while he couldn’t do everything he used to, he could do plenty.
Her moan was low as she tussled with his tongue. He moved his hands under her hair until he found the top of her dress, the zipper hidden inconveniently behind a fold of material, but he was using his dominant hand, not the one with the intermittent quaver, so no problem. His cock hardened as the zipper lowered until it hit bottom. The feel of her skin beneath his palms made him groan, but when she pushed her hips against his aching erection, he decided the lesson was over, and all bets were off.
He pulled back, not letting her have another chance with his shirt.
“Fine,” she said, chuckling, “be that way.” Then she took two steps away and lifted her dress over her head and let it flutter to the floor.
Jake choked. It took him a minute of coughing to get his act together, and when he did, and he looked at her again, he had to consciously remember how to breathe. “Holy God.”
“So you’re a La Perla fan?”
“I have no idea what a La Perla is, but I’m over the moon about your underwear.”
Her grin let him know she’d planned to knock him off his feet with the stunning bra and panties. Jesus, she was still wearing her heels, and the combination was enough to make a weaker man come without a touch.
The garments were sheerest white. Barely there, except for a small triangle that covered her pussy so he couldn’t tell what she was hiding. He didn’t give a damn. She could be hairy, bald as a cue ball or anything in between, it all worked as far as he was concerned. That he didn’t know even with all that flesh on display made him insane.
The opposite was true on top. There was nothing but that sheer, sheer white covering her stunning breasts. Hard little nipples in the center of pink areolas like iced cupcakes with cherries on top.
And while staring at her was a wet dream all its own, there was so much more to be done. He tugged his shirt out from his trousers, toed off his shoes, then his socks, and by the time he’d unbuttoned the shirt with his right hand, his left had undone his belt and was working on his zipper.
Rebecca was most definitely not helping. In fact, she was making it ridiculously harder to do this circus trick because whether she realized it or not, every move she made turned up the heat a notch. The sway of her hips as she took a single step, the roll of her shoulder, the shake of her head so her hair fluffed around her face. There wasn’t a thing about her that didn’t make him want to beg.
“You’re killing me,” he said, his voice as rough as sandpaper. He let his button-down fall, leaving him in his undershirt, and then his pants dropped and he kicked those out of the way.
Her gaze moved down to his thigh even as she ran her fingers over her bare tummy. Jake tensed as he waited for her verdict. She winced, but her hand didn’t stop moving. He relaxed. She wasn’t freaked out. His first date after had been, and he could never bring himself to blame her, but his gratitude that this woman hadn’t run for the hills knew no bounds.
“Are you going to just stand there staring?” she asked.
“I don’t know what to do first,” he said. “You’re stunning.”
For all that she was driving him wild, the hint of a blush that warmed her cheeks was almost more than he could bear. “That’s a pretty good place to start,” she said as she covered the distance between them. “But an even better place would be in the actual bedroom.”
He swung his arm around her neck and pulled her into a punishing kiss. His free hand went to the low line of her panties, the covered spot, and he slipped his fingers inside the material.
Ah. Not a full Brazilian then, but a landing strip. They needed to get to the bed before he came standing in his boxer briefs.
4
JAKE KISSED HER AS IF HE’D read her diary. All the things she hadn’t written down. How that exact pressure made her shiver. How one of her favorite things was when it wasn’t only thrusting, but teasing and nipping and licking and just plain wanting to feel everything.
His fingers brushing the small trail of hair made her quiver, and God, they needed to stop screwing around. She stepped back from the glorious kiss and took his hand out of her panties. “Now?” she asked. “Please?”
He laughed, dipped somewhat inelegantly to grab his slacks then pushed her along with his hand conveniently placed on her ass.
Finally, there was the king-size feather bed. It wasn’t merely a gorgeous thing to sleep on. The plush headboard, which was actually a built-in feature of the wall, made for comfy bracing, if it should be needed. She hoped it would be needed.
“What are you grinning about?” he asked as he spun her around to face him.
“Happy. Excited. Wishing you were very much more naked than you are.”
“I can do that,” he said. “Here goes—if it’s too much a turnoff—well, I won’t need therapy over it.” He yanked his V-neck undershirt up his chest, quick, like taking off a bandage.
Rebecca was caught by the view of his slim waist, the lines of his abdominal muscles, the almost-but-not-quite-perfect four pack and the fact that he had actual hair on his chest. She swallowed at the blatant masculinity.
She, in turn, felt, well, gooey. Feminine. Small, hungry, attracted, girlie. She moved closer to him, unable to stop her fingers from touching his dark, slender line of hair that rose from just below his ribs until it spread to lightly cover his chest.
He gasped at the brush of her hand, and she watched his muscles shudder. Then he pulled the shirt off the rest of the way, revealing the scar at the top of his left shoulder. “The bullet barely missed the subclavian artery,” he said. “Came in smooth, came out rough, but I was lucky. The doctor says eventually I should regain almost all my mobility.”
She appreciated the heads-up. The small wound was puckered, red, shiny, but nothing horrific. Whereas his back, when he turned, wasn’t nearly as neat. She exhaled hard, not from disgust but from sympathy. His skin was mottled; that same shiny red here though making it look more like a fresh burn than what it was. She raised her hand again, but paused an inch from his poor flesh.
Her gaze moved down to his thigh. That was a deep gouge, something ripped away, not like the torn and battered scarring on his shoulder. “Will it hurt?”
“To touch? No. It’s mostly numb. Not a hundred percent, and sometimes something will press the wrong nerve. But you don’t need to worry. That is, if you still want to—”
She leaned in then, letting her fingers brush the strange terrain as she pressed her lips to the edge of his wound. “I’m sorry you were hurt.”
“Me, too.” He turned around slowly. “Onward?”
She was the one to cup his face, to ravish him with tongue and teeth and urgency.
“Well, damn.” He kissed her again, once, hard, then stepped away, carefully maneuvering the waistband of his briefs over his straining cock. She couldn’t look anywhere else but at his darkly flushed erection. There was moisture at the tip, his foreskin barely visible. “I’m going to start begging in a minute,” he whispered.
She forced her gaze up. “We wouldn’t want that.”
He groaned low and loud, his cock jerking against his taut stomach. His hands went to her shoulders, gripping her firmly as he walked her to the bed. He paused before the back of her legs touched the mattress. “Okay, I can’t … I love the …” He indicated her outfit with a sweeping glance up, down and up again. “That bra … Amazing. You’re amazing. But it’s got to go, because there isn’t a thing I don’t want to see. All right?”
She nodded, not able to do much more because he still held her arms.
Releasing her, he reached around and undid the bra’s