Secret Kiss

by Melanie Shawn

  Great plan. Go, Team Jane!

  Tiny, loose rocks from the unforgiving gravel beneath her shoeless feet dug into her sensitive skin as she clumsily made her way to Adam’s house.

  Note to self: always put on slippers when resetting the breaker box.

  Amended note to self: always bring keys when resetting the breaker box.

  A tremor ran down Jane’s spine when she reached the side door to his garage. She wasn’t sure if it had to do with the temperature or the fact that she was about ninety percent certain Adam was half naked behind that door. From what she’d observed, he didn’t wear a shirt while working out in his at-home gym. Score.

  She swallowed over a large lump that had formed in her throat as she forced herself to knock. This might have been embarrassing, but it was nothing she couldn’t handle. Plus, other than waiting outside in only her robe for her grandparents to finish up their night of world domination at the Bingo tables, she didn’t really have a plan B.

  Jane took a deep breath as her knuckles bounced off the garage door.

  When there was no answer, she knocked harder. After what felt like forever, but was most likely only a minute, the door opened and Jane was met with not only a shirtless Adam, but a sweaty one as well. Locking her knees was her only hope of not buckling under the weight of his sexiness.

  Her eyes roamed up his muscled chest, past the lips she knew felt so good against her own, to his intent stare. She tried to speak, but it came out as a breathless plea.

  “Can I use your phone?”

  Okay, not what she had planned on saying, but she didn’t pass out, and that was a win in her book.

  *

  Adam’s ears were buzzing, and his body was firing on all cylinders with pent-up lust. He was working out with earbuds in and barely heard some kind of tapping. When he removed his headphones and came to check out the sound, he didn’t expect to find anything. Instead, he was met with Jane.

  She was wearing a disheveled robe, and between the moonlight and the florescent lamp in the center of his garage, he could see that she was nude beneath it. Her face was scrubbed clean, her lips were full and moist as if she’d been licking them the way she did when she was nervous, and her damp, dark, tousled hair fell loosely over her shoulders.

  She was his wet dream come to life. Mine. That was the only word he could process. The only word he could think of as he stared down at her.

  She’d just asked him a question, but for the life of him, he couldn’t get his brain to work properly and turn the sounds coming from her mouth into discernable information. On instinct, he pulled her into the garage, shutting the door behind her. He might not have known what she wanted, but he sure as hell knew he didn’t want her standing outside, where anyone could see her.

  The thought of anyone getting a glimpse of her in her see-through robe and wet hair, looking like she was getting ready to shoot a Maxim cover, made him want to put his fist through the wall. That was a feeling he’d started having only since he’d met Jane.

  When he and Alexis had been together, he’d watched her flirt her ass off with men right in front of him. Sometimes, it’d been out of necessity, when they had been on the job. Other times, it’d been because she’d wanted to do it. She liked the attention of men, and flirting came as naturally to her as breathing. Adam had known that about her from the day they met. It hadn’t bothered him. He’d chalked it up to her outgoing personality. Of course, if he had known just how far she’d take that attention, he wouldn’t have been so forgiving about her behavior.

  Still, just thinking about another man looking at Jane was making Adam’s blood boil and his nostrils flare as he tried to steady his breathing.

  “Adam.” Jane’s voice wavered as she touched his arm.

  As her fingertips lightly brushed over his heated skin, all the blood that had been boiling a moment earlier rushed to his groin in arousal. He felt like he was on the edge of a cliff when it came to his attraction to Jane. With one look, the slightest touch, or the sound of her sweet voice, she could send him plummeting off it into…he didn’t know what. Which was exactly why he needed to hold his ground.

  Forcing himself to get his wits about him, he asked, “What are you doing here? Where are your clothes?” much more harshly than he’d meant to.

  Jane pulled her hand back like his words had stung her worse than the bee had. For a fleeting moment, she looked pained, like he’d verbally slapped her. But as fast as he had seen the hurt flash on her angelic face, it disappeared and was replaced with a steely look of determination.

