“It can’t be purely functional,” she said, calm and collected, like she wasn’t sitting in the middle of her bed posed like a pin-up girl. “I’m done buying things that are practical. I want to love it.”
He stopped at the foot of the bed, taking in details. She moved easily, the fluidity explained by the yoga mat in the corner of the bedroom, but she had the soft, giving body of a person who preferred a book and a cup of tea to a hard workout. The elastic waist of her panties and her underwire pushup bra pressed into her soft abdominal flesh, and while she’d adopted a pose everyone knew from the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue, she wasn’t looking at him with a practiced, sexy eye. She was wide awake and vibrantly present in the moment, her eyes a combination of innocence and demand he found utterly captivating.
He kicked out of his motorcycle boots and kneeled on the bed, just a few inches away from her. “What look are you going for?”
She crossed her arms and rubbed her hands up and down the sleeves, luxuriating in the soft leather, then nuzzled into the sheepskin collar. “I’m not sure,” she said, like it was a confession. She shifted on her knees, and the buckle, hanging loose from the waist, clinked as she moved. “Maybe it’s about how it makes me feel when I’m wearing it.”
He reached out and fisted his hand in the leather and sheepskin, pulling insistently until she scooted forward to kneel between his spread thighs. He could smell the heat and arousal rising from the open throat of the jacket, and knew that the next time he wore it, he’d smell her skin, the faint remnants of her perfume. Then he slid his hand into her hair to cup the back of her head and pulled not quite gently, exposing her throat and ear. “How do you feel now?” he growled.
Chapter Four
Powerful. She felt powerful, and sexy, and totally unlike herself. Never in her life had Erin pranced around in a man’s jacket, wearing nothing but her bra and panties. While Jason was more than willing to spice up their sex life, the attempts had felt awkward, and a little silly. But this … this wasn’t just playing. This was coming from some place deep inside her, a place she hadn’t known existed until Jack asked her out in the stacks. It was like this was happening to another woman, to the woman who lived in Nora’s house and faced down a Ducati salesman. Her heart thudded against her chest as sensory images bombarded her: his shoulders, stretched by the waffle-weave shirt he wore; his legs in the jeans; his hand in her hair, moving her head the way he wanted it to move; his voice, rasping over nerve endings as surely as the sheepskin rubbed against her bare arms and legs and caressed her nipples.
Between her legs, her body grew slick, heated, aching for touch.
“Hmm?” he said.
She felt wild. Dangerous. Not in danger, but like she could do some damage herself if she wanted. She felt amped up, demanding. All the things she—in any of her roles, librarian, wife, steward of the college—didn’t think she was supposed to be. She was supposed to be helpful, giving, future-focused. A team player. A partner. Asking for very little, giving as much as she could. But right now she felt selfish, and entitled, and hedonistic.
It was amazing, and almost unbearably real. The heat in his gaze as he looked her over, like he’d never seen anything as sexy as a librarian in a leather coat, wasn’t self-conscious or cheesy, like her ex would have thought.
She laughed. That was the difference. Jason was a broker, a careful planner, and this kind of sex was as out of character for him as throwing caution to the winds and buying two round-trip tickets to Paris on a whim. Or a motorcycle.
“What?” Jack asked.
“I was thinking about my ex,” she said.
“For the record, this is the least sexy foreplay ever,” he said, but laughter rippled under his voice.
“No, no,” she protested. “I was thinking about how diff—”
“You shouldn’t be thinking at all,” he said, and tightened his grip on the jacket, dragging her forward until she straddled his thigh, her mound pressed to his hip bone. She was a little worried about the placement of her knee, dangerously close to the crux of his thighs, but then he let go of the jacket and flattened his palm against her tailbone, pulling her close so he could work his hips against her. The movement of his hips, strong and sure, set a glancing rhythm against her clit and threatened to tip her off-balance until she got with the program and wrapped her arms around his neck.