Back in the Bedroom. Jill Shalvis

      “Tess—” he growled with unmistakable warning.

      Nope, she didn’t want him to talk. Not now. She opened her lips and touched her tongue to the corner of his mouth, and in doing so, finally, finally unleashed the beast.

      He dove headfirst into the kiss then, wrapping his arms around her body and bringing it more snugly to his, thrusting a muscled thigh between hers, opening his mouth wide for a hot, deep, wet kiss that would surely highlight her dreams instead of the nightmares this day had afforded her.

      Oh, yes, this was perfect. This was just what the doctor had ordered for her shock. She slid her fingers into his hair, taking notice that it was soft, as not very much else of him was. Her other hand went on a tour of his tight shoulders and solid chest, feeling the smooth glide of muscle beneath skin, and she knew if she had all night it wouldn’t be long enough.

      Given how he held her, with the fingers of one hand spread wide, holding her head for the sexy forays of his plundering tongue, Reilly felt the same. His other hand skimmed over her hip, her belly and ribs, so that his long fingers rested just beneath her breast.

      More, she thought. She had to have more, she had to feel his touch. Straining against him, she slid down an inch, just enough to have those fingers of his brushing the very underside of her breast, and she let out a sigh of pleasure.

      At the sound, he moved of his own accord, cupping her breast in his big hand, rasping his thumb over her nipple and making her toes curl.

      She wanted out of her clothes and she wanted him out of his. She wanted to be skin-to-skin, wanted to feel all his impressive strength and heat against her so that she could forget what had happened to her earlier, what could still happen.

      Just thinking it made her let out a little cry, and he pulled her closer. “Shh,” he murmured. “Just me. Just you and me…” He danced a hand up her spine, then down again, until she relaxed into him once more, until she was clinging and back on her way to the mindlessness she needed desperately. Then he had her bottom cupped in his palm, pressing her against an impressive erection she wanted cradled more firmly between her aching thighs. Oh, yes.

      To get more, she hooked a leg over his, opening herself up so that he could thrust against her, and he did, one glorious thrust, before he went utterly, totally, carefully still.

      Lifting his head, he stared down at her mouth, his breathing not nearly as steady as it had been.

      “That was quite a bedtime story,” he said, and flipped her over again, to her other side, so that she could no longer see his face.

      “But…”

      “Shh,” he said again.

      She ground her teeth. “I can’t shh.”

      “Yes, you can.”

      “But…don’t you want more?”

      His laugh was low and mirthless. “Hell, yes.”

      “Well, then—”

      “It’s not going to happen, Tess.”

      “Reilly—”

      He reached an arm over her shoulder and put his fingers against her mouth. “Shh.”

      How could he just turn it off? She squirmed a little, and felt his erection against her bottom.

      So he hadn’t just turned it off at all. “But—”

      “Be good and go to sleep.”

      Be good?

      Go to sleep?

      Was he kidding? The man kissed like no one she’d ever met, touched like no one she’d ever met, and he thought she could just turn it off and go to sleep? “Reilly…”

      A soft snore sounded in her ear, making her want to scream in frustration. She couldn’t decide if she hated him or wanted him. Her body was still humming and twitching, so that meant she wanted him, but he’d firmly set her away as if it’d been nothing.

      Definitely she hated him, she decided.

      Eventually she set her head down on his arm and tried to follow him into slumberland. As far as pillows went, he wasn’t soft and giving, but he sure was warm and smelled like heaven.

      And—this was such a terrible thought she couldn’t even believe she’d had it—she was glad he’d been stripped, because feeling his body against hers could take her mind off her troubles as nothing else could.

      Unless, of course, he’d kept kissing her.