“I think that…if we’d just act on this…thing…satisfy the curiosity, solve the mystery, then we could be done with it and move on.”
He took a step forward, watching her intently. “This… thing… Mind elaborating?”
“You have thoughts. So do I. I’m not a man, but I’m human. I have feelings…thoughts…too.”
His sudden ear-to-ear grin, surprised her. “I turn you on.”
“Yeah.”
“Oh, lady, you have no idea how glad I am to hear you say that.” He pulled her up out of her chair.
“You are?”
“I’ve been sitting here wondering how in the hell I was going to stand the sweet torture of having you here for the next two days without you figuring out that I was…”
“Hard?”
“Yeah. You noticed?”
She smiled and licked her lips because they were dry and it occurred to her that she’d just subliminally invited him to have his way with her.
“I’m a good cop. Trained to notice things. Changes,” she said. Could she help it that his fly was in her line of vision now and then?
He moved closer. He really was going to kiss her. And Lucy put a hand up against his chest.
“I’m using you, Ramsey.”
“I know.”
“It’s just…it’s like Amber said, this is my crossroads. I have to get through it. And I need to feel something good to do that.”
Pulling her closer to him, he said, “You have no idea how glad I am that I’m able to bring you that good feeling.” He pressed his groin against her, lightly. And it made her want to spread her legs right then and there.
“I’m not real experienced,” she warned. “There’s only ever been one other guy.”
“Then here’s a pointer for you for the future—a lack of experience is a turn-on. You say it like it’s a bad thing.”
He leaned in, his lips so near she could see variances in their color. And she wanted to feel them on hers, against her, so badly she almost wept. She’d cried all her tears.
And they still felt so close.
With her hand against his chest again, she said, “And we aren’t…we’re just satisfying curiosity, getting the inevitable over and done with, right?”
“I’m not going to expect you to marry me in the morning,” he said, his smile warm. And sexy, too.
“Okay, then. Can you please kiss me and shut me up?”
He did. And he did.
And Lucy didn’t feel like herself at all after that.
H e’d been married before. He knew what it was like to hold a woman in his arms and feel the need to protect her. He’d had his share of one-night stands and understood about pleasure for pleasure’s sake. He liked having sex and considered himself good at it, at being an unselfish lover.
With Lucy he was a freshman. A virgin stumbling over his first threshold. He’d never held a woman and forgotten everything but the need to bring her every bit of joy possible.
He’d never had sex without thought before.
One minute he was standing in his dining room, smiling at a beautiful woman he was about to make love with, and the next minute he was lying naked with her on top of his unmade bed, completely spent and not sure how he’d gotten there.