  Standing taller, Jane squared her shoulders and tightened the satin belt that held her robe in place. She was likely going for a more covered-up effect. In reality, her gesture only served to pull the thin material even tighter against the hardened nubs of her nipples, which were clearly visible beneath the silken material.

  His mouth watered at the seductive sight. Swallowing a groan, Adam briefly entertained the possibility that Jane might kill him. Not intentionally. Nope, she would just continue to be so fucking sexy that he’d go into cardiac arrest. But, hey, a heart attack brought on by the sexiest woman he’d ever laid eyes on wasn’t the worst way to go. Not by a long shot.

  “I locked myself out of the house. My robe got stuck in the door. I need to use your phone.” Jane’s voice was all business, which was the polar opposite of her appearance. And just like that, she turned from a sensual siren into the cutest thing he’d ever seen.

  How she balanced being so unbelievably sexy and inexpiably cute, he had no idea, but damn if he didn’t enjoy the show.

  “You locked yourself out?” he repeated, but not because he hadn’t heard her. No, it was because parroting what she’d said was the only thing he could do in his heightened state of arousal.

  When she licked her lips again, another surge rushed through his erection. He was about to explode and they weren’t even touching each other. What the hell had this woman done to him?

  “Yes. I was drying my hair and the power went out. When I went to reset the breaker, my robe got stuck in the back door after it had latched shut. I used my pruning shears to cut myself loose. Then, when I tried to go in the front door like I usually do, it was locked because someone had lectured me about locking it yesterday and I’d told that person I would lock it.”

  “You locked your door because of me?” That wasn’t the point of what she had told him, but it was what he’d heard.

  “Yeah.” She tilted her head, that adorable crease forming in her brow. “I told you I would.”

  Maybe to her, that was a foregone conclusion. But it wasn’t to him. Not with the people he knew, and definitely not with his last relationship. Just because someone said that they were going to do something didn’t mean jack shit. In Adam’s experience, people did whatever the hell they wanted. Their word meant nothing.

  Jane was different.

  “Since it’s basically your fault that I got locked out, can I use your phone?” Jane defensively crossed her arms in front of herself.

  She was pissed.

  He didn’t blame her. He’d been a jackass since he’d opened the door.

  “No,” he answered.

  “No?” she repeated. “I can’t use your phone?”

  “No.” He reached beside her and opened a drawer in his standing tool chest. “I can get you inside.”

  “You can pick a lock?” she asked, sounding genuinely shocked.

  Everything about Jane was a refreshing breath of clean air to Adam. She was such a unique combination of intelligence, wit, vulnerability, and strength. But the thing that got to him most was that, though she had such a grasp on foreign affairs and the ways of the world, it was still so easy to surprise her.

  “Yes,” Adam answered. There was no reason to tell her that, while growing up in the outskirts of Detroit, he’d learned to pick a lock and hotwire a car before he had learned how to do multiplication, which he’d figured out by the first grade.

  “W
ow. Is there anything you can’t do?” she mumbled under her breath as she stepped to the side while he dug in the drawer for his preferred tool.

  “Yes.”

  “What?” she asked.

  He was pretty sure it was a rhetorical question, but he found himself answering her. His hand stilled and he turned his attention back to her as he rasped, “I can’t stop thinking about you.”

  “You can’t?” Jane’s eyes widened and her eyebrows rose a fraction.

  “No.”

  “Oh.” Her lips formed a perfect circle as she sucked in a startled breath.

  Adam could see the wheels turning in Jane’s head. He’d watched her at work as she processed things. He’d seen her work out solutions to issues and problems when other people would’ve thrown in the towel. The same look of concentration filled her face now.

  “Can I ask you something?” She nervously licked her lips again.

  Adam growled his response. “Yes.”

  “Is that why you kissed me?”

  The way she’d phrased the question told Adam that she’d been trying to figure out the answer. That it was actually a mystery to her why he had kissed her. That she honestly had no idea what she did to him.

