Under Fire

4

EVERY INCH?

Jana had never hyperventilated in her life, but she supposed there really was a first time for everything. With any luck, an overload of carbon dioxide wouldn’t be her only first tonight.

No. She wouldn’t think about that. If she did, whatever magical, sensual spell Ben appeared to cast over her so effortlessly could easily break. Instead, she locked reality away and reached for the buttons on his shirt, pressing her lips to the warm, bare skin she exposed.

“So?” She shoved the shirt from his shoulders and down his arms, letting it drop to the floor. “What’s stopping you?”

With the tip of her tongue, she traced his flattened nipple then grazed it with her teeth, wanting him to experience the same delicious sensations running rampant through her. She tasted, laved and kissed a trail down his torso. A groan erupted from deep inside him, encouraging her.

Before she managed to taste another inch of the luscious length of his athlete-strong body, his hands gripped her upper arms. He hauled her against his chest, holding her tight. His mouth covered hers, coaxing, yet demanding with a sense of urgency that she open for him. A request she wouldn’t dream of denying.

Using his body to support her, he pressed her back against the wall again. His hands skimmed her breasts to settle at her waist. The hiss of leather rasped in her ears as he unfastened her belt and carefully withdrew it from the loops of her skirt.

Ultimate fulfillment might be a mystery to her, but she understood desire. She’d even delighted in the most fascinating tingles a time or two during foreplay. Yet her limited knowledge had never come close to the scrumptious way Ben was making her feel with only his caresses and kisses. Hot. Achy. Breathless. Craving what had always been elusive. An awareness so powerful, every nerve ending in her body came alive.

He unfastened the snap and zipper, then stepped back to push her skirt past her hips. The material slid down her legs like a sensuous caress to puddle at her feet. After toeing off her pumps, she kicked them and the skirt aside, then stood in front of Ben wearing only her matching white lace bra and panties, and a pair of thigh-high stockings. She’d expected to feel exposed, even a little self-conscious. The appreciation in his eyes effectively kept her doubts at bay.

“You are incredible,” he said with a reverence that obliterated any final shred of common sense she might have been considering. “Absolutely incredible.”

She smiled as she closed the few inches between them and leaned into him, wrapping her arms around his waist and moving her body against his. Friction, stimulated by heated male flesh and lace, rasped her nipples and sent an electric shot of warmth zinging down her spine.

Another tiny tremor shook her.

“Cold?” he asked.

She gently nipped his neck before tipping her head back to look into his eyes. “I’ve never been hotter.”

The color of his eyes deepened. “You keep talking like that, we’ll never make it to the bedroom.”

She gave him the most sensual grin in her pathetically small arsenal. “Nothing says we have to make it in the bedroom.”

With his arms around her, he slowly slid his hands beneath the elastic band of her panties to cup her bottom, drawing her even closer. “An adventurous woman. I like that.”

She arched her back and pressed her fanny into the warmth of his calloused hands. “Hmm,” she murmured as his fingers gently kneaded her flesh. “What else do you like?”

“Fantasies. Tell me your fantasy, Jana.”

She would, if she had one to share. She’d already admitted her sexual reality was a big fat zero. Her sensual self-esteem hardly needed a reminder she lacked the imagination to even conjure a decent fantasy. “I have a better idea.”

His hands inched down, moving with agonizing slowness toward her center. He dipped his head and caught the lobe of her ear gently between his teeth. “Tell me.”

Hot breath caressed her ear at the same moment the tip of his fingers brushed her moist curls in a feathery caress so light she couldn’t determine reality from one of those fantasies he kept insisting she discuss. Why on earth did he expect conversation when all she could think about was the most interesting sense of acute pressure slowly building inside her that kept her pressing her body toward his gently teasing fingers?

She pulled back slightly and reached for the clip still securing her hair in place. While he watched, she carefully removed the clip, then tossed it on the carpet next to her clothes and shoes. With a slight shake of her head, she freed her hair from the knot until it fell past her shoulders. “You show me your fantasy instead,” she quietly told him.

The sinfully wicked intent in his eyes had her catching her breath. “Tonight, you are my fantasy.”

She barely had time to absorb his highly erotic statement before he took both of her hands in one of his. He effectively pinned her against the wall by raising her arms just above her head, leaving his free hand to do whatever he chose. This was, after all, his fantasy.

He traced her mouth with the tip of his finger, then dragged the pad of his thumb across her bottom lip before he gently moved downward to caress her throat. His lips touched where his fingers had been, then followed the same path as his hand. His caress and the moist heat of his mouth traveled southward, teasing the slope of her breasts, down through the valley of her cleavage.

The palm of his hand was hot against her skin, rough and calloused, yet tender and reverent in execution. He created a path of heat over her rib cage while his tongue, lips and teeth strayed to her breasts, creating more havoc with her senses.

Just when she thought she would go crazy from the need burning low in her belly, he released her hands and eased slowly to his knees. The heat of his mouth and tongue never left her skin, which had grown even tighter, hotter. She flatted her palms against the wall for support. He hooked his thumbs onto the sides of her panties and slowly pulled them from her hips, tasting the skin he exposed along the way with a veneration that had her heart squeezing just a little.

He tossed the lace panties aside, then, drew his hands upward along the backs of her legs, caressing her inner thighs. She nearly came out of her skin.

As if she were as delicate as a hothouse flower, he gently eased her legs apart. The earlier pressure returned, more forceful and twice as demanding the instant he touched her wet folds and slid his finger inside her.

Her breath caught, then expelled in a rush, carrying with it a deep moan filled with such an earthy sound, it took her by surprise. Sensation overruled thought with every stroke. All that mattered were the incredible currents of energy rippling under her skin and the demands of her body urging her onward toward…toward…

She closed her eyes and shoved reality behind the locked door again. Tonight she wanted the sensual ride to carry her as far as her body would allow her to travel.

She stopped thinking and only…felt.

The beauty of total arousal. The stroke of his fingers. Glorious tension. The press of his lips against her moist curls. Fire growing inside her. The glide of his tongue as it circled her most sensitive place.

She experienced it all and greedily wanted more.

“Don’t stop,” she whispered.

He expertly stoked the simmering warmth into a full-fledged inferno that made her hotter than ever before. The upsurge of the flames pushed her steadily closer to…to…

He stopped.

Her knees threatened to buckle, but his hands quickly shifted to her hips and steadied her. Her eyes flew open.

He stopped?

“No!” she cried out in protest. She reached for his shoulders, but he was already rising to his feet.

She shook her head. “No,” she said again once he stood in front of her. She didn’t care if she was pleading with him to finish what he’d started. How could he do this to her? She’d been so close, or at least closer than she’d ever been in her life. Dammit, she’d told him not to stop!

The man had the audacity to smile at her. “Why?”

Her mouth fell open and she stared at him through a half-dozen thunderous beats of her heart. “Why?” she finally parroted. Surely she didn’t have to explain it to him. He couldn’t possibly be that obtuse.

He nodded. “Why?”

If he stooped to pick up his shirt, she just might kick him square in the backside.

“Because!” Definitely not her most intelligent reply.

His smile deepened into a grin before he planted a hard, quick kiss on her still swollen lips. “Because you were so close to orgasm?”

She eyed him suspiciously. She had no idea what kind of game he thought he was playing with her.