He came back to her. Placed his mouth back on her throat. Used his other hand to pull her against his body again, except this time, instead of placing it on her back, he splayed his palm over one ass cheek. Oh dear God.
His lips started moving. He wasn’t kissing her exactly, just dragging his mouth against her too-sensitive flesh.
She let loose a shaky sigh. He made her feel like she was melting and tensing up at the same time—the two sensations were at war inside her body. “What about the condom, though?”
“We don’t need it,” he whispered against her skin.
“Uh, yes we do.” She stiffened. She was on the pill, but there was no way she was having casual sex without a condom. She never would have thought of Jake as one of those guys who would try to suggest otherwise. She was shocked, frankly.
“No, I mean we don’t have to do stuff that requires a condom.” He was still speaking with his mouth right on her.
“Ohhh,” she breathed, her body surrendering to the melting as she contemplated what “other stuff” might mean. “Okay.”
“Although…” He pulled back again. “I could go downstairs and ask Karl if he has one.”
She laughed and shrieked at the same time. The idea of Karl finding out what was going on up here was both mortifying and amusing. He took a step away, and she tried to reach for him to get him back. That was the wrong direction. He was supposed to— Oh. Oh.
He was taking off his shirt.
She sucked in a breath. It wasn’t like she hadn’t seen his chest. He’d been shirtless a couple times in her yard, back at the old house. But that had been a look-don’t-touch situation. Now, by contrast, she was going to get to put her hands all over him. She was— All right, then.
He was shucking his jeans, too.
He was taking the efficient approach, which she could appreciate. The idea of seductively peeling your bed partner’s clothes off was always sexier than the reality of it, when legs got caught in pants and bra clasps were hard to figure out.
And either he wasn’t wearing any underwear, or he was good at multitasking, because when he straightened, he was naked.
He was a naked man-god.
Muscular and beautiful and…he was a big guy, and every part of him was in proportion. In proportion and at attention.
“Well,” she said. “You get right to the point, don’t you?”
His eyes darkened, and she worried she’d offended him. “I don’t do romance, Nora.”
There had been a warning in his tone, but she didn’t need it. “I don’t want romance.” She meant it. She wasn’t cluttering up her life with furniture right now, while she found her feet, so she certainly wasn’t going to clutter it up with romance.
She pressed a hand to her throat. She’d been worried before that her fluttering pulse would give away her lust, but now it was thundering so hard it physically hurt. So did the juncture between her legs, where she could feel her pulse equally strongly.
“I mean it. I like you, Nora. And obviously I’m attracted to you. But I had my run at the whole relationship, white-picket-fence thing, and I’m done with that.”
She must not have answered fast enough, because he took a step back and something shuttered in his expression. “And before you try to tell me that time heals all wounds—”
“I would never tell you that.” She’d spoken more sharply than she’d intended, but honestly she was a little offended. “I would never tell you that.”
She’d thought maybe that was going to be the start of an argument, and/or the end of the proceedings, but he surprised her by smiling. “And that’s exactly why I like you. You don’t speak in platitudes. You don’t think in platitudes.”
She sucked in a breath. That might be the nicest thing anyone had ever said to her. “Well, I mean it, too. I’m supposed to be figuring out my life these next two years. Being kind of selfish. I can’t do that chained to a guy.”
His smile deepened—he liked that answer—and something twisted in her belly. “I also like your hair.”
Okay, apparently they were still on the listing-things-they-liked-about-each-other section of the proceedings. “I like your hair, too. Will you take it down?” He started to do so, and she worried suddenly that she should say something else, lest he think she regarded him merely as a hot body with a great head of hair. “I also like the way you…get stuff done. You don’t talk about doing things. You just do them.” She laughed at herself. Then she laughed at the whole situation—turned on and cracking up was not a combination she had experience with, but she liked it. “Is it weird that we’re listing off things we like about each other while we’re naked?”
“Well, I’m naked. You, on the other hand”—his eyes made a slow journey down her body—“should get naked.”
“You wanna help?” It was out before she could think, and she’d said it automatically, like it was the next line in a script. It was what she would have said to Rufus, but hadn’t she just been thinking that undressing a lover was never actually as exciting or sexy as it was supposed to be?
He must have agreed, because he said, “No. I want to watch.”
Well. That was a good answer. An answer that went straight to the knot of tension between her legs and twisted it a little tighter.
She reached for the tie of her dress, which was at her waist. He started toward her from where he’d been standing near the door, but as he passed, he held his arms up in a no-hands sort of gesture, making a show of not touching her as he slid past her and sat on the bed.
She pivoted to face him. He rotated his hand to signal that he wanted her to get on with it.
As she started undoing the knot, he asked, “What kind of dress is that?”
“A wrap dress?” She wasn’t sure why she had answered with a question. She just wasn’t sure what he meant. Was he referring to style? Type of fabric?
“A wrap dress,” he repeated. “So now you’re going to unwrap yourself?”
She was going to try. The dress had holes you fed ties through, and one of the ties was absurdly long when it was undone because it had to go all the way around her waist and through a hole on the other side of the front. It looked like a simple dress from the outside, but it was actually kind of complicated, structurally speaking.
She might have gotten self-conscious as she started pulling the long tie out, but he, Mr. Mute, started performing a monologue. “I gotta tell you, that neckline has been doing a number on me since I saw you up on that stage.”
She paused. “I think it would be racier if I didn’t have such small breasts. I don’t even need a bra. This dress would be a lot sexier if I had perfect, perky breasts like—”
“You are not about to invoke the Intern.”
“Well…”
He lifted a finger. “I swear to God, if you say her name, I will get up and leave.” She made a show of closing her mouth. He shook the still-raised finger at her. “All right, then. Now unwrap yourself.”
She did. She even managed all the ties and holes without feeling too awkward. Which left her standing in front of him in her panties. Black, bikini-style, functional cotton panties, which, although they might not have been her first choice if she’d known Jake Ramsey was going to see them, were at least not as bad as they could have been.