No wonder his team listens to him, Eva thought dazedly as she found herself pushing off her knees and standing before him. It scared her a little, how much she wanted to just listen, let him tell her what to do, and trust that it would be good for both of them.
Struggling to find some measure of control, she arched a brow and sent him her best sultry smile as her fingers went to the black patent-leather belt at her waist. A little striptease usually reminded everyone just who was in charge of the scene.
Danny leaned back, heat flashing in his eyes as he watched her slip the tongue of the belt free of the buckle. Dropping it to the floor with a soft clink of metal, Eva felt her balance returning. Putting a little dance into her hips, she imagined the pulsing beat of music at her favorite club and closed her eyes, inching the hem of the tight red dress up her thighs.
“No,” Danny said quietly, jarring her from her fantasy. “Zipper first.”
Eva dragged in a breath, aware that her heart was flapping in her chest like a baby bird fallen from its nest. His focused gaze trapped her, wouldn’t let her retreat into her safe, comfortable imagination.
Instead, she raised shaking fingers to the zipper at the back of the dress, feeling every moment of the clumsy contortion, every extra second of silence as her fingers slipped and fumbled before finally getting the zipper all the way down. The sleeves, tight down to her elbows, kept the dress up in front, but in back she could feel the draft of the climate-controlled air wafting against her bare shoulder blades.
“When I get these damn bandages off,” Danny said conversationally, “I’m going to undress you slowly, revealing one inch of skin at a time, tasting every part as I uncover it.”
Eva started to pant, suddenly so hot she could hardly bear the constriction of the sleeves around her arms, the dress around her waist and hips. She wanted to peel the whole garment off, but she hesitated, desperate to know what Danny was about to say.
“You’re so insanely gorgeous like this,” he said, his voice no longer casual. The rough, guttural truth of the words scored along her skin like fingernails scratching up her back, and Eva gasped for air and shimmied out of the dress so fast she almost fell over.
She must have looked like an idiot, but she didn’t even care, because the chill air felt so good against her overheated body, and Danny’s eyes flared with desire when he saw her black lace panties and registered the fact that she wasn’t wearing the matching bra. Or any bra at all.
Eva had never been so happy to be flat-chested.
And she congratulated herself on picking out a dress that morning that was structured enough that she didn’t need anything underneath. Because it meant that right now, there was nothing between Danny Lunden and her breasts but cold air making her nipples tighten into little knots of aching need.
“Come here,” he said, his whole body poised as if all he wanted in the world was to leap off the sofa and grab her.
But he didn’t, he couldn’t because of his hands, and Eva realized with a start that if she didn’t undress him, no one would. Galvanized into action, she threw herself back onto his lap, knees spread on either side of his hips, and seized his mouth in a hungry kiss. Their tongues met and fought for control, sliding and stroking, while Eva’s busy fingers moved to the snaps on his white chef’s jacket.
Taking hold of the sides, she ripped the coat open with a satisfying sound. He had on a plain white T-shirt underneath, and they had to break the kiss for long, painful seconds to wrestle him free of both jacket and shirt without jostling his injured hands too much. But after a bit of cursing and a couple of frustrated laughs, Eva was able to wind her arms around his strong neck and press her naked breasts to his equally naked chest, and boy, oh boy, was it ever worth it.
Danny had the kind of body lots of men spent hours and tons of money to achieve, but Eva knew his muscles came from the grueling grind of lifting heavy pans, kneading bread dough, and working hard. The planes of his chest felt different under her than some model or actor’s sculpted perfection.
Everything with Danny felt more real.
Tearing his mouth away from hers, he gasped out, “Up, kneel up, I want to taste you.”
Unsteady but more than willing, Eva braced her hands on his broad shoulders and pushed up. Danny didn’t wait for her to get settled; as soon as she was close enough, he angled his head and took the tip of her breast into the wet heat of his mouth.
