Up Close and Personal. Joanne Rock

      Taking what her eyes had offered him long ago, Rocco slid his hand around the back of her neck to steady her and drew her closer. Her eyelids fell to half-mast, then drifted closed. He couldn’t have stopped himself if his father had launched the surveillance videotape at his nose.

      Shoving aside second thoughts, he pulled Jessica’s mouth to his and kissed her.

      3

      THE EFFECT PROVED more potent than alcohol.

      Jessica no longer wanted that chardonnay she’d longed for before the workshop. Rocco’s kiss made her head spin. The soaring sweetness soothed any hesitation she’d had about taking a seat here next to him in the first place.

      She’d been right to want this.

      She needed this.

      For too long she’d shied away from intimacy. First out of fear; later, out of fear of disappointment that she’d studied sensuality in every conceivable form and still wouldn’t be able to relax and let go.

      But this kiss told her that had been totally unfounded. Nothing about Rocco disappointed. He tasted as good as he felt, his lips covering hers with a gentleness that stunned her coming from such a powerful man.

      Heat fanned high inside her. His mouth moved over hers with a skill that turned her inside out. He tilted her chin up, and her mouth opened to him without any conscious decision on her part.

      His tongue stroked hers, coaxing a sigh from deep in her throat. She wanted to sink into the moment, to stop every clock for an hour—a day, maybe—to savor each conceivable nuance. As it was, sensations bombarded her, dragging her into a sea so thick with longing she couldn’t imagine how she would ever surface.

      “Jess.” He whispered her name over her lips between kisses and seemed to urge her body toward him.

      Not until then did she realize how perfectly still she sat beside him, only daring to give up her mouth to this man. Old habits were hard to break, but heaven help her, with Rocco, she could see herself making a good dent in her hang-ups.

      Inching closer to him, she followed the soft pressure of his hand sliding down her shoulder to the small of her back. She nudged her left breast against him and she hesitated for just a second, testing the feel of it and discovering the touch lit up her insides. Pleasure coursed through her, flooding every nerve ending and urging her to seal her whole body against the fiery heat of his.

      All of it was new to her. The immersion. The joy of it. The sense of wanting the kiss to go on forever. She’d always been painfully aware in every encounter she’d ever had with a man, second-guessing every awkward moment.

      Regardless of how gentle he was, she appreciated that he didn’t roll her beneath him, Now, lying by his side, she had access to his bare chest.

      At almost the same moment she laid a hand on his side, he speared his fingers beneath the jacket she’d never buttoned. He stroked the silky camisole, his hands skimming up her sides until he cupped the undersides of her breasts.

      Oh.

      The feather-light touch held impossibly devastating consequences. She wore nothing beneath the camisole, the silky fabric providing her last line of defense against the touch that would conquer her completely. She knew it from the way her nipples beaded in anticipation.

      He broke the kiss to study her, his blue eyes dark as a turbulent sea. She fell into that swirling chaos, her breath dragging through her lungs with labored effort.

      How could she have worked so hard for years to rid herself of sexual difficulties while this man could stride into her life and swipe them away with one incredible kiss?

      His thumb stretched over the cup of her camisole to tease the bare skin of her exposed cleavage, his caress patient and thorough. She breathed in his scent, clean and spicy at the same time. The light from the flickering candelabra cast his face in shadows that alternated with a golden warmth.

      She wanted this, wanted him, with a hunger that shocked her. Her whole body trembled in breathless anticipation for what would come next. She wanted to be naked with him, burning with him, following this inferno wherever it would lead.

      “Damn it.”

      He swore softly as his hands vanished from her body with no warning.

      “What?” Confused, she tried to read his expression. “I bet there are condoms at the gift store.”

      She’d shop personally if he wanted her to. She wouldn’t let anything come between her and—

      “No.” He shifted positions, sitting up on the chaise until his feet hit the floor at one end. “I didn’t mean for this to happen.”

      Confusion swirled through her as she tried to make sense of what he was saying.

      “But I wanted you, too.” And wasn’t mutual consent a beautiful thing? She knew what she’d been feeling hadn’t been one-sided. “I’ve never felt like—”

      “Don’t.” He swung on her, that one word a barked command. “Just—don’t.”

      He turned away from her to reach for his shirt and all the frustration and anger she’d ever felt about intimacy suddenly simmered hot in her veins. How come sex could never work out for her? She thought she’d been so close this time. Kissing Rocco had been the most physically transporting experience of her whole life. And he had turned away from her as if nothing had happened.

      “I don’t understand.” She stood, the tremors of desire that had lit her insides just a moment ago turning to resentment and embarrassment. “If I did something wrong I damn well deserve to know.”

      Even if that served to increase her embarrassment. She refused to be kept in the dark over what had gone off course this time. She’d battled too hard for some semblance of sexual well-being to let this guy tear her down.

      Standing, he buttoned his shirt as they faced off across the chaise.

      “You want to know what went wrong?” He scooped his tie off the floor and wrapped it around the neck of his half-open shirt.

      “Please.” Her whole body vibrated with thwarted longing, her cheeks flaming hot along with every other square inch of her skin.

      “I’m not a waiter.”

      Did he think she would care about his career? Was he embarrassed about his job?

      “It doesn’t matter to me what you do for a living.” Heaven knows, she hadn’t exactly strolled out of a middleclass upbringing. She’d gone to bed hungry too many times as a child to ever disrespect what someone did to earn a living. She would have given anything for her father to hold down a job for more than a few weeks at a time. Maybe then she wouldn’t have ended up in foster care by the time she was a teen.

      Maybe she wouldn’t have been assaulted because no one was there to help her navigate the confusing waters of sexual relationships.

      “You don’t understand. I’m a recovery agent.”

      “A what?” She was still trying to figure out what his job had to do with not wanting her.

      “A repo man.”

      The words possessed a sting she hadn’t expected. After all, more than a decade had passed since she’d put the fears of her childhood behind her. There had been a time when recovery agents, as he called them, had held a hell of a lot of power over her life, thanks to her derelict parents.

      But not anymore.

      She waited for him to explain himself, her gut twisting with new foreboding.

      “I came here tonight purposely to investigate you and see if you were the kind of person who could lie to an old man’s face in order to drive away with an upscale new car.” His eyes turned icy blue again. “I needed to find out if that beautiful body of yours housed the cold heart of a first-rate scam artist.”