“I’m good.”
“I bet you are.”
Courtney’s gaze flicked to his. Humor meshed with arousal, telling him she hadn’t missed the way he purposefully misunderstood her. The question was, what would she do about it?
A handful of seconds ticked past as they stared at one another. She looking ready to do him. He waiting for her to follow through on her dirty thoughts for once.
This time she didn’t disappointment. This time she reclined back on an elbow far enough to reach the ice bucket and then straightened again with an ice cube wedged between her right thumb and forefinger.
Pupils dilating, she sucked the cube between her bright pink lips—sensuously, slowly—and then traveled it downward. Along the slim column of her neck, past her collarbone. Into the vee of her cleavage exposed above the top edge of her dress. “So in this heat,” she asked in a breathy voice, “there wasn’t even a little moisture?”
Blaine’s body throbbed with her tone. Again with her intent, as she moved the ice cube lower, down her torso to caress it along the inside of a bare thigh above the band of her stocking.
Her question registered then. She was asking if he’d slept with anyone while abroad. Generally, he would never go months without sex. In Iraq, neither his high-risk location nor his priorities had left time or room for pleasure. The bulk of each day had been spent focusing on building the wastewater infrastructure, and the bulk of each night doing his best to shut out the sporadic bursts of distant gunfire and explosions to sleep off the wearing effects of the exhausting work and even more exhausting heat.
That celibacy streak played hell on him now, making his shaft pulse for release. “Not one bit of wetness,” he admitted tightly.
“That’s hard to believe.” Her fingers worked the ice cube farther up her thigh, almost to the point of disappearing beneath the hem of her dress. “You were away a long time.”
“I heard there was a lot of moisture here while I was gone.”
“Some.” The cube pushed higher, and then out of sight. Courtney’s breathing picked up. “There could be more.”
“Later tonight?” he asked, not bothering to hide his hopefulness.
“Or now.”
She didn’t bother to hide her hopefulness either. It came through loud and clear and sexy as hell as her upper body inclined toward him. Her free hand finally touched down on his arm, grabbing hold and jerking him against her.
He tipped his head back with the move, caught sight of her flushed face. Then her mouth was there, her lips soft yet hungry against his, urgent, taking. Demanding.
Hell, yes. She was everything he’d imagined and more.
Lashing his tongue with hers, he pulled aside the chair her feet balanced on and moved between her legs. Hot flesh cradled his hips. Her inner thighs squeezed around him.
Blaine’s pulse spiked with the carnal move, and he gave his hands over to their urge to roam.
One hand filled with the warmth of her thigh encased in silk while the other moved beneath the hem of her dress and found her fingers flicking the edge of the ice cube against her sex through her panties. He’d wondered if she would have any on, and he was damned glad to learn that she did. It made taking the ice cube from her and pulling the panties aside to slip the cube inside the lips of her pussy that much sweeter.
Courtney’s hips surged forward with the frosty contact against her warm folds. She gripped his forearms and whimpered into his mouth. He swallowed the sound with his lips, kissing her harder, deeper, tasting vodka and white-hot female as he worked the ice along the swollen pearl of her clit and into her body until the cube was melted. He filled her sheath with two fingers then, his own sex throbbing with each delectable hug of hers.
Pulling back from her mouth, he nudged aside her short hair and a dangling earring to nuzzle at her neck. The ecstatic moan that tore from her lips had him placing his mouth back on hers fast. Obviously her neck was a serious pleasure zone. And obviously he was more of a gentleman than he’d ever realized to remember they weren’t truly alone and would be even less so if she kept up with the moaning. Next time she could make all the noise she wanted.
There would be a next time. Soon, if he had his way.
Tonight they’d already pushed their luck, behaving this way in his kitchen while being essentially surrounded by colleagues. His release would have to wait. Hers was seconds away.
Blaine focused on delivering her to a fast finish, drawing out the rhythm of his fingers as he moved them within her. Playing on the icy hot sensations he could guess were shooting through her body. Stroking her clit to the point of explosion.
Climax tore through her in a rushing wave evident in the tremble of her legs and the clenching of her pussy. Hot cream soaked his fingers.
Courtney’s mouth jerked from his. “Oh, God—yes!”
With an inward laugh over her enthusiasm, he clamped his lips back tight to hers and filled her mouth with his tongue, kissing her silent until the last of the orgasm was drained from her body.
Slipping his hand from beneath her skirt, he moved back a step. She looked the picture of sexual fulfillment, reclined on her elbows with her long dark lashes masking her eyes and her puffy lips parted a half inch and panting for air. It was a pose he could happily appreciate for hours. But not one he was willing to share with their coworkers. “Much as I love a vocal lover, your scream should have the kitchen filling up in about five seconds.”
“I didn’t scream,” she said languidly. “I shouted.”
“Whatever. I liked it.” The hem of her dress had gotten pushed up with his fingering and her panties were still dragged to the side, exposing her glistening pink labia past trimmed brown pubic hair. Definitely his kind of nice. “All of it. Well worth the wait.”
She sat up abruptly, destroying his stellar view as her skirt fell back around her thighs. Her eyes opened to reveal hazy blue-green. “How long have you—”
The swishing of the kitchen door cut her off. “Courtney,” a male voice said from behind Blaine. “There you are. I thought you got bored and took off.”
Courtney’s gaze zipped past Blaine, and the passion died from her eyes in a heartbeat. She shot off the edge of the table. “Nope. Just getting some.” She stumbled over the words, quickly adding, “Ice, that is. My drink got warm.” Reaching back, she flashed Blaine an uneasy smile as she scooped her drink off the table. “Thanks. Really.”
“My pleasure. You need more, you know where to get it.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” Her smile going sensual, she sent a wink to the guy at the door.
Or rather guys, Blaine discovered as he swiveled around to find an unfamiliar, tall blond man accompanied by Jake and Randy Dobson, a mechanical engineer at Pinnacle. In his mid-thirties and garbed in pineapple-patterned swim trunks and a white tank shirt, Randy was the antithesis of the stereotypical think-inside-the-box engineer. He took his premature balding about as serious as anything else.
“Hey, guys.” Courtney nodded at their coworkers as she made her way over to her date. “Looking good as always.” She took the blond by the arm and her smile grew suggestive. “You look like you should be taking me out dancing.”
The idea that she would soon be pressed up against the blond on a dance floor ate at Blaine’s gut, but only because he was still hard from being pressed up against her himself. Still, the idea didn’t agitate him nearly enough to stop him from checking out her ass as she led the guy out of the kitchen.
The door fell closed, obliterating his view. He looked over at Jake and Randy to find their attention had been directed in the same place as his own. Obviously, they were wifeless tonight, or confident their spouses were nowhere nearby.
Randy met his eyes,