Someone had tied a cord from Eva’s nipple to her clit, and with every suck of Danny’s talented mouth, every lash of his rough tongue, the cord pulled taut. Eva gasped and squirmed, her knees wobbling. She couldn’t believe Danny was making her feel this way without ever touching her with his hands.
Who needed hands with a mouth like his?
He made a hungry sound against her breast, the vibration sending shivers cascading down her sides, and pulled his head away. Eva squirmed some more, and suddenly the damp, throbbing head of his cock was thrusting against her inner thighs, hot and seeking and so close to where she wanted it.
Mindless with need, she reached for it, loving the heavy throb it gave as her fingers clasped the base and stroked all the way up to the head.
“Gah,” said Danny, eyes rolling back in his head.
Eva grinned, feeling wild and fierce, and wished she were wearing breakaway underpants. Since she wasn’t, in fact, a professional stripper, she had to work to shimmy out of the black lace panties, but Danny didn’t seem to mind the way she wriggled around his lap to get it done.
When she was completely naked, Eva pushed in close for a victory kiss, trapping his erection between them and rubbing shamelessly while she let Danny conquer her mouth.
“God, you are the hottest thing I’ve ever seen,” he said, when she let him pause for a breath.
“You’re pretty hot, yourself,” Eva replied, running her hands down his beautiful abdomen to circle his cock once more.
Danny’s eyes were slits of blue-gray in his tense, flushed face. “Good. That feels good. Fuck, I wish I could touch you.”
“Me too,” Eva agreed fervently. There was an emptiness down there—she was so wet and open, she ached. Whimpering a little, she rocked her hips helplessly.
His eyes opened wider, inspiration burning into them. “Be my hands, Eva. You do it, and let me see.”
Chapter 14
“What?” Eva felt slow, as if all the foreplay had turned her brain to tapioca.
The forceful tone bled into his voice, his jaw as hard as marble, as he said, “Hold up your right hand. Index finger.”
Clumsily, she complied, and he praised her with a soft, “That’s good. You’re perfect.”
Warmth filled her at the approval in his voice, and a languid sort of heat stole over her as he propped his feet on the coffee table behind her, raising his knees as a support for her back. She relaxed against his strong thighs, the denim rubbing her skin sensitive and hot, and waited for his next request.
“Beautiful,” he said, and she didn’t know if it was a compliment or an endearment, but either way, she liked it. “Take that finger and touch yourself. I want to see how wet you are.”
The boldness of it, the straightforward way he stared at her and invited her to participate in stoking her own passion appealed to Eva.
She’d never been shy. Or, if she had been, it had been many years since she acknowledged it or let it stop her from doing whatever the hell she wanted. So the blush that heated her face and neck surprised her as she trailed that finger down the centerline of her body toward the slippery, tingling flesh between her legs.
Her cheeks were hot, as hot as the tiny cluster of nerves at the top of her slit when she searched it out and made herself shudder.
Danny watched every move she made as if he were going to be quizzed later, and Eva let the attention cover her in a mantle of confidence. When Danny’s lips parted and his breath sped up, Eva’s natural exhibitionist came roaring to the forefront of her consciousness.
Holding hi
s gaze, she let another finger come into play, delving deeper, playing through the slick folds and circling her clit. It felt incredible, better than when she did it alone, as if Danny’s presence, his watchful eyes, gave the familiar act an extra kick.
Shuddering, hips pulsing ever so slightly, Eva let herself writhe in his lap like a cat begging to be stroked. Her head tipped back over his knees, the long line of her throat bare and vulnerable, her belly quivering softly with every wet slide of her fingers.
“You’re driving me crazy,” Danny told her, thrusting up so that the rough teeth of his zipper scraped at the bare flesh of her buttocks. The move tilted her hips forward far enough to tap his erection against the back of her hand. Seizing the opportunity, Eva pulled her fingers free of her body and wrapped them around his hard thickness, pressing the length of it solidly against her weeping sex.
