crotch. He shot her a look, and she’d replied with a wicked grin. She was playing with fire and loving the hell out of it. Which only turned him on more. He slipped his hand under the table and stroked the arch of her foot and a fire lit in her eyes.
By the time they finished dinner, and the waiter asked if they wanted dessert, the only thing he had a taste for was her. He paid the bill and they waited impatiently as the valet brought the car around. Her back was to the valet stand, and there was no one around, so he reached up under her coat and copped a quick feel for a panty line, but couldn’t find one. She smiled up at him and said, “Told ya.”
When they were in the car, she took his hand and guided it under her dress.
Nope, definitely no panties that he could feel. Just soft, smooth skin, and she was already moist with arousal.
He cursed under his breath, his crotch tight.
“Are you as turned on as I am?” she asked.
“You tell me,” he said taking her hand and guiding it to his zipper, hissing out a breath as she stroked him through his slacks.
“Drive,” she said. “Fast.”
She didn’t have to tell him twice.
If it hadn’t been for the fact that he had to shift gears, he would have kept his hand between her legs, but he tried to behave. Her, not so much. She leaned over and kissed him and he got so carried away the car behind him had to honk to get his attention when the light turned green.
Her place was closer by a good twenty minutes so he drove there. And rather than wait for the elevator, they took the stairs up to her fourth-floor loft. With her spiked heels slowing her down he got impatient at the second-floor landing. So he lifted her up, tossed her over his shoulder and carried her the rest of the way. It must have been a huge turn-on because they barely made it through the door before she shoved his coat down his arms and tugged at his belt. She unfastened his pants, shoved him against the door and dropped to her knees right there in the foyer. He groaned as she took him deep into her mouth, but he was so fired up he couldn’t stand it for more than a minute or two before he had to stop her. Taking his own pleasure before hers was not, and never had been, an option.
When they made it to the bedroom she pulled her dress off and he discovered that not only was she not wearing panties, she didn’t have a bra on, either. Just a pair of silky thigh-high stockings. Black, his personal favorite. With her tousled hair and flushed skin she looked like something out of a sexual fantasy. He had planned to make love to her, slow and sweet, but that clearly wasn’t going to happen. Not this time.
So instead he shed the rest of his clothes, picked her up and tossed her onto the bed. She tried to pull him down on top of her, but he pinned her arms at her sides and buried his face between her thighs. She gasped and arched upward, curling her fingers into the covers. She was sweeter and more delicious than anything on the menu at the restaurant. And she was so turned on it couldn’t have been thirty seconds before she moaned and shuddered and thrust her hips up as she shattered. She barely had time to catch her breath before she was up on her knees, pushing him onto his back.
He was hoping to take things a little bit slower but she was a woman on a mission. There was no stopping Gracie as she climbed on top of him, taking him deep inside of her. And it felt so damned good he didn’t want to stop her. She was so hot and wet he had to dig extra deep to find the will and the control not to lose it instantly.
Head back, eyes closed, lost in her own world, she rode him hard and fast, bracing her hands on his chest, digging her nails into his skin. He gripped her hips, tried to slow her down, but it was already too late. He could feel the coil of pleasure pull tight in his groin, until it was almost too much to take, then let go in a hot rush.
He rode out the storm, and when he opened his eyes Gracie was smiling down at him. And all he could say was “Wow.”
She laughed. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“Did you make it in time?”
She smiled and nodded.
“I tried to hold back.”
“I know you did, and seeing you lose control made me lose control.” She settled down on his chest, her skin hot against his. “That was incredible.”
Yes, it was. But every time with her, no matter how they did it, was incredible. Fast, slow, he didn’t care. As long as he was close to her. “I didn’t really do much.”
“Sometimes it’s okay to just lie there and enjoy it,” she said. “Let me do all the work.”
He could live with that. “Well, it was the perfect end to a perfect evening.”
Her laugh was a wry one. “Oh, but we’re not done. Not even close. In fact...”
She got that devilish gleam in her eye, the one that said she was up to something. “I’ll be right back,” she told him, jumping off the bed and bolting from the room, then called over her shoulder, “Don’t go anywhere.”
Yeah, right. Like he had the energy to move. He could barely breathe.
He closed his eyes, trying not to fall asleep. He hadn’t done any of the work, so why was he so wiped out?
“I’m back,” she said several seconds later.
He opened his eyes and lifted his head.
She stood in the doorway, naked and flushed and sexy as hell, those damned thigh highs hugging her perfect legs just right. Holding a bottle of chocolate syrup in one hand and a can of whipped cream in the other, she grinned as she said, “How about a little dessert?”
* * *
The following Monday, Gracie sat at her drawing table in her studio, trying to sketch out a few pieces for next year’s fall line, but she couldn’t concentrate. Typically the view of the Chicago skyline out the long stretch of floor-to-ceiling windows was all she needed to inspire her, but it wasn’t working today.
Today, she couldn’t keep her mind off Roman.
He was all she seemed to think about lately. And not the way a friend should be thinking about another friend. Her feelings for him seemed to be spiraling out of control, and as much as it scared her, she’d never felt so alive and happy in her life. Or more conflicted. Why is it the two always seemed to go hand in hand?
Hard as she tried to stick to the friends-with-benefits arrangement, her heart would have no part of it. And she’d gone and done exactly what she promised herself she wouldn’t do. She’d started to fall in love with him again. And she was pretty sure, knowing Roman the way she did, that he was falling for her, too.
It wasn’t logical. It wasn’t even sane. And to call it complicated didn’t adequately describe what they would be getting themselves into if they took the next step.
A knock on her studio door had her looking up from her half-finished sketch. When the door opened and her sister Eve popped her head in, Gracie smiled.
“You busy?” Eve asked.
“Actually your timing is perfect,” Gracie said, tossing her pencil onto her drawing table. “I could use a break.”
Eve
