him to touch her.
With a low groan—because he knew how out of his mind she’d make him—he lightly grasped a fistful of satin and pulled it up until the material pooled around her waist.
Her fingers were still threaded through his hair and her eyelids fluttered closed. Ryan’s gaze shifted to her lace thong, which matched her gown in color.
“Jesus, Ginger,” he ground out. The sight of her stole his breath.
His fingers brushed along her inner thigh and her flesh quivered beneath his touch. Her breathing was already choppy, but she sucked in a sharp gulp of air as his hand covered her, the heel massaging her clit as his fingers rubbed her opening through the lace.
His head dipped and he took a perfect, plump, dusty rose nipple between his lips, teasing it with his tongue. Her soft panting echoed all around him as he brushed aside the triangle of material at the heart of her and slid his fingertips over her dewy flesh, slowly stroking her small lips as her body trembled and her fingers tightened around strands of his hair.
“Ryan,” she said, her voice raspy. “Oh God, that feels so good.”
He released her nipple and stole a glance at her pussy. The pink lips, the bare skin, the tight little hole. Pressing two fingertips to her swollen clit, he rubbed it in a slow, circular motion as she gasped from the shock of the intimate touch. Her hips jerked and she clamped down on her bottom lip. As he picked up the pace, she released it to accommodate the harsher breaths slipping from her opened mouth.