Velvet, Leather & Lace: A Man's Gotta DoCalling the ShotsBaring It All

by Suzanne Forster

  She didn’t smile, as he’d expected her to. Instead, her eyes shimmering with emotion for him, she stood up, and once again leaned over him.

  This time her mouth brushed his, once, twice, her lips clinging for far too short a beat before she pulled away.

  “What was that for?” he asked, his voice gone a little husky, his hands fisted on the chair at his sides to keep from tumbling her into his lap.

  “Just because.” She sat back down.

  “Hey, was that a pity kiss?”

  “I don’t feel sorry for you. I feel…proud. You’re a great cook, Jake. And a great man.”

  “Truth or dare?” he asked quietly.

  She shot him a nervous smile. “Dare.”

  Did she really think that would be the lesser of two evils? “Come sit on my lap.”

  “Is that my dare?”

  “Yep.” He patted his thighs. “You have to stay here through the next round.”

  Her eyes narrowed, but she got up out of her chair for the third time, then turned to give him her back and began to sit on the very edge of his knees.

  “Nope.” He settled his hands on her hips and whipped her around. “Facing me.”

  She stared down at his sprawled legs, the ones she now had to straddle, then at his belly, his chest and, finally, back into his face. “You just ate five pieces of pizza, I’ll give you a stomachache.”

  “I can handle it.” He patted his thighs.

  With a soft sound of exasperation, she shifted to sit, but found herself hampered by the snugness of the dress around her legs. “Oops.” She smiled. “Can’t. Sorry.”

  “Truth then.”

  Another sound escaped her, one that came with a low oath, and then she tugged up the hem of her dress from just above the knees to high thigh. As she flung a leg over his, the dress shifted up even higher, giving him a peekaboo flash of pale pink panties.

  Hands on his shoulders for balance, she sat perched on his legs, hers spread to accommodate his, chewing on her lower lip. Her feet didn’t touch the floor, they swung a few inches above his tile, and everywhere her inner calves and thighs touched the outside of his, he burned.

  He burned in other spots, too, and his hands tightened slightly on her hips. “Comfy?”

  Her high-heeled sandals fell off her feet and hit the tile. “You’re sort of bony.”

  “Bony?” One quick tug, and her pale-pink-covered crotch was flush against the V of his jeans, and the unmistakable erection behind it. “How’s this for bony?” he growled and slowly rocked his hips to hers.

  “Oh…my.”

  “I’m so damn hot for you I’m dying with it.” Sliding his hands up her body, he took her hands in his, entwined their fingers, then brought their joined hands behind her back, low on her spine, which pressed her forward even more, nudging the hottest, neediest part of him against the hottest, neediest part of her.

  An electric arc of pleasure and pain struck him, and he leaned in at the same moment she did, their mouths meeting, opening on each other as he tried to claim her as his own. Then her tongue touched his and pleasure skittered down his spine, pooling in his groin. He forgot about the silly game, forgot about the fashion show, forgot about everything but the woman panting softly in his arms.

  As he rocked his hips forward into hers, she let out a sexy little whimper and flexed her hands in his. The hem of her dress slid up even farther now, to her hips, exposing more of her panties, the ones he wanted to pull off with his teeth because she looked so damned sexy he couldn’t stand it. And yet there was something almost sweet, certainly vulnerable about the way she sat there, so open for him. From beneath the sheer material of her panties he could see the outline of her, so utterly, erotically feminine he wanted to drop to his knees and worship. “Truth,” he grated out.

  She blinked, slow as an owl. “You want to keep playing?” She was breathing a little roughly, which excited him all the more. “Like this? Now?”

  “Truth.”

  She swallowed hard and looked at his chest. “I gotta tell you, I was hoping you’d say dare.”

  His laugh sounded like a groan even to his own ears. “Next time. Truth, Mia.”

  “Okay.” She swallowed. “Why do you bother?”

  “With…?”

  “Me.”

