He pushes off the doorframe, sleeves rolled-up, displaying his powerful forearms—all liquid grace and strength.
“Hey,” he says, and the dark undercurrent of his voice pins me to the spot. His gaze sweeps over me, from my head to my painted toes, in a heatwave. “Fuck, you…” He stops, swallows hard, licks his lips. “You’re so pretty.”
My heart is pounding. “You clean up nicely yourself,” I find myself saying, and he gives a husky laugh, his lashes lowering over his eyes.
Man, he’s sexy. I want him to kiss me, to hold me, to touch me like he did two nights ago.
“I’m thirsty,” he says.
“One minute.” I turn toward the kitchen, and my purse slips from my shoulder to the floor with a quiet flop.
He bends and grabs it, though he doesn’t give it back to me, instead watching me with that lazy half-grin, and his eyes hooded.
Whoa. Get yourself together, Amber.
I hurry to the kitchen and pour him a glass from the tap. When I turn, he’s right behind me, and I yelp when he grips my arm to stop me from dropping the glass and harming myself as I flail.
“Jesus, JJ.”
“You make me thirsty,” he whispers, pries the glass from my nerveless fingers and places it on the counter. “Can’t stop thinking about you.”
Then he puts his hands on the counter on either side of me and hems me in, pressing his long, taut body into mine. His face dips and his firm, warm mouth closes over mine. Pressure, heat, and when my lips part under the onslaught, his tongue thrusts inside, and I melt in his hold.
Chocolate and spice, bitter and sweet and scorching, so hot I can’t help the small sounds rising from my chest. I grab his arms, nails digging into his biceps, because I feel as if I’m falling from a skyscraper, tumbling into a dark void.
He breaks the kiss and I stare, dizzy, into his sea-colored eyes. “Damn, girl…” He shakes his head, struggling for breath as I am. “Can’t control myself around you.” He shifts, and his arousal presses into my side, branding me through the dress.
Makes me catch my breath on a gasp.
“I came to take you to the wedding,” he rasps, lifting a hand to my face, staring into my eyes, “and to make you see I want to be with you. I know you’re having doubts, that it was a one-night stand to you, that it means nothing—but it does mean a lot to me. I’ve never felt like this before. Fuck, I’ve never asked this of any girl before, but can you…?” He groans, bending over me. “Christ, Embers.”
He takes my mouth again, before I have a chance to comprehend what he’s telling me, and pushes me up until I lift myself and wrap a leg around him, my ass propped on the edge of the counter.
Be with me. Never felt this way before. Never asked—
Wait. One-night stand? Did he overhear what I said to Kayla –was that why he left without saying goodbye last time?
I push on his chest to break the kiss, to say something, but he shoves my short dress up and his big hand slips underneath it, rough and warm, right between my spread legs. His questing fingers push under my underwear and find my clit.
“Oh God,” I moan against his lips. “JJ…”
Need washes through me like a flash flood, making my toes curl and my legs tense. My breasts ache, and I throb inside, clenching on empty. I need… need him. My body is on fire.
“I’ve got you,” he murmurs, pressing two fingers deep into me, his mouth moving to the corner of my mouth, then along my jaw and down my neck, leaving hot kisses and the sharp nip of his teeth.
I’m coming apart. The pressure is skyrocketing, my body tightening, tensing as he expertly takes me to the brink, fingers pumping, his thumb circling my clit, his mouth marking the juncture of my neck and shoulder—a counter beat of pain that plunges me without warning into a mind-blowing orgasm.
Biting my lip to keep quiet, I still can’t keep back a moan as the pressure reaches a breaking point, and I clench around his fingers, coming in long shudders, rocking against him.
On, and on, and on.
“Kitten… You okay?”
I hum an affirmative, unable to speak just yet. We stay like that, his face buried in my neck, me clutching at him, trying to come back to earth, shivers running down my spine. I’m fully seated on the counter by now, legs wrapped around his hips, and when he shifts again, uncomfortably, his massive hard-on pokes me where I’m still throbbing pleasantly.
“Oh God.” I bite my lip harder when he groans softly and rocks, rubbing his hardness over the soaked lace of my panties.
Suddenly the crazy orgasm I’ve just had isn’t enough. I need him inside me right now. I reach for the fly of his pants, and he pulls back a little, his eyes so dark they look black. When my fingers brush over his trapped erection, he jerks and grunts.