by Lucy Ryder
For an instant, she seemed startled, then her eyes narrowed speculatively. “Hmmm, you’re sneaky too,” she muttered and turned blindly, reaching out a slender arm to call an elevator and froze for one pulse beat. Snatching her hand away, she turned in one jerky move, her eyes huge as they met his. “Do you think—?”
“It’s probably safe,” he said calmly, correctly interpreting her wide-eyed hesitation. “What are the chances of it happening twice in one night, right?”
She backed up a couple of steps, looking alarmed. “Don’t say that.”
“Why?”
“It’s tempting fate.” His amusement about tempting fate grew, when he’d all but accepted it.
“Would it help if I joined you?” he asked casually, leaning forward to press the button she’d avoided like it might bite.
Her eyes widened. “I, uh—”
The adjacent doors swished open and after a visible struggle, she drew in a deep breath but didn’t move. Adam slapped a hand on the doors to keep them from closing and placed the other low on her back to usher her inside. He could tell by the abrupt tension vibrating through her that she was thinking about bailing.
“It’s okay,” he assured her when she reluctantly stepped inside. “Seems like they solved the problem.” Her look was guarded as she brushed trembling fingers against her upper lip in a nervous gesture. His amusement faded at the sight of that quick tremble she ruthlessly squashed, and he shot out a hand to keep the doors open. “If you’re worried, we can take the stairs.”
Pursing her lips, she exhaled in an explosive burst that drew Adam’s gaze to the generous pink mouth he knew from recent experience was soft and warm and sweet.
“Twenty-five floors?” She quickly shook her head. Shoving his jacket at him, she abruptly brushed his hand away from the touch pad, in a move he was certain was impulsive, and jabbed at her floor number.
The doors slid closed and the car began its silent ascent as Adam shrugged into his jacket. He’d have been blind not to notice the way her shoulders tensed, probably in anticipation of the elevator coming to another violent mid-floor stop.
Turning so that he was facing her, he breathed her in—coolly expensive with a hint of something hot and wild and tempting. Filling his lungs with her scent, he wondered who was the real her. Cool and classy—or hot and wild.
It would be interesting to find out because he had a feeling her cool, classy exterior hid a seething passion that was just waiting to burst free.
“I’m glad you were there to help Daphne,” she said abruptly. “If it’d been up to me, we’d have been in serious trouble and—and I’d probably be missing a dress.”
His mouth twitched at the image, but his eyes were intent when he told her quietly, “You don’t give yourself enough credit. I think you’d have managed just fine.”
“I faint at the sight of blood,” she admitted baldly. “Pretty difficult to treat bleeding patients when your eyes are rolling back in your head.”
He recalled her going pale at the idea of having to assist in an unexpected birth but despite that, there was intelligence and humor in those striking blue eyes along with a warm softness that drew him in.
He lifted a hand and gently brushed his thumb across her plump mouth. “You shouldn’t let other people define who you are,” he said firmly.
At first, she appeared startled by his words but her expression quickly turned thoughtful. After a short silence, she exhaled noisily and said shakily, “You’re right. I shouldn’t.”
Before he could draw her out, the elevator dinged, announcing its arrival at his floor. “So,” he said casually, reluctant to step out of the elevator and never see her again. “You want a nightcap?”
* * *
Sam knew he was offering more than a nightcap. To say she was tempted was an understatement, but the mention of her family had brought her back to reality with an unpleasant jolt.
“I—” She blew out a gusty breath. “I can’t.” Maybe circumstances—and a cheating fiancé—had brought her to a crossroads of sorts, but that didn’t mean she was going to recklessly follow the urgings of her hormones.
Reckless would be pushing him up against the open door of the elevator and taking a bite out of his deliciously sculpted mouth. Reckless would be leaving the relative safety of the elevator with a man she’d spent a couple of intense hours with but didn’t know from...well, from Adam.
And reckless would be taking him up on his invitation to a nightcap when she was already drunk on his pheromones.
Physically dragging herself back from that tempting edge, she wrapped her arms around her torso, locked her knees and stared at him helplessly. Oh, God. She wanted to. She really, really wanted to.
His eyes darkened seductively at her very obvious inner struggle. “You sure?”
His voice was quiet and deep, a little rough. Not demanding or aggressive, which would have instantly had her shields snapping into place. Despite the almost physical yearning rising up in her to say, No, I’m not sure, take me anyway, Sam found herself nodding and shaking her head at the same time.
Yikes. Way to be decisive.
Confused and tempted—so darn tempted, especially when disappointment flashed across his starkly handsome face—she bit her lip and nodded reluctantly.
Sending her one last searching look, he turned away and stepped forward as the doors opened. He was almost through the doorway when something inside her snapped. She gave a strangled gurgle that sounded like, “Wait!” And before she could reconsider, she was spinning Adam around and pushing him against the steel frame.
Sliding up against all that warm hardness, she rose onto her toes and for the second time that night, caught his mouth in an awkward, desperate kiss because she suddenly couldn’t face the thought of him walking away.
* * *
Adam heard her swift intake of breath and had already half turned when she launched herself at him, filling his arms with warm curvy woman. He staggered back against the door, and in that instant, she had her arms around his neck and her mouth pressed to his.
