“Ask what?” His right eyebrow, an arch of temptation, didn’t move.
I wanted to touch it, follow the compelling curve with my finger. Could I? There was a grumpy twist on his lips, but would he bite? I could only hope.
I slowly raised my arm, focusing on his face, waiting for a snap or a snarl. He just sat there, spine straight, hands on his thighs, palms turned toward my legs between his, not quite touching, but from a distance, it might’ve looked that way.
Something in his stillness, his hesitancy, had my hand pausing in its ascent. He didn’t make me feel unsafe. More like he was tightly restrained, like whatever he tamped down was vibrating beneath his skin, waiting for something.
He didn’t twitch when my finger made contact with his eyebrow. In fact, I wasn’t sure he was breathing. I stroked the strip of tiny hairs, gliding along the strong bone beneath. “Do you trim this to shape the—?”
“Fuck no.”
I choked on a laugh. Collin was an obsessive plucker, and this guy was sooooo not Collin. I retraced the arch from the vertical indentions above his nose, up and over his eye, and lingered on his temple. “So it does this on its own? Naturally curves higher than the other one?”
“It’s a fucking eyebrow.” His eyes flicked between mine, the rest of him intensely still. So serious. “Why are you smiling?”
I shrugged. “It’s a sexy eyebrow.” When his jaw stiffened, I smiled wider. “And the surly thing you’ve got going on? That’s sexy, too.”
He closed his eyes, his nostrils flaring. Maybe I was annoying him, but the reprieve from his glare spiked my confidence. I wanted to flirt with him, to touch him, to get to know him. He was simply too good-looking, too intriguing to let go.
With my fingers at his temple, I curled in my palm and cupped his cheek and jaw, indulging in the day-old stubble that roughened his warm skin. He was real, not some ideal that could never be attained like Evader.
He leaned into my hand, only slightly, his eyes drifting open and falling on my mouth. I parted my lips and released a shaky breath, delighted with the catch in his inhale.
His eyes swept over all the blonde hair dangling around my arms. Thank God I’d worn it down. He seemed pleased by it, staring thoughtfully at the wavy length. Like he wanted to touch, pull, restrain me with it.
A ripple of heat shivered between my legs, and my chest heaved. I shifted my hand from his cheek to his hairline, sliding my fingers through the thick, brown strands. His eyes jumped to my throat, and I swallowed, relishing the flare in his blistering stare.
By the time he returned to my face, nothing in this world existed but him and me and the sensual language we exchanged with our eyes.
Come closer, his said, his legs separating from mine to spread wider.
How close? I stared back, sliding off the stool to stand and leaning my hips into the V of his thighs. Like this?
Gazes locked, he glided his hands up the backs of my knees, pausing on the tops of the stockings, fingers pressing into the skin above. His eyes flashed. Closer.
With him on the bar stool and me in five-inch heels, we were the same height. This worked in my favor because his arms wound around my back, his hard chest pressed against mine, and his groin cradled my hips. As I gripped his shoulders, his body heat, the smell of his shampoo, the molten gold of his irises, all that was him wrapped around me.
And wrapped in Logan was a toe-curling pleasure trip. So much so, I lost myself in it, in him, in the waves of need spiraling through me. I melted into the hard dips and ridges of his body, my arms looping around his shoulders, my hands running over his nape and through his hair. My lips, hovering an inch from his, separated, my tongue on my teeth, my breaths noisy, desperate.
The hands beneath my dress moved, his long fingers curling inward, gently stroking my inner thighs along the edge of my stockings. Each slow caress against my skin sent a jolt of electricity up my legs. My pussy swelled with heat, dampening my panties.
But none of those sensations compared to the intensity of our unwavering eye contact. I’d never been so caught up in someone’s gaze that every breath, every touch, every needy throb depended on that visual connection. Heavy groping would’ve shattered it. Seductive words would’ve only gotten in the way. Watching him watch me was the best foreplay I’d ever experienced.
His thumbs hooked around the garters on the backs of my thighs. “That”—his lips moved a kiss away from mine—“was me eye-fucking you.”
The thick rasp of his words melted through me, leaving me boneless and spellbound as I tried to decipher all the emotions swirling in my belly. This closeness, the intimacy, whispered all the things I hungered for. Mutual desire. Unguarded passion. Promise of more.