  It was time for a little show-and-tell to remove any doubt and answer any questions about what he felt.

  Stepping forward, Adam backed Jane against the wall beside the door and reached up, framing her face with his hands as he spoke in a low tone. “I kissed you because you are the sexiest woman I’ve ever met. I kissed you because if I didn’t, I felt like I was going to go crazy. I kissed you because you’re the last thing I think about before I go to sleep and the first thing I think about when I wake up. I think about you when I’m running. I think about you when I’m working. I think about you when I’m talking to anyone else. I kissed you because I think about you every second of every day.”

  “Oh.” Jane’s face flushed, and Adam could practically hear her heart beating faster.

  “Now, can I ask you something?”

  Jane nodded.

  “What are you wearing under that robe?”

  Swallowing audibly, Jane raised her eyes to look at him, and they sparked with desire as she answered, her voice barely above a whisper. “Nothing.”

  Need roared through him as he dropped his forehead to Jane’s. He wasn’t sure if it was that he’d been fighting his feelings for Jane since the moment he’d laid eyes on her, that she was naked beneath the practically-transparent robe, or that he thought he’d go insane if he didn’t kiss her again—but whatever the reason, he snapped.

  Every good intention he had went out the window. Every protective wall that he’d built, for both of their sakes, crumbled. Every ounce of self-control he possessed disintegrated.

  “Show me,” he gruffly commanded.

  Chapter 19

  ‡

  Hearing Adam speak those two simple words almost sent Jane up and over the edge. Without even having been touched, she was on the brink of an orgasm that she was sure would be one of the best of her life.

  Jane had never been particularly adventurous when it came to her sexual encounters. Not that she didn’t want to be. She did. But all of her past partners, a.k.a. Disasters #1 – 5, had been pretty vanilla in their tastes and styles. The way Adam had kissed her had given her a glimpse into what he’d be like, but this was even more than she’d fantasized about.

  This was the most erotic experience she’d ever had. Her heart was pounding so hard in her chest that she was sure that Adam could hear it. Tingles of desire spread through her body under his watchful gaze.

  Without a moment of hesitation, Jane lifted her hands to her belt to follow his provocative request. They were shaking, but it wasn’t from nervousness—it was from anticipation.

  Adam must’ve noticed her trembling, because his tone changed and he stepped back, his hands falling to his sides. “Jane, you don’t have to…”

  Yes. I do, she thought.

  His words trailed off when her robe fell open. Looking up at him, Jane watched as his eyes hungrily roamed up and down her naked body. In the back of her mind, she knew she should have been feeling embarrassed or self-conscious, but instead, all she felt was turned on.

  “Damn.” His voice sounded raw. “You’re perfect.”

  Jane’s chest was rapidly rising and falling as she stood bare before Adam. He raised his hand and ran his finger along her collarbone, sliding beneath the silk that still hung there. Jane’s head fell back against the wall as she closed her eyes and concentrated on the feeling of his rough fingertips brushing along her skin. The cool silk slid off her shoulders as his hand ran down her arm.

  “So beautiful,” he rasped reverently as his knuckles caressed her along her hip.

  When she opened her eyes, one of his large hands gripped her hip firmly while the other slowly moved up the side of her waist and over her rib cage, stopping just below the swell of her breast. While his thumb brushed over her nipple, a shock of sensation exploded in her core and her knees buckled beneath her.

  If Adam hadn’t been holding her up, she would’ve crumbled to the floor. Thankfully, the hand on her hip held her securely upright. As his thumb made lazy circles around her pebbled knot, the telltale signs of release tightened low in her belly.

  “I want to kiss you.”

  At Adam’s statement, Jane tore her gaze away from the erotic sight of his large hands on her body and lifted her head, fully expecting his mouth to crush hers in a mind-blowing kiss. Instead, his intense gaze held hers. She waited, breathless with exquisite anticipation.

