He gazed down at her, his hands curving without his consent into the contours of her back, his fingertips divining her spine through the heft of her sweater. “Maybe I should. Still, you should have told him about Eric’s visit.”
She held his gaze. “Why didn’t you?”
He opened his mouth but she didn’t let him get out a word.
“You really want to help me?” She lunged up on tiptoe and kissed him.
The moment her lips met his, he felt a current of electricity leap from her lips to his and run straight as lightning down his spine to his cock.
The sensation seemed reciprocated in her female parts.
Shay moaned and reached up to hold his head down to hers for another few seconds. For weeks she had been battered and bewildered by circumstances over which she had no control. In this moment, she was in control and it was a glorious, heady feeling that she wanted oh so much.
But good things don’t last.
She tore her mouth away from his reluctantly, closed her eyes and swallowed. Another mistake. But such a thrilling one.
Why didn’t he say something? Let her go. His hands remained warm and persuasive on her back. What was he waiting for?
She leaned away from him and opened her eyes. He was staring back at her, his breathing a little labored, his own eyes now dark with an intensity that had all but swallowed up the blue. He wanted her. Equally shocking.
She put a hand on his chest to hold him off. “Don’t kiss me again.”
“I’m not going to.” And James meant it, right up to the moment he said it.
Then he knew he lied.
CHAPTER NINE
Something broke open inside Shay at the second touch of James’s lips to hers. The release sent the scorching heat of lust flooding through her body.
From the moment her scuffle with the intruder at her door stopped and she looked into his face, the confrontation between them had altered. Regardless of the circumstances, her resentment of James had been fueled in part by the need to fight the inexplicable surge of hunger she felt for a stranger and to cling to her good sense.
She sighed as he dragged his firm mouth back and forth across hers. She’d never felt instant attraction before. It was absolutely wonderful! And scary.
Could she? Should she?
For once her mind and body were in sync, luxuriating in the pleasure she didn’t want interrupted. Her mind offered up all kinds of reasons she should submit to the excitement raging through her body.
He is a stranger.
He doesn’t know about my past, about my failures, or my lousy luck.
I will never see him again.
He only knows me here and now, the today of my life.
I can be anyone, even a really wild woman who takes what she wants, and what I want right now is him.
Shay trembled as James’s hands found new areas of her back to explore. Then she thrust her tongue between his lips. He tasted different, delicious! Oh hell! Nothing was going to stop her now, even if she had to tie him down.
James, at least the small part of him still paying attention to reason, suspected he was making a mistake. The rest of him was fully along for the ride.
Some women’s kisses were flirtatious invitations. Some planted a kiss on a man that went straight to his dick, raw and raunchy and promising more.
Shay Appleton was kissing him like her life depended on it.
He fought for objectivity. He was accustomed to dealing with women of all sorts in every stage of emotional distress. Shay was overwrought. This was just a physical reaction from emotions strung out too far for her rational mind to conquer. But he knew it would. Eventually.
He waited for her to recover, not really kissing her back but not pushing her away. Lord, but she tasted good.
Logic fought for the upper hand. She didn’t like him. Hell, he had no business liking her. Too prickly. Not his type.
His libido counterpunched with a physical argument. It dropped his heartbeat to his groin where it pumped up his dick with every pulse.
Firmly ignoring the sensations lower down, he tried to lift his head to gulp a breath of sanity but she reached up and held his mouth to hers.
This time her kiss was one of complete abandon, openmouthed and wet with lots of tongue. Damn! She moved closer, her hips pushing forward against his in invitation. She had more moves, too. Like rubbing her pelvis against his groin as her breasts massaged his chest.
His restraint was shredding. All the years of being a by-the-book officer who broke no rules, gave no favors, and accepted no bribes, not even the occasional freebie blow job offered by a working girl, counted for zilch. His professionalism was wilting under Shay Appleton’s sexy assault. Everything else about him went rock hard with lust.
Calling on the last shred of his self-command, he reached out to try to hold her away. Yet when his hands reached her hips in anticipation of giving her a gentle shove, they grasped her instead and hauled her in until she was up on tiptoe.
She moaned into his mouth and then caught his lower lip in her teeth and sucked it into her mouth.