He lifted her hard drive and set it in his computer.
She saw where he was going. Good idea. Lia hoped it worked. “Have you switched hard drives like that before?”
“Nope.”
She couldn’t watch. But she did. “How do you know about computers?”
“Since I spend a lot of time on the road, I’ve had to learn because there isn’t time to leave my laptop at a repair place.”
“Are you some sort of salesman?” she asked.
He stopped working with the tiny screws as he considered the question. “I suppose I am.”
If he had to sleep in dressing rooms, he must not be a very good salesman, she thought.
After J.C. finished installing the hard drive, he said, “Cross your fingers,” and booted up his computer.
Lia waited, hardly daring to breathe. And there it was—the soul and brains of her computer in J.C.’s body. Computer body—case. Whatever.
He gestured to the keyboard and she opened the connection to Zhin.
“Everything is there!” Lia went dizzy with relief. She immediately chimed Zhin and e-mailed her.
Whoo hoo, came right back and an answering chime sounded as Zhin accessed the network and the orders. Lia stared at the icon indicating Zhin was on the network until it sounded a tone and blinked off.
She leaned over the keyboard and typed, Got everything?
Yes.
Her knees actually went weak. “It worked. You actually made it work,” Lia said to J.C. as she typed her goodbyes to Zhin.
At his silence, she became aware that her breasts were just inches away from his face.
She pretended that she was not aware that her breasts were just inches away from his face and logged off the network.
“Thank you, thank you, thank you!” She straightened. “I’m so relieved and so grateful I could just—”
“Kiss me?”
The words hung in the air. “I was going to say burst.”
“Let’s go with the kiss.”
Before Lia could protest, J.C. hooked his arm around her waist and tugged her into his lap, using a neat maneuver with the chair to buckle her knees.
Scooping her hair away from her nape, he cradled her head with one hand and pulled her against him with the other.
And then he kissed her.
5
FOR ALL ITS seeming spontaneity, it was a crafty, well-thought-out move, probably plotted while her breasts dangled in front of his face.
J.C.’s mouth met hers with confident intent, shifted in a series of erotic pulses—she was going to remember that trick—and settled at the perfect angle.
The. Perfect. Angle.
He was in complete control because she certainly wasn’t doing anything to help things along. Frankly, this guy needed no help, so she might as well enjoy the trip.
Lia consciously relaxed enough to let him know she wasn’t going to lever herself away in outrage, but not enough to signal to him full steam ahead, either. A girl had to have some standards, even if they were negotiable standards.
He rewarded her by taking her lower lip in his mouth and sucking gently as he ran his tongue back and forth against it.
Every nerve in her lip woke up. “Helllllooooo,” they purred.
She relaxed a little more, aware that she had slipped backward enough so that instead of being above him as she had been when he’d first kissed her, they were now on a nose-to-nose level.
Her reward, as she expected, was an awakening of her upper lip.
He lifted his mouth from hers and she felt a smidgen of panic that the kiss was over. Panic, because she might just beg for more and that was never good.
“You taste like cookies and wine,” he murmured. “Sweet with a little sin mixed in.”
Oh, she did like hearing him say that. Her eyes drifted shut as she allowed herself a few sinful thoughts.
Nothing happened for a few beats.
She opened her eyes. “You’re thinking of how you can work that into a song, aren’t you?”
“Tryin’ real hard not to.” His eyes crinkled.
“Try harder.”
His mouth, his very talented mouth, creased in a slow grin as he settled her more firmly against him. “I think harder is the operative word.”
Indeed.
Lia sighed.
He parted her newly sensitized lips with a series of openmouthed kisses that had her melting. Lia was not the melting type. Or so she’d thought. Maybe, just maybe, J.C. was the first man to find her melting point.
She’d never been kissed like this before. Even worse, he made her afraid she’d never be kissed like this again.
As her body continued melting until she resembled a puddle of discarded satin, Lia slid lower in his arms. Sort of, kind of, well, okay, melting against him so she had as much of her body in contact with his as possible. Any woman would. And probably had.
Through slitted eyes, she saw J.C.’s face above hers, his eyes closed, totally in the moment.
Lia always checked out the faces of the boys and men, er, boy-men as they kissed her. It was a habit and she wasn’t ever sure what she was looking for. Mostly, she saw guys pursuing goals, or actually, one goal. She knew they were thinking to themselves, “Chicks like kissing, so I’ve got to put up with it now so they’ll put out later.”
Sometimes, she caught them watching her, gauging whether she was ready for second base. A sure mood killer.
The expression she loathed was the one of painful concentration, as though the guy had memorized some kissing manual and was trying to remember the steps. Swirl clockwise, thrust, parry. Swirl counterclockwise, thrust, parry. Rinse. Repeat. Blech.
But she had never seen the look of a man reveling in the kiss before. J.C. was clearly enjoying himself, but he wasn’t lost in the moment, not completely. He wasn’t lost because he wanted to remain aware of her feelings, specifically whether she was ready to stop or not.
And she knew this because…?
Because Lia Wainright was finally being kissed by a man, just the way she’d wanted to be.
And she liked it. A lot. More than she should, because kissing was about more than technique,