Not about to question his luck, he hauled her closer and slanted his mouth more comfortably across hers. He murmured against her lips and traced the tip of his tongue along the seam, coaxing them open. In the next heartbeat, he was sliding his tongue against the length of hers, drinking in her throaty moans.
God, she tasted delicious, like sweet temptation and decadent sin; like shy eagerness and bold seduction—just as he remembered.
She squirmed, kissing him with more enthusiasm than skill. It didn’t matter because in an instant he was rock hard, going from zero to a hundred like a kid having his first French kiss. He widened his stance and slid his hands to her hips, pulling her snugly into his erection in a move that left no doubt about what he wanted.
She uttered a soft moan of yearning and wriggled closer, her nails lightly scraping his scalp as she tunneled her fingers into his hair. A shudder rocked his control, leaving his skin buzzing and his temperature spiking on a wave of pure reckless need.
God, he groaned silently, smoothing his palms from her hips up the slender curve of her waist to the outside of her breasts. He couldn’t ever recall wanting a woman with such fierceness before. His instinct was to strip her out of the pink dress and run his mouth all over that soft silky skin.
But first. “Amanda,” he murmured, feathering his mouth along the firm line of her jaw to her ear. “Tell me you’re sober. Tell me you want this, that you’re sure?”
She arched her neck, the move inviting his mouth to explore the long line of her throat. “Sure?” she echoed breathlessly.
“About this,” he rasped, planting little nipping kisses down her throat to her shoulder while brushing the outer curves of her breasts with his thumbs. She gasped—the hitch in her throat the sexiest thing he’d ever heard. Needing to hear the sound again,
he moved back a couple of inches so he could see her face and did it again. A shudder moved through her.
“Don’t stop,” she pleaded softly, fisting his hair and tugging him closer.
With a growl, Adam caught her mouth, ramping up the heat. He fed her hot hungry kisses until his head buzzed and the soft sounds she made in the back of her throat threatened to blow the top off his head.
Something bumped against his back, pulling him briefly out of the haze sucking him under. It took him a couple of seconds to realize that the elevator door was trying to close. It roused him long enough to realize that they were standing in an elevator opening, behaving like horny teenagers. He tried to think about why that was significant but he was too busy chasing her mouth with his.
When the door bumped his back again, he broke the kiss and sucked in a harsh breath in the hopes that it would clear his head. Curling his hands around her thighs, he hiked her up and without being prompted, she wrapped her long legs around his waist.
He blinked to clear his eyes and lurched sideways, hoping he had enough strength to stay upright long enough to get to his suite. It took him a moment to orient himself before he staggered down the passage.
He was shaking by the time they arrived and had to press her up against the wall to fumble in his pockets for his key card. Panting and dodging her seeking mouth, her roaming hands, it took him a half-dozen shaky tries—and double the number of laughing curses—before the door finally clicked open.
Within seconds, he’d shoved it open, staggered inside and kicked it closed to push her up against the entrance wall. The next few seconds were a frenzy of hands as they shoved aside clothing.
Even before Adam found her zipper tab, she’d pushed aside his jacket and her hands were sliding down his back, her nails scraping a line of fire to the base of his spine.
He cursed and tried to slow things down, but she seemed determined to strip him of his clothes as quickly as she was stripping him of his sanity. Pressing her against the wall, he took his hands off her long enough to shrug out of his jacket, not caring where it landed. Instantly her mouth and hands took greedily while he battled to keep them both upright.
“Amanda...honey,” he panted when she sank her teeth into the muscle between his neck and shoulder. “Slow...down or—dammit.” He grabbed her marauding hands and pinned them against the wall beside her head. “Stop. Or it’ll be over before I can get you naked.”
* * *
The sound of Amanda’s name drew Samantha out of her sensual haze long enough to discover that she was in a strange hotel room about to have sex with a man she barely knew. The realization should have shocked her because Samantha Jefferies wasn’t the kind of woman to throw herself at strange men or try to climb their bodies.
She nearly told him her name then, but tonight she had rocked a pink-prom wedding dress, given a lap dance to a gorgeous stranger in a bar and kissed him like they were drowning and she was giving them the kiss of life.
Because that’s what it felt like—only the other way around. It was as if kissing Adam had jolted her to life. It sounded corny, but at that moment she wasn’t Samantha Jefferies, daughter of Vivienne and Edward Jefferies, and this didn’t need to make sense. She was Amanda, the woman who ran from high society weddings to kiss hot guys in bars. The kind of woman who helped bring life into the world and the kind of woman who would wriggle against a man’s erection and not react like she’d been goosed.
It was a heady feeling to think that here she could be anything she wanted. And deciding that what she wanted was to remain Amanda—for tonight, at least—she dropped her legs and slid suggestively down the front of a gorgeous guy who wanted her as much as she wanted him, hitting all her good spots along the way.
And by the rough sound of Adam’s groan, she was hitting all of his too.
Powerful emotions swept through her and for the first time in her life, she understood feminine power. The kind that had men losing control. And suddenly she loved the idea of being the kind of woman capable of getting a man like him to lose control.
