chin. Leaning against the doorjamb of his small office, with its big wooden desk, a wall of shelves filled with books and knick-knacks, another covered in old maps, star charts, pictures of boats, she admitted that, while the house might be a total bachelor pad, with not a feminine touch in sight, it was seriously appealing. Simple and raw, woodsy and warm. Lived in.
It was Jonah.
Pushing herself away from the wall, she walked unthinkingly through the last door to find herself standing in a bedroom.
Jonah’s bedroom.
Her next breath in was choppy, her palms growing uncommonly warm as her eyes skittered over the chair in the corner covered in man clothes. The bedside table—singular—had at one time been a beer barrel, and now boasted a lamp with a naked bulb, a book—pages curled, face down—and a handful of loose change. No curtains shielded the windows, which were recycled portholes looking out over what would no doubt be a spectacular Pacific view.
Her heart beat wildly as her eyes finally settled on the biggest thing in the room: Jonah’s bed. It was big. Huge. And unmade, the white sheets a shambles. It wasn’t hard to imagine his long brown limbs twisted up in the bedding.
Never in her wildest dreams would she have imagined that she’d be in such a position with a man like Jonah North. A man who made her twitch. And scramble. And think twice. And want. The want she felt around him was crazy, wild, and corrupting.
A man who couldn’t even commit to a dog...
Insides twisting, Avery knew the smart thing to do would be to walk away, before the want became something else, something more. She could already feel it happening, encroaching. Heartbreak loomed with this one. Way better to find herself that cabana boy and piña colada and spend the rest of the summer in blissed-out inactivity.
Too late, she thought as warmth skittered over her skin. Jonah was back.
She turned to find him standing in the bedroom doorway, his broad shoulders blocking out the light from the hall. He’d ditched his shoes, and his shirt, and his eyes were as dark as coals.
Any doubts she might have harboured about what she was doing there went up in a puff of smoke. “Everything okay?” she asked, her voice so husky it was barely intelligible.
“All sorted.”
“No baby birds to check on? Stray cats to nurture? Just saying I could go watch a DVD or something till you’re...ready.”
Jonah’s smile was swift. Sexy as hell. And predatory.
And Avery was done thinking. The sound of a zipper rent the air; and when Avery’s bustier sank forward into her arms she let it dangle from two fingers before dropping it to the floor.
Jonah’s smile disappeared. And Avery’s stomach quivered as his dark gaze raked her from head to toe.
When her hand went to the side zip of her floaty pants, Jonah shook his head. Just once, but it was enough for her fingers to fall away.
All man, this one. Never asked permission—not to rescue her, not to kiss her. The only time he’d asked was when he’d wanted to dance. As if he’d known that her acceptance was as significant as kicking down a brick wall.
When Jonah took a step her way, her breath caught in her throat, and in the low light his mouth hitched into a grin. She scowled back, which only made him laugh; that deep masculine huh-huh-huh that near took her knees out from under her. Lucky for her, suddenly he was there, an arm at her back, his nose rubbing gently against hers.
Then with a nudge he tilted her chin and captured her mouth with all the ease and honeyed smoothness of a man who’d done so a million times before.
Sparks flittered prettily at the edges of her vision before morphing into a deep delicious warmth that curled down her back and into her limbs. And without another thought Avery’s hungry hands roved over all that smooth bare skin. The man was beyond beautiful. He was pure, raw, masculine heat, as if he’d trapped thirty years’ worth of sun beneath his skin, till the heat of it pulsed inside him.
She moved, just a fraction, sliding her belly against the erection burning between them, breathless with expectation that she’d be thrown back onto the bed and ravished senseless. Then whimpered when Jonah pulled back. Not entirely, just enough to add air between them, allow breath to escape. Till she was left hyper-aware of the smallest touch, every erratic change to the beat of her pulse.
Then his lips were on her neck, and gone.
On her collarbone, then gone.
On the edge of her mouth, coaxing, teasing, then gone.
All the while his hands didn’t stop touching, sliding over her back, his rough, calloused thumbs riding the curve of her waist, slipping under the edge of her bra, heading south...
Just when she thought she might melt into a puddle of tormented lust, Jonah took advantage. Completely. His tongue dipping into her sighing mouth to slide along hers, one warm hand cupping her backside pitching her closer, the other delving deep into her hair, capturing her until she was in his complete thrall.
Then his thumbs dipped into the waistband of her pants, finding a heretofore unknown sweet spot at the edge of her hipbones until she curled away from him, gasping. Leaving him all the room he needed to lick his way down her neck, her collarbone, his teeth grabbing the edge of her bra and tearing it away so that he could take her breast in his mouth.
She slipped a bare foot around his calf, keeping him hooked; she dug her hands into his hair, keeping him there, keeping him from ever leaving—ever—as his tongue and teeth and hot breath drove her wild. Until he pulled the other half of her bra away with his fingers, his rough, warm, sure fingers, and, caressing her as if she were something precious, sent the most intense pleasure looping inside her belly it near lifted her off her feet.
When his mouth once more found hers, he kissed her till she felt on the verge of drowning. And her knees finally gave way from under her and she landed on his bed with a thud and a bounce. She flung an arm over her closed eyes in an effort to find her balance.
When she opened them it was to find Jonah standing at the end of the bed, half-cocked grin on his gorgeous face. All golden-brown rippling abs. And dark whorling chest hair. Ropey muscle across his shoulders, veins slicing down his smooth brown arms. A deep tan line from his diving watch wrapping about his wrist.
“You are something else, Jonah North,” she said, shaking her head back and forth.
The grin deepened, and his eyes roved over every inch of her. “When you find a name for it, let me know. As I’m totally in the dark about you, Avery Shaw.”
And crazy as it sounded, that felt perfectly all right with her.
She hauled herself up, curled her fingers into his open fly to drag him closer only to discover the tan line at his wrist was matched by another. This one was a perfect horizon that split the dark trail of hair leading into his pants.
She kissed the demarcation, relishing his sharp intake of breath. She kissed a little lower to find his skin there scorching hot. She pulled back and licked her lips as if burnt to find they tasted like sun and salt and sharp sea air. Like him. When she went in for another lick he slid his finger to her chin, lifted it so she’d look him in his smoking-hot eyes, then bent towards her.
It