That hardness, heavy and hot and right there, felt incredible. It was exactly the friction she wanted, better than any fingers in the world. It must have felt good to Danny, too, because he squeezed his eyes shut and thrust his hips again, shoulders pushing into the back of the couch as his back arched.
“God,” he said. “Too close. Can you reach my wallet?”
Keeping his cock where she wanted it with her right hand, Eva craned forward to kiss him, sloppy and hot, while her left hand burrowed into his back pocket.
“Got it,” she breathed against his mouth.
“Condom,” he gasped. “Get it on me.”
Eva had never been so eager to obey in her whole life. She found the condom and ripped the wrapper open with her teeth. The grip of her hand as she rolled the latex down over his straining erection brought another shuddering groan out of Danny.
Feverish with need, desire wound so tightly inside her that she was afraid she’d explode, Eva lifted herself up and, holding Danny steady with one hand, brought herself down over him.
She moaned at the nudge of his cock head against her entrance, thick and searing hot, even through the condom. He was big, wide and uncompromising, and she wanted every inch of him.
Pushing herself, Eva let gravity do most of the work, concentrating on relaxing enough to let him all the way inside.
“Careful, sweetness,” Danny said, concern wrinkling his brow. “Not too fast. We’ve got the whole night.”
It didn’t feel that way to Eva, who wanted him inside her now, all at once, filling her up and making her fly.
With a gasp she felt herself stretched to the limit as her hips slammed down, grinding her pubis against the hard bone of his pelvis. Her brain shorted out in a shower of sparks, and the whole world became nothing more than rocking and moaning, clutching and gasping and straining toward something perfect, just out of reach, until suddenly, with a tightening of muscles and a last rough thrust, she was there.
When it was over, she blinked her eyes open to find her forehead pressed to Danny’s sweaty shoulder, her thighs quivering tiredly, muscles sore from being held apart for so long.
He groaned and shifted, as if he might be sore, too, and that one tiny movement sent aftershocks fluttering through her entire lower body.
“God. This competition is under protest,” he breathed. “I call shenanigans. The founder’s daughter just drained all my strength out through my dick.”
Eva snickered into his collarbone, licking a little at the salty taste of his skin. “Lucky for you, I’ve got nothing to do with the judges’ decisions about anything, or your competitors would be the ones calling shenanigans.”
“Hey.” Annoyance crept into his satisfied tone. “I wouldn’t have slept with you if it would look like I was trying to fuck my way to the top.”
Opening her mouth lazily, Eva sucked at his neck. Not hard enough to leave a mark and cause questions neither of them wanted to deal with, but definitely hard enough to feel, if the way Danny stretched against her was any indication.
“Okay, uncle,” he said on a strangled gasp. “Maybe I would’ve slept with you no matter what. You are hell on my good intentions, woman.”
“Good intentions are for the boring,” Eva told him, reaching an efficient hand down to deal with the condom. There was something kind of dirty and fun about playing nurse like this.
Danny snorted as she moved off his lap and tossed the used condom in the direction of the trash can beside the desk. “I’ve been considered boring by lots of people.”
“Stupid people,” Eva dismissed, collapsing back against the couch with a gusty sigh. “People who’ve never had sex with you. God, I needed that.” Rolling her head far enough to the side that she could see him, she said, “And so did you. Admit it. I took good care of you!”
“I admit it, I’m glad I followed you up here,” Danny deadpanned. “None of my teammates would’ve employed your particular method of pain relief.”
“Mmm. I’m better than a bucket of ice and an aspirin? You sweet-talker.”
Buffeting his bandaged fingers against the sticky mess at his crotch, a spasm of annoyance crossed his face. Danny growled low in his throat. “I think I mentioned once before, when I first met you—I might be a pastry chef, but I’m not as sweet as I look.”
“Here, let me help with that.” Eva got kind of a thrill out of the easy way he lay back and let her tuck him back into his pants. She did up the zipper but left the button undone, purely because she liked the look of it.
She liked being the one who got to see him that way.