  “Here.” His fingers pinched her nipple and sent pleasure shooting straight to her core.

  Jane gasped loudly.

  Lowering his head, he first brushed his lips across her pebble-hard tip then pulled her areola into his mouth and lightly bit down on her knotted flesh. Crying out at his sensual oral assault, she grabbed his masculine, rounded shoulders to brace herself. Unbearable pleasure built as Adam took his time sucking, licking, and nipping both of her breasts in turn until her body was shaking and on the edge of release. Jane’s fingernails dug into his muscular body as heightened sensations caused her to grow dizzy with abandon.

  Never before had any man paid this kind of attention to her breasts—or any other part of her body, for that matter. Soft, needy sounds came from her throat while his hand kneaded her flesh and his mouth fed off her. She didn’t recognize them at first because she’d never heard herself make them.

  Heated desire rose in her, burning so hot that she felt like she was going to go up in flames. Adam’s muscles bunched beneath her fingertips as she clung to him. As wave after wave of delicious sensation crashed over her, her hips began moving of their own accord. They were rolling, flexing, trying to find the satisfaction her body demanded.

  She wanted more. She craved more. She needed more.

  Reading her body’s not-so-subtle signals, Adam dropped to his knees before her. When she started to follow him, his fingers tightened around her hip with one hand, and the other lifted her knee and rested it on his shoulder, pinning her against the wall.

  Panic hit her now. No man had ever done what she was pretty sure he was about to do. She’d had sex, yes. But she’d never had a man’s mouth on her…there.

  “Adam…I’ve never… No one’s ever…” Jane managed to get out between pants.

  His entire body stilled. When he looked up at her and their eyes met, her core pulsed at the possessive look in his gaze.

  “No one’s ever tasted you?” His voice was gravelly and strained.

  Her throat went dry, and she licked her lips. When Adam’s jaw tensed with need as he watched her wet her lips, a thrill of power shot through her. It was a heady feeling to know that she, Plain Jane, could affect a man like Adam Dorsey. She didn’t know much—or anything—about his past relationships. But she had to figure that he hadn’t spent many nights alone, unless they’d been by choice. A man who looked like that and
was as smart and successful as he was would have women lining up to be with him. Every single woman in Hope Falls wished they were where she was right now, and Jane decided then and there she didn’t want to waste this opportunity.

  She wasn’t going to allow herself to feel self-conscious or embarrassed. She was naked while the man of her dreams was kneeling between her legs. This moment was one she never wanted to forget.

  “No.” She shook her head back and forth.

  His nostrils flared at her answer, and his eyes ran down her body, stopping between her legs. With a gentle touch that defied the fierce arousal in his eyes, he removed her leg from his shoulder, and for a brief moment, disappointment flooded her. She wished she could rewind time and take back what she’d said.

  But that feeling was short-lived when he moved her foot to a stool that was beside the door and spread her legs even farther apart in front of him. He ran his hand along her inner thigh, and her body trembled beneath his soft touch. When his fingers reached the apex of her legs, she held her breath.

  “So pretty.” His fingers traced the lips of her sex, and her stomach quivered with lust. “So wet.” His fingertips outlined her folds, touching her intimately but not where she needed him most.

  When her hips began rocking, seeking more contact with his hand, a small grin lifted on his lips and his eyes shot up to hers.

  His thick middle finger moved up and down the seam of her opening, relentlessly teasing her. Her body pulsed against his touch, throbbing with pleasure as she grew wetter and wetter. His finger easily slid along her entrance, spreading her arousal.

  Her breaths were coming in shorter and shorter pants with each pass of his finger over her glistening center. Then she leaned her arm on the toolbox for balance as wave after wave of delicious tremors rolled through her. Using just the tip of his finger, he pushed inside her then pulled out, her inner walls squeezing around the erotic intrusion.

  “So tight,” he groaned as he thrust his middle finger inside her and covered her core with his mouth.

  “Oh!” Jane cried out as his tongue brushed over her sensitive nub.