Jason Rhodes had never been the type of guy to romanticize a kiss. Hell, he wasn’t even sure he considered kissing strictly necessary.
He’d had plenty of hookups where they bypassed kissing altogether and went straight for the good stuff.
But with Leah . . .
Kissing was the good stuff.
Part of it, anyway. There’d be other stuff later. And that would be pretty fucking fantastic, too. But Leah had been the only woman where Jason thought that kissing might be enough.
Almost.
And as he swept his tongue into her mouth and pinned her hands above her head over the door, he realized nothing had changed.
An entire year had passed, and yet somehow he was still hungry for this woman. For the taste of her mouth, hungry for the little humming sounds she made when he nipped at her lips.
She tasted like the Leah he remembered, and yet . . . not. There was an element to her kiss that was different from before. It nagged at the back of his mind as important somehow.
But then she tilted her hips up to his, her pelvis rocking against his cock, and his thoughts scattered.
He released her hands to plunge his fingers into all of that glorious red hair, palming her head as he pressed against her until she was molded to him. The feel of her soft curves pressed against his hardness nearly undid him.
Jason pulled his mouth away from hers in order to get at her neck, his teeth scraping at that spot below her ear that had always made her gasp.
As expected, her breath caught and she arched more fully against him, and he smiled against her skin, relishing the fact that this hadn’t changed—that the connection between them was still electric and unavoidable.
He slid his hand over her rib cage, his thumb rubbing along the underside of her breast teasingly, back and forth, slowly, without touching her where she needed.
Leah’s nails dug into his shoulders. “Damn you, Rhodes.”
“What, baby?” he asked against her neck. “What do you need? Where do you want me to touch you?”
She remained silent, as he’d known she would.
Leah had always been wonderfully, beautifully obstinate, even in bed, resulting in hotter-than-fuck power struggles.
Tonight, he wasn’t giving in. This thing between them would never work if he was always the one making the first move, and he wanted it to work. Needed it to.
So instead of ripping their clothes off and thrusting into her the way he wanted to, Jason continued to tease. His fingers found the tops of her breasts. The outside of her thighs. The soft curve of her lower belly.
He pulled back, wanting to see her, wanting to see his hands on her.
“Beautiful,” he whