Anticipation, the dark, silent night, and impulse crashed together and caught fire. She walked right up to him, pressed the whole length of her body against his, tilted her face up, and kissed him.
It was a simple kiss, chaste, close-mouthed, but he froze. A smile teasing at the corners of her mouth, she brushed her lips back and forth across his once, twice, waiting for his warm, firm lips to soften and open. Nerves popped and fired as one moment stretched, elongated into timelessness, then a soft groan rumbled in his chest.
“You’d think you’d never been kissed by a woman before,” she whispered, then licked his lower lip.
“Not like this,” he said.
Then his tongue slid against hers as he turned her so her back pressed against the door. Palms braced on either side of her head, he leaned into her, trapping her between the door and his hot, hard body. She ran her hands under his shirt, exploring the warm skin covering the muscles and ribs of his torso.
Any reluctance was gone. He melded his mouth with hers like slow was a distant memory. His tongue thrust deep into her mouth before he backed off, gently licking at the curve of her lower lip. He broke away to plant firm, hot kisses along her jaw and nuzzle her ear. One muscular thigh slid between hers and pressed hard against her desperately needy sex. Catching her breath, she buried her face in his neck, getting a little drunk on the musky smell of his skin. His hands slid up her torso to cup her breasts, his thumbs sliding back and forth across nipples that peaked at the attention, and she sagged further against his thigh, intensifying the pleasure building between her legs.
Forget slow. She wanted to go to bed with Chad Henderson right now.
“Chad,” she whispered.
He froze again, then pulled away to look at her as if she were from another planet before his eyes cleared. He backed up a step into the kitchen, and clasped the back of his neck as he blew out his breath.
“I said your name, not stop,” she said, puzzled. “Want to work up an appetite?”
“No,” he said. “We’re going out. Now. I said slow, and I’m going to keep it that way.” He opened the door and stepped out onto the landing.
She stayed where she was. “Are you trying to singlehandedly prove chivalry isn’t dead?”
“No,” he said.
When it became clear he wasn’t coming back inside, she picked up her purse and crossed the threshold. She locked the door and preceded him down the stairs to the parking lot. The Jeep had no doors, so she climbed in and buckled her seat belt while he did the same. “Do you mind the top down? I don’t even have it in the Jeep right now. No rain for days.”
“No problem,” she said. Her hair waved naturally; to get it straight and styled required so much product it would take a hurricane to tangle it. Her mind jumped from tangled hair to oh what a tangled web we weave and from there to Chad’s reluctance to get physical.
“Are you married?” She grabbed his left hand after he fastened his seat belt, feeling the skin just above the joint connecting the long, tanned finger to his palm. “If you’re married, I’m getting out of this car right now, and God help you if you’re lying to me.”
No tan line, no dent from a wedding ring. Without a word he let her explore his fingers and healing knuckles. Seriously abraded skin drawn tight around scabs gave way to pink patches where the scabs had fallen off. “Good grief,” she said.
He reclaimed his hand and ignored her quiet comment. “I’m not married, engaged, or anyone’s significant other,” he said, turning the key in the ignition and accelerating out of the parking lot. “I haven’t been on a date in months, much less had a girlfriend.”
Which made his reluctance to take the edge off what must be seriously frustrated desire all the more odd. The wind buffeted her hair around her face. She set her purse between her calf and the console, gathered her hair against the nape of her neck, and said, “You are a very strange man.”
“Because I don’t climb on top of you every chance I get?” he said. “Call it respect, boss. Or foreplay.”