But she wanted more, a whole lot more, and with a hungry sound in the back of her throat, she arched up and kissed him wildly, recklessly giving herself over to the feeling of being someone else.
He was by far the hottest man she’d ever met. Toned and sculpted, his shoulders and torso were a work of art. His skin, a lovely warm coppery gold that she wanted to lick up one side and down the other, was stretched over some pretty awesome muscles that bunched and flexed with his every move.
He had a genuine eight-pack, a flat hard belly that could have been sculpted by a master, the delicious ridges angling over his hip bones and drawing her gaze to where they disappeared into his waistband.
Delicious, she thought, feeling her eyes cross a little at the thought of tasting all that toasty skin, of tracing the happy trail with her tongue from his shallow belly button to where it disappeared into the low-slung waistband of his jeans.
And the hefty package beyond. Her mouth watered.
She’d like to trace beyond.
“Are we stopping?”
Only to admire the scenery.
She licked her lips as she made the return trip to his molten gaze. Sleepy and aroused, it sent a bolt of fear and pure lust through her, making something deep in her core clench with longing.
“No,” she said, leaning forward to place a hesitant kiss on his heated skin. But that wasn’t enough and before she knew it, she was sliding her tongue across the taut surface, sinking her teeth into his muscular neck and nibbling kisses over the well-defined ball of his shoulder.
She reveled in his harshly indrawn breath and muttered curses.
Lost in the salty, exotic taste of him, she shamelessly traced all that masculine perfection, delighting in the way his flesh rippled beneath her mouth. His hands were cupping her bottom again, kneading her flesh and ratcheting up the tension and heat.
Emboldened by his enthusiasm, she scored her nails lightly over his belly before reaching for the metal button on his jeans. Rock hard muscles jumped and jittered beneath the tight skin in concert to the pounding of her pulse. Her gaze followed the path her hands took, coming to a screeching halt when she discovered the long thick length of him straining the jeans’ zipper.
“That looks uncomfortable,” she said with a husky laugh. She shivered at the promise of that aggressive sign of arousal. She dipped her hand into the gaping waistband, her fingers brushing something broad and hard, yet surprisingly soft. Even without looking, she knew the blunt tip of him was eagerly reaching for her touch.
It didn’t seem possible but he was as turned on as she was. The thought sent a shiver of excitement easing up the length of her spine ahead of the rushing heat. Looking up, her gaze locked with his, the blaze of heat prompting her to smooth the pearly bead over his broad tight crown and then lift her thumb to her mouth in a bold move that surprised as much as it excited her. She’d never done anything so daring or suggestive before.
Had never wanted to.
When Adam’s gaze flared hotter, a low, ragged curse torn from him, she was glad she had, especially as it sent a rush of heat between her thighs. The sight of his tight features and enlarged pupils made her forget for a fleeting moment that she’d been on a mission to make him lose control.
While she was drinking in the fierce arousal clearly etched on his handsome face, he had both her wrists captured above her head and was breathing like he’d run up the twenty-five flights of stairs from the lobby. A flush of arousal edged his high cheekbones, making his eyes glitter like a tiger’s eye. The expression in them had her teetering on a very fine edge; an edge that he nearly shoved her over when he hooked his free hand beneath her knee and hiked it up, shoving his hips against her as he took her mouth in a hungry, urgent kiss.
Long fingers slipped beneath the narrow strip of lace at her hip and followe
d it to the tiny triangle of material at the apex of her thighs. Her gasp at the feel of his roughened fingers brushing her most intimate flesh turned into a squeak of surprise when one of those long thick fingers drove into her wet heat.
Everything in her clenched and she thought she might climax on the spot. Sam tore her mouth from his to suck in a ragged breath before she lost consciousness.
You can’t pass out now, she thought frantically. You haven’t seen him naked yet. You haven’t got to the good parts yet.
Not giving her a moment to collect herself, Adam dipped his head, his mouth hot and damp on her neck, his teeth scoring a line of fire along the large tendon to the delicate skin beneath her ear.
Wordlessly, she clutched at him, tilting her head to the side to give him room to continue doing delicious things to her neck and even more delicious things to the tiny button of nerves between her legs that throbbed in time to her pounding heart.
Swept into a world that was all heat and sensation, Sam threw back her head with a ragged wail when he hiked her leg higher and bent to close his mouth over the tip of one breast. She was unaware that she was moving impatiently until the tip of her breast stretched and then popped free when he drew back.
He growled at her in a voice so low and indistinct that she was unable to distinguish separate words.
“Wh-what?”
“Can you reach my pocket?”
She blinked at him in confusion. “What?”
“Condom,” he rasped, chest heaving and looking a little wild. “Now.”
Feeling a little wild herself, Sam slid her hands into his back pockets and withdrew a leather wallet with hands that were suddenly all thumbs and impatient need. After a few aborted attempts, she opened it and found what she was looking for. Tossing the wallet aside, she shoved one corner of the foil package between her teeth and ripped.
In one swift move, Adam had swept aside her thong and freed himself from his jeans. Hoping she hadn’t damaged the latex, she leaned back and reached for the impressive erection between them.