  What? Why did he bother? Was she serious? He looked into her face. She appeared to be holding her breath. Totally serious. If she didn’t know why he bothered, then damn, he hadn’t done his job, and he hated that. He tipped her chin up with a finger and waited for her to meet his gaze. “I’m glad you’re sitting down because this one’s a doozy.”

  She looked even more nervous now. “No. No doozies. I take back the question.”

  “Too late.”

  “Jake—”

  “I ‘bother’ because I’m falling for you.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “YOU…” WORDS FAILED HER as she looked at Jake in shock, utter shock.

  Jake looked right back, eyes glittering. “Yeah. I’m falling in love with you.” His hands slid up her back.

  Mia expected him to tunnel his fingers in her hair, yank her forward and kiss her, reminding her of this almost chemical-like attraction they had for one another. She did not expect him to gently cup her face, stroking her jaw in a way that brought a lump to her throat.

  “And because of that,” he said in a low voice. “You’re important to me. So damned important.”

  Still speechless, Mia just slowly shook her head. Her world was reeling, her heart drumming so fast it felt as if it were coming out her ears.

  Jake surged to his feet, and with her still wrapped around him like a pretzel, headed down the hall, shouldering open his bedroom door, stalking straight toward the huge king-size bed in the center of the room.

  He loved her.

  “Your turn, Mia.” He dumped her on the mattress, and before she’d bounced twice he was on her, stretching his big, long body out over hers.

  He loved her. God, she couldn’t wrap her brain around it. “Um—”

  “Truth or dare?” Again he entwined their fingers and pulled her hands up over her head. Dipping down, he kissed her throat as he shoved a muscled thigh between hers.

  While she struggled to make sense of the three little words he’d just uttered as if saying “Let’s have more pizza.” If she’d been standing, she’d have staggered at the implications. If he loved her, what was it that they were doing? If he loved her, then this wasn’t a game.

  Right? “Jake—”

  “Truth. Or. Dare?” He closed his teeth on her throat, nipping where he’d just kissed. Then he touched his hot, silky tongue to the spot.

  “Truth,” she gasped, arching up into him.

  “I’ve known you for two years.” Another lick. “You’ve dated. You even had a relationship during that time, though granted it was low-key and long-distance.”

  Oh, God. She knew where this was leading, and went still, only her heart thundering out of control. “Yes.”

  “I never gave it much thought because I didn’t like to, but you haven’t gone two years without sex.”

  When she didn’t answer, he lifted his head and looked down at her.

  She let go of the breath she’d been holding. “Is that your question, whether or not I’ve had sex in the past two years?”

  “No. I’ve seen you at work, Mia. And at home. In the kitchen moaning over some food I’ve made you, or yelling at the Lakers game on television. You’re a passionate woman who gets a kick out of life, so my question is, do you really not like sex?”

  “Jake.”

  “Simple question. Simple answer. Yes or no?”

  “Nothing about that question is simple.”

  “Would you rather take a dare?” He took a light bite out of her jaw and rocked his hips to hers. “Because believe me, I’ve got one.”

  He was still hard, deliciously so, and she arched up to meet him.

  “See, that’s what I mean,” he said,
a little hoarse now. “You melt beneath me. Your heart’s racing and your nipples are hard. I’ll bet you’re wet, too. Are you wet, Mia?”

  She licked her lips and dragged air into her taxed lungs. “The answer to your first question is no. No, I don’t really not like sex. Double negatives, I know, but you’re making it hard to think.”

  Lifting his head, he looked down at her.

  “I like sex,” she whispered. “I like it a lot.”

  “Why did you lie to me?”

  The question for the ages. She’d held back from him all this time because she’d instinctively known, even in the beginning, that this, with him, would be different, special.

  So with Herculean effort, she’d kept this light, kept it just a friendship, all to ensure it wouldn’t ever end.

  And now he’d single-handedly taken them to the next level, and he wanted to know why she’d lied. She had no idea how to tell him. “Truth or dare?”

  He blinked. “What?”

  “You can’t ask two questions, so now it’s your turn,” she said. “Truth or dare?”

  His eyes smoldered. “So we’re still playing.”

  “You started it.”

