“Jack,” she finally managed to say when he gave her the book so she could read the second chapter.
“Yes, Nora?” he shot back with a smile.
“How did you get this book? This saysadvanced reader copy.” The novel’s cover didn’t match the other in the series because it was a placeholder cover. The kind publishers use before they start printing the final copy of a book. “How did you say you know RJ Phillips again?”
“Family friend was the vague answer I gave,” he replied slyly.
That’s when Nora noticed that his arm was thrown over the side of the couch, and his body was all but leaning into hers. His breath brushed her cheek, and she was so aware of his presence that her head swam.
She turned her head slightly, leaving only a few inches between their mouths. Her breath caught, her lips parting on the soft gasp.
“Tell me,” she whispered.
“A man needs to keep his secrets, Nora. If I tell you everything, you’ll solve the mystery that is me, and then that attraction you feel for me? Well, that will all leave. We can’t have that.”
“We can’t?” she asked, still breathless.
“Nope. We really can’t. Not now, anyway. We’ve spent time together, and we get along just fine. Besides, if you solve the mystery that is me, how will I be able to do this?”
And without another word of warning, he leaned into her space and pressed his lips to hers in a soft kiss. How a kiss so gentle could make her core clench and her head spin, Nora didn’t know.
It was a testament to just how absolutely dizzying Jack’s presence was to her.
She turned into him, and Jack wasted no time in lifting her onto his lap so that she was straddling him on the sofa. His hands gripped her hips before roaming up and down her back. Their tongues tangled until they were both breathless and panting, grinding into each other.
“Nora,” his voice was hoarse.
“Jack,” she responded.
“Maybe we should focus on reading the book before we get into some trouble.”
She nodded, but she wasn’t disappointed. Jack was right: this had to be where they stopped. If they went any further, she was going to do something silly like strip out of her shorts and tank top, but that wasn’t how she wanted things to go down with Jack.
She would have to tell him that she’d never been with a man before. Not because she was ashamed of it or because she wanted to wait until she was practically a saint to lose her V-card.
She wanted to tell him because it had been an issue for men in the past before.
Nora hoped it wouldn’t be an issue for Jack. She could handle heartbreak, but it would hurt that much more if it were at the hands of the man she had hungered for this long.
EIGHT
JACK
Jack was a whole lot of things to a whole lot of people, but what he had never been accused of was being a pig. He never wanted to push Nora beyond what she was ready to do, and for some strange reason, he knew he was pushing Nora to the very brink of what she was comfortable doing.
He had a very real sense that her shy temperament had kept her less than knowledgeable in matters of the heart.
“You want to read chapter two, or shall I?”
Nora considered this for a moment. “You should read it. You’ve got a nice voice.”
He chuckled low, and though he moved her from his lap, he kept their bodies intertwined on the couch. His arm was around her shoulders while her own hand was tucked on his lap. Their ankles were hooked around each others, basically gluing them together as Jack read the second chapter. Try as he might to keep all his attention on what he was reading; he was having a hard time focusing on the words on the page.
Nora’s presence, her body so close to his, her breasts gently moving up and down with each breath, was all maddening.
More than that, he was confused. How could it be possible that this woman had been living right under his nose in Half Moon Key, and he had never thought to pay her any attention? Now, if someone were to ask him to stay away from Nora, he wouldn’t be able to.
He wanted to keep on holding her and keep on kissing her until their very powerful connection made sense to him.