His body was scorching hot through her clothes and she wanted more, wanted everything.
Liam wrenched his head away, gulping for air, but his gaze didn’t leave her. She’d never wanted anyone more in her life; her entire body vibrated with need. It was time for another risk.
“Can I invite you in for a coffee?” she asked as casually as she could manage, resting her hand on the doorknob.
His green eyes darkened, but the corners of his mouth twitched. “Thing is, because this is my house, I happen to know you don’t have coffee-making facilities in that room.”
“That’s true, though I could probably rustle up a chocolate bar and a bottle of room-temperature water.” She turned the knob and pushed the door open behind them.
“As it so happens, scrounged chocolate bars and room-temperature water are my favorite things in the world,” he said, wrapping a piece of her blond hair around his finger. “But in all seriousness, Jenna, do you honestly want me to come in? Say the word and I’ll see myself to my own room. It’s your call.”
She let out a long breath. “Liam, I can give you about five good reasons why we should say goodnight out here in the hall. And I suspect you have a list about the same length.”
He raised a hopeful eyebrow. “But...?”
“I don’t want to,” she said simply. She’d been denying and fighting this attraction long enough.
His Adam’s apple descended slowly, then came up again. “So what do we do?”
Good question. They couldn’t go forward and they couldn’t not go forward. There had to be another way. “What if we give ourselves a free pass for tonight?”
Heat flared in his eyes. “The reasons we shouldn’t do this aren’t going anywhere,” he said, tracing a fingertip down her throat. “We could park them in this hall and they’ll be waiting here patiently to be picked up again in the morning.”
“We wouldn’t be doing anything wrong, because—”
He cut her words off with a kiss full of the passion they’d been holding back. She raised her hands to grip his shoulders, and his body shuddered.
“Because we’re not brushing those reasons aside,” he said against her mouth. “We’re just—”
“Parking them for a few hours,” she finished, her fingers tightening on his shoulders.
“Well, if we’re parking them, it will be just as easy to park them in the hall in front of my room as yours. And my room has a bigger bed.” He tugged on her hand and she followed him down the hall, anticipation bubbling in her belly.
When they reached his room, he drew her inside, then closed the door, pushed her back against it and kissed her again. “Maybe your room would have been better,” he eventually said, leaning his forehead against hers. “That was a long wait between kisses.”
With nimble fingers, he undid the buttons of her blouse. As he moved the fabric aside, his fingers skimmed and swirled from her stomach up over her bra, to reach the column of her throat. Her heart rate went soaring, her senses on overload.
“Jenna,” he said, his voice uneven. “I’ve wanted you since the day you moved in.”
“Only that long?” She gave him a crooked smile. “I feel as if I’ve wanted you forever.”
He groaned and slipped his hands behind her to unhook her bra, then tossed it to the side. The air was cool on her breasts, but he soon cupped them, bringing all his warmth and the delicious friction from his work-roughened palms.
She slipped her hands under his shirt, feeling the play of muscles across his chest as he tensed in reaction to her touch. It wasn’t enough. Trembling, she pushed the shirt from his shoulders and it dropped to the floor, then she leaned in and placed a kiss on his chest, thrilled when he sucked in a breath and held it. As her hands became bolder, roaming, exploring, he groaned and buried his fingers in her hair.
Part of her still couldn’t believe she was here with Liam, the man she’d been watching, wanting for so long. But he whispered her name and she knew she wasn’t dreaming. This was him, and it was even more perfect than she’d imagined.
He skimmed his hands up her thighs, bringing the skirt as he went, then hooked his fingers in the top of her panties and pulled down until she could step out of them, then out of her shoes. She was naked before him and he stared down at her with such longing that she felt as if she were floating.
He toed off his shoes, pushed his trousers and boxers off in one smooth motion, and then came back to her, kissing her until her head was spinning. She let her hands roam, wanting to touch him everywhere she could reach, from his biceps, up to his shoulders, and down the smooth skin of his back. While her hands explored, she kissed a trail down his body, loving that the muscles in his chest and abdomen tensed when her mouth made contact. And when she flicked her tongue out to taste the skin, he moaned her name.
He pulled her back up by the shoulders and held her in place with a kiss as his hands began their own journey, slowly moving down her sides, skimming the slope of her breasts, across her rounded stomach, and down farther. He broke off the kiss and dipped his head to take the peak of a breast into his mouth, just as his fingers found the apex of her thighs. She gasped, and he retreated, teasing, promising.
Just when she thought she could stand no more, he gently pressed her back on the bed and prowled over her, kissing and licking and nipping wherever he could reach. Then his mouth reached the core of her. At the first touch of his tongue, she moaned deep in her throat. His fingers joined the assault, and she could barely contain herself, as if she’d grown too big for her skin.
She clutched the sheets, helplessly giving herself over to sensation. Her hips flexed of their own accord, but his hands and mouth continued, slowly driving her out of her mind with the sweet torture, until all feeling coalesced and peaked at a point higher than she’d known existed and then shattered into a thousand shiny fragments.
She heard him opening a drawer in the nightstand. He retrieved a condom and quickly sheathed himself. But instead of coming straight back to her, he hovered, his weight resting on his hands on either side of her shoulders, his gaze locked on hers. The clarity of the look—no masks, nothing to hide behind—made something move inside her chest. It was if she was seeing into his soul. She reached up and ran her fingertips down his cheek, along his jaw, and when they reached his mouth, he tenderly kissed them.
Then he leaned down and captured her mouth in a kiss that was pure heat and desire and urgency. Without breaking the kiss, he positioned himself between her thighs, and she moaned deep in her throat. He entered her slowly, giving her time to adjust, but she wrapped her legs around his waist, urging him on, reveling in the warm rush of sensation as he began to move.
He rocked in a rhythm that she wanted to last forever and her body strained for his, wanting more, meeting every thrust of his hips.
She struggled for air, shifting restlessly on the sheets as the world pulsated around her. She gasped his name, over and over, could think of nothing else. Her body tightened around him. She was on the edge of something so intense, she wasn’t sure she could handle it when it came, but if they stopped now she’d lose her mind.
And then he changed the angle and she fell over the edge of the world, falling, falling, soaring