The thought was frightening in its intensity, and Eva shied away from the revelation as if it were a light shining too brightly into her eyes. Silently cursing her still-shaky legs, she wobbled off the couch and started a fruitless search for her underwear before giving up and heading across the living room to the French doors that led to the bedroom.
When she came back to the living area a few moments later, swathed in one of the hotel’s complimentary thick terry-cloth bathrobes, it was to see Danny pushing himself off the couch with his elbows, his soiled shirt hooked over one bare, muscular arm.
Despite her own instinct to flee the scene, some contrary portion of Eva’s heart tugged with disappointment at the sight of Danny poised to make his getaway.
Leaning one shoulder against the doorjamb, she had to work to make her voice smooth and light. “Going somewhere?”
Danny stopped, bent halfway over and tripping on the trailing hems of his jeans. “Just trying to take a hint,” he said, as casually as he could manage.
Which wasn’t very casual. He grimaced, irritated by his own inability to just be cool and not care, for once in his whole, stupid life.
Fingering the tie holding her robe closed, Eva slanted him a look from under her lashes. “Maybe you should check your clues one more time. The hint could just be that you need a shower.”
Happiness poured into the hole that had opened in his chest when Eva left him there on the couch without a backward glance. Danny waved his useless baseball-mitt hands and said, “Can’t get ’em wet, remember?”
Eva sauntered toward him, her whole body moving in a sinuous, slinky way that reminded him of her unself-conscious abandon as she took her pleasure. “I’m disappointed, Chef,” she said. “I would’ve thought you’d be a little more innovative than that.”
Danny felt his mouth go dry as she picked apart the knot at her waist and let the robe fall open to frame her lovely, smooth skin. “Any man whose brain works at peak capacity around you is either gay or dead.”
She gave a delighted laugh. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Proving my point!”
“Come on.” Eva grabbed his elbow, managing to knock his shirt and chef’s whites to the floor. “I’ve got a big, gorgeous, deep spa tub in the master bathroom.”
Danny’s eyes followed his clothes down and snagged on the telephone resting beside the couch. He frowned. “I should really call my guys and check in.”
Eva’s fingers tightened, but her voice went sultry and low. “The tub’s big enough for two…”
Danny swiveled his head back to her in time to catch the moment when Eva dropped the robe in a pile over his discarded chef’s jacket.
Completely comfortable in her own skin, she turned and swayed those perfect little hips over to the double doors she’d disappeared through before, casting one flirtatious peek over her pure white shoulder as she slipped into the next room.
Danny followed her without another pause.
He was pretty sure the guys would understand.
When he blinked his eyes open the next morning and stared up at the gold-leaf motif on Eva Jansen’s swanky penthouse ceiling, Danny was suddenly less sure about how understanding his team would be.
They’d no doubt spent the night dealing with Beck’s anger issues—and what the hell was up with him and that chick from California?—and worrying about the coming day of cooking. He should’ve been with them, not here, lounging around in the lap of luxury, waiting for someone to peel him a grape or something.
Sitting up abruptly, Danny twitched his fingers to check for soreness. The bandages had loosened during the night, what with one thing and another, and he was able to curl his hands into fists without too much pain. It was only by resolutely sitting on his memories of exactly what “one thing and another” had entailed that Danny was able to push back the cover and climb out of the bed, careful not to disturb the slender lump in the sheets beside him.
He moved smoothly, wincing only a little when he had to brace one hand on the corner of the bed to bend over and pick up his jeans. Annoyed by the bandages, Danny set his teeth to a trailing end at his right wrist, and tugged until he could begin to unravel them.
“What are you doing?” Eva’s sleepy voice matched her tousled brown hair and heavy-lidded eyes.
Danny couldn’t look at her without wanting to dive back into bed and lick her all over, so he went back to his bandage. “I’m taking these off so I can see what the damage is,” he said calmly. “The paramedic said to check.”
Eva pursed her pretty mouth, looking skeptical, but she couldn’t really argue. “Here, let me. You’re making this harder than it needs to be.”
Some Like It Hot Page 13