Ready. Lucy Monroe

face was cast in grim lines, his naked chest heaving with each breath of air he sucked in. The black curling hair on it tapered to the unbuttoned waistband on his jeans. The shadowy opening hinted at his maleness.

      She wanted to lean forward and lower the zipper so she could see it all, which would be incredibly stupid.

      Only right that very second, she could not quite remember why, not with her fingertips tingling with the need to act.

      She watched in mesmerized fascination as a bulge grew in the front of his jeans. A large bulge.

      “Lise…”

      She looked up.

      A gaze so hot it burned to her soul flamed her. They remained like that for several seconds of hushed silence, their eyes speaking intense messages of need while their lips remained silent.

      The past ceased to exist.

      The present consumed her.

      Her reasons for caution melted away as her fear turned to a firestorm of desire. His presence devoured everything around them, leaving nothing but male and female communicating on the most basic level.

      He took the steps that brought him within an inch of the swing. If she moved it, she would bump his legs.

      She shivered at the thought of even that slight touch.

      Dropping to his knees with a grace that spoke of leashed power, he knelt in front of her so they were eye level.

      Neither of them spoke.

      She couldn’t.

      He reached out and put his hands over hers where they pressed against now throbbing, turgid peaks. The heat of his skin seeped into hers, making her burn with unnamable longing.

      When his head lowered to let their lips meet, she met him halfway. She wanted his kiss, desperately.

      She concentrated on each individual sensation of his lips slanting over hers, his beard stubble prickly against her chin, his taste…like the most irresistible nectar, the heat of his mouth, the warmth of his breath fanning her face. She had never known the intense pleasure she found in his mouth, the conflagration of her senses she experienced when they touched.

      Part of her was still cognizant enough to know she should stop him for the sake of her own sanity, but it was a tiny voice lost in a hurricane of physical sensations.

      Joshua felt like he was going to explode in his jeans and he hadn’t even touched her naked breasts, but he was going to.

      Oh, yes…he was going to.

      He began undoing the long row of buttons on her nightgown, until he could spread the opening wide, gently brushing her hands away from herself in the process. She would never know what it had done to him to come outside to check on her and find her sitting in the swing, moaning and touching herself.

      If she’d had her hand between her legs, he would probably be buried there himself right now.

      A man only had so much control and when he was around Lise, his was pushed to the limit.

      He broke the kiss to dip his head so he could see the pale beauty of her perfectly formed breasts in the moonlight.

      The nipples were swollen and turgid, their color dark with the blood that had rushed into them in her arousal. And she was aroused. He could smell the tantalizing fragrance of her humidity along with the sweet scent of her skin.

      Tomorrow, he would fly her back to Seattle and the job would begin, but tonight, she was his.

      He leaned down and kissed each dark nipple softly, then began to lave one with his tongue, reveling in the taste of her skin as much as its petal-softness.

      She groaned and pressed herself against his mouth.

      It was an invitation too sweetly given to ignore. He took her nipple between his teeth and teased it with the tip of his tongue in the heat of his mouth.

      Whimpering, her breathing grew increasingly erratic and he gently nipped her.

      “Oh, yesssss…”

      He pulled her nipple and the surrounding aureole completely into his mouth and started suckling her.

      “Oh, my gosh…Joshua, that feels so good.”

      He loved the breathy quality of her voice.

      Concentrating all his expertise on pleasuring her breasts, he moved from one to the other, savoring each until she was writhing against his mouth. Her hands were buried in his hair, trying to tug him closer. Something primitive held him back from touching her more intimately just yet.

      He wanted the mystery of her breasts. Wanted to give her the ultimate in pleasure from touching them alone this first time. And he knew he could. She was so responsive, incredibly beautiful in her passion.

      She writhed on the bench, alternately pulling his hair and pushing his head against her curves.

      “Joshua. Please. It’s too much. You have to stop.”

      A pirate’s laugh rumbled in his chest and he suckled harder.

      “No.” Agonized groan. “Yes.” She sighed and then cried out. “Don’t stop. Oh, harder, please, Joshua, just a little harder.”

      He gave her what she wanted and when her body bowed in rigid pleasure, he once again carefully bit down on the nipple in his mouth.

      She cried out and came with one body-racking shudder after another while he kept stimulating her breasts until she went totally limp.

      He ached to take her completely, but he held himself in check. Barely.

      They were outside where someone might come to explore the strange noises and discover two people making love instead. She would be horrified to be caught in such a way. Even more important—at least to him—once he’d had her, he wouldn’t be able to live with her without having her again.

      Sex and his kind of work did not mix.

      Lise deserved the best and he couldn’t give it if he was walking around in a sexual daze all of the time.

      That didn’t mean he didn’t want her, though. Damn it to hell and back. He did. It took several seconds of measured breathing before he could lift his head and look at the effect his ministrations had wrought. When he did, his self-control came as close to disintegrating as it ever had in his life.

      She lay back against the swing, her body utterly relaxed and her eyes half-closed. Moonlight revealed the flush of sexual completion and her rock-like nipples still glistened temptingly. “That was amazing.”

      Her words were at odds with the moisture filling her passion-dark eyes.

      What the hell?

      The tears spilled over and tracked down her cheeks in a slow, steady pattern.

      “Why are you crying?” He hadn’t hurt her; he would know if he had.

      She shrugged, making no effort to cover the pale pink nakedness he was battling not to touch again.

      “I lost myself for a while, just like I knew I would.”

      She didn’t sound happy about it, but she didn’t sound angry, either. Her tone was more resigned than anything, and he liked that even less than the tears.

      She sighed and rubbed at the wetness on her face with the backs of her hands. “Do you want to come to my room?”

      If she’d asked with the passion that had filled her voice earlier, he would have found it impossible to say no despite knowing how stupid giving in to his desire for her right now would be, but she didn’t. Her tone still held a resignation at odds with her sexual satiation. It was as if she were admitting she could not resist him, but even the pleasure he’d given her did not make up for what she felt that cost her.

      Anger simmered through him. He hadn’t done a