“I can honestly say, that’s the strangest thing anyone has ever said about me.”
“I’m a strange guy.” He waggled his eyebrows, somehow managing to be even more charming than before. “Maybe ‘classy’ is the wrong word. But the way you were going to stand up for your friends—with your fists, if necessary—tells me that you have something that a lot of people who would never think of using the f-word don’t have.”
The way he was describing her to herself was intoxicating. Perhaps her ego was out of control, but she wanted to hear more—couldn’t resist it. “And what’s that?”
“Loyalty.”
All her plans to save anything physical for the third date flew out the window and wafted east until they floated away on the fetid waters of the Chicago River. She put down her half-full drink. Just as Jack opened his mouth—probably to ask her if she wanted something else—she kissed him.
She grabbed his face and swung her leg over his lap, pinning him to the couch. His old-fashioned sloshed in his glass, some of it spilling on her cleavage before he put it on the side table.
For the first few moments, his mouth didn’t respond to hers. For a fraction of a second, she stilled and thought about pulling away. Just as she was taking in the feel of his roughened cheeks against her palms and the scent of liquor on his breath and some manly scent coming off of his skin in waves, he put his hands on her hips and pulled her fully against him. So that she could feel exactly how on board for this he was.
And then he shocked the shit out of her—again—by taking her mouth. She immediately realized that the kiss they’d shared the night they’d met was child’s play. He’d been holding back and unsure that night, even though just his mouth against hers had been enough to invade her thoughts and plant naughty daydreams about his mouth for a week.
This kiss belied the good manners and the choirboy smiles that he put on like an intricate mask. This kiss was all lips and teeth and animalistic sounds made by two people who were practically in heat.
Without thinking, she rolled her hips against his groin, needing to feel his hardness against her, knowing that if he let her go long enough, she’d come all over him. She wouldn’t even have to get rid of her panties.
For his part, Jack pressed his palms against her hips before stroking the curves of her sides and using his powerful hands and forearms to press her closer to him. It might have been eons before their lips broke apart, both of them panting.
Her total disorientation reflected back at her from his heated gaze. He trailed a finger over her bottom lip, though, melting her core even more, making her want to sink into his well-honed body.
One corner of his mouth kicked up into a lethal smirk. “If I’d known complimenting your integrity would get me a kiss like that, I would have done it the night we met.”
“It was a little bit the nickname.” Her voice sounded breathless, but she was too amped to beat herself up about being that girl. Not in that moment, looking at him, while his hands were still on her.
“Duchess.” The endearment sounded like an accusation, but he kissed her again, even hungrier this time. His hand cupped the back of her skull as though she were precious to him while his mouth became well acquainted with hers, their breath mingling.
She felt like her skin was steaming as he ran one palm over and over her upper spine, as though he knew that he needed to keep her anchored to him.
He maneuvered their bodies until he was laid out on top of her, pressing between her thighs. She hadn’t dry humped since early in college, and she couldn’t remember it feeling this good. She couldn’t remember anyone touching her feeling this good. And she’d never been kissed this long or this thoroughly before in her life.
If Jack Nolan ever did a how-to on kissing, the women of the world would be in serious trouble. Mail wouldn’t be delivered, the fields would be untended, because everyone would be too busy kissing. All day, all night.
When he broke their kiss a second time, he looked just as shell-shocked as she felt. Good. Maybe it wasn’t like this with every girl he kissed. He sat up on his haunches and she bit her lip, wincing because they were so swollen and all her lipstick had been rubbed off.
Speaking of rubbing off, he ran a hand up her thigh. She stopped him just before he got to the edge of her panties.
He moved his hand away to the safer territory of her thighs immediately. “Too far?”
“I mean—” It really wasn’t far enough. She was practically dying for him to touch her. “There’s a situation of sorts down there.” When his brow furrowed in concern, she covered her face with both hands. “I want to die. I want to die, right now.”
Then he did the worst thing that he could possibly do, and he laughed. “What kind of situation? Like vagina dentata or something?”
Hannah propped herself up on her forearms. “A vagina den-what-a?”
“You know, like a vagina with teeth.” He inexplicably made claws with his hands.
She was this close to telling him to get off of her because he had clearly smoked crack when he went to the men’s room just before dessert. “That’s a thing?”
“There was a horror movie about it.” He blushed and looked sheepish, and she was definitely not getting up.
“I just sort of have a Miss-Havisham’s-attic situation in my basement.” His brow furrowed in confusion. “Like, everything is the same as it’s been since the last time someone had their face down there.” More confusion. “There’s hair, Jack. Lots of hair.”
Jack shrugged and smiled and said the most perfect thing he could have said. “That’s all? Seriously?”
“You don’t care?”
“Not at all.” He leaned so that he hovered over her, their mouths aligned again. “I would have cared about teeth, but hair—I’m fine with.”
“Who are you?” She reached out and traced his mouth with one finger. He stayed still and let her.
“What do you mean?”
“It’s just like—I don’t know—toxic masculinity skipped you or something.”
Something troubled clouded his gaze for a split second. She would have missed it if she hadn’t been looking at him, examining him quite so closely. Then it passed, and his shit-eating grin was back. “So, I can keep kissing you?”
“Definitely.” He laid a kiss on her neck and licked over the skin where his drink had splashed, cleaning up all the sticky residue. Such a gentleman, even when he was doing filthy things to her with his tongue.
He lifted his head, and she grabbed on to his hair in protest. “Anywhere I want?” His hand on the inside of her thigh told her that “anywhere” was going to be “exactly where” she wanted it.