  “Truth,” he grated out.

  “Did you mean it?”

  He didn’t ask what. They both knew what she wanted to know: Had he really meant what he had said earlier? That he was falling in love with her?

  “Yes,” he said fiercely, and caught her mouth with his. “I meant it.” He punctuated each word with hot, openmouthed kisses along her throat. Sliding his long fingers into her hair to hold her head steady, he plundered her mouth again, in a hot, deep, wet kiss that rocked her world and brought her humiliatingly close to doing as she always said she wouldn’t—beg.

  “Now you again,” he said, panting. “Truth or dare?”

  She looked into his eyes and saw the heat, the passion. The desperation.

  And knew at least that she wasn’t alone in this. Whatever she was feeling, he felt it, too. And he’d even put a name to it. Oh God. “Dare.”

  “There’s no going back,” he said roughly. “Not after this.”

  “Dare,” she repeated boldly, while quaking on the inside. He looked so intense, so utterly fierce. Everything within her quivered in anticipation, and she put her mouth to his throat. He was warm, slightly damp and smelled like heaven.

  “Dare then,” he practically growled and yanked his shirt off over his head. “Are you ready?”

  Her eyes locked onto his body, gloriously hard and defined. She loved his chest, and the small mat of dark hair in the center, with the line leading down, down, down, vanishing into his low-slung jeans. And God, his stomach. She could spend a day just looking at the rippled abs, the way his jeans gaped, giving her tantalizing peeks of forbidden flesh. She stroked her fingers there, just above the waistband, and moaned when his stomach quivered. With a stomach like that, he could probably thrust into a woman for hours without tiring. “I’m ready.”

  “We make love. Right here, right now.”

  She lifted her gaze to his.

  “And forget the damn game,” he all but growled. “This is just you and me and what we want to give each other. Free will.”

  His love was there for her to see, and also his need. A little part of her, the part that had held back all this time, wanted to give in. Do it. Try it. He won’t hurt you. He’d never hurt you. “Yes,” she whispered, and almost before the words were out of her mouth, he’d unbuttoned the front of her suit dress down to her naval, shoved it off her shoulders, pinning her arms to the sides while he fingered her bra.

  She knew he was looking for a hook, but there was none. “It’s like Velcro,” she managed to tell him. “It’s a new design. Jamie did it, he’s one of my partners.”

  “Mmm. Nice.” The next thing she heard was the sound of the Velcro giving way and then he was peeling the material from her breasts.

  “God, Mia. I love your body.” He leaned in to taste her, and all of Mia’s fantasies about what it’d be like with this man paled in comparison to the reality. Thoughts of the game vanished, as did any possible repercussions of the recklessness of letting her heart into the fray as he kissed his way over the curve of one breast, flicking her nipple with his hot tongue. Her breathing came rapidly now, and she clutched at him. “Jake.”

  Against her, his hips were still oscillating in a slow, maddening grind, rocking her to the heavy bulge behind his fly, driving her closer and closer to climax.

  “Mia.” He bit very lightly down on her nipple and tugged, eliciting an electrified moan as she writhed beneath him.

  “Mia.”

  “What?”

  “You liking this?” He did it again, another light bite with his teeth, and she could only strain against him.

  “Are you?” he asked patiently.

  “I told you, I like sex.”

  “That’s good but that’s not what this is.” More rocking of his hips.

  Her toes curled. She was on the very edge here.

  “We’re making love, Mia. Say it.”

  She might have killed him right then but she could feel how incredibly hard he was, could see the cords straining in his neck, the tic in his jaw. He was dying, too. “Fine! Yes! We’re making love. And I like it, okay? Now stop stopping!”

  “Just making sure,” he said very silkily, and tugged off her dress, leaving her in only her Velcro tearaway panties.

  “Your jeans,” she panted, tugging at them.

  He stripped so fast her head spun. Then he kissed her again, melding his mouth to hers, his tongue probing, his appetite for her clearly as rapacious and all-consuming as hers was for him. She continued to arch upward, meeting his thrusts, her hands frantic over his broad shoulders and the tense, hard muscles in his back, then lower, sinking her fingers into the hard muscles of his butt.

  He broke from the kiss. Breath rasping, he slid down her body and ran a finger over her bikini bottoms. “Pretty,” he said, and slid his thumb beneath the elastic at her hips.

  With a Velcro-sounding riiiiiip, they came apart.

  He smiled. “Love this stuff.” Then he scraped the panties away from her. The smile seemed to back up in his throat when he looked down at what he’d exposed. Swallowing hard, he traced the hypersensitive crease at the top of her thigh. “Want to know what I see?”

  No. She wanted him to touch her, wanted him to send her screaming over the edge. “Jake—”

  “I could look at you all day.” One stroke of his finger right over her center, and she gasped. Just a few more, she thought. Please.

  “Mine,” he said, and stroked her again.

  Mia thought she couldn’t get any more tense without shattering into a million pieces.

  “You look good enough to eat, did you know that?” Another purposely accurate stroke of his finger, which came away wet from her own arousal. Slowly, purposely, he outlined her, skimming right over where she needed it most—

  “How about it, Mia? Want to be my dessert?”

  Fisting her hands in the sheets at her side, she let out a frustrated breath. “Not again. You are not going to talk all the way through this.”

  With a chuckle, he bent and blew a breath over her, making her cry out.

  She was going to beg and she didn’t care.

  “I might,” he admitted, and lifting his head, watched her as he mercilessly held her on the very brink. “I just want to make sure you’re enjoying this.”

  “Damn it, Jake. We all know I lied and why. I like this. I love this. Now please, Jake. Please.”

  He obliged with flattering haste, all kidding out the window, leaving an intensity in its wake that stole what little breath she’d managed to retain in her lungs.

  Surging up, Jake went after the jeans he’d tossed on the floor, coming back with a condom in his hand. He took one look at her shamelessly sprawled on his bed and groaned. “Ah, man, look at you.” He stroked his hand down her stomach and sank a finger into her, groan
ing roughly as she cried out and arched into him. “You’re it for me, Mia,” he whispered, and bent over her, brushing a kiss where his fingers had been. “You’re all I ever wanted. Come for me.”

  And with one lick of his tongue, she did. Completely. Utterly. Lights exploding in her head, blood roaring in her ears, the whole shuddering, shivering bit. “I need you inside me,” she panted when she could speak at all.

  Not arguing, he ripped open the condom packet but she took it from his hands. “I want to do it.”

  “Hurry,” he ordered, no longer her amused, lazy lover but a man nearly past his limit. He was hot to the touch, and though hard as steel, he felt silky and velvety and smooth, and she lingered as she stroked the condom down his length thinking that she’d have liked to taste—

  With a growl, he tumbled her back to the mattress, slid his big hands to the backs of her thighs, lifting her high as he thrust home.

  The sensation of him sinking in deep, filling her, warming places she hadn’t known needed warming, nearly overwhelmed her. She’d been here before, not with him, but with other men, and it’d always been good.

  But what she felt in this moment, in Jake’s arms, her gaze locked on his, his body surrounding her, filling her, was so far beyond good it stunned her. More like sucker punched. Tears filled her eyes, and with him filling her to overflowing she stared up into his equally thunder-struck expression. “Jake…”

  “I know.” His voice was thick, rough, and not just with desire but something else, something that put a name and a face to the feelings burgeoning in her heart.

  “It feels so…” Struggling for the words, she blinked, and a tear slipped down her cheek. “Real.”

  Touching his forehead to hers, he nodded. And then he rocked his hips, seating himself inside her more fully, deeper.

  Holding on tight, she arched up. “Don’t stop.”

  “I won’t. Mia…it’s never been like this for me.” Another thrust that drove her up against the sheets. “Ever.”

  “Me, either.”

  He groaned, low, raw, deep, and began to move. She could only hold on through the sensations battering at her as he held her, filled her, leaving her a sweaty, shaking, writhing mess hovering on the edge of pleasure again and again, then finally, finally tumbling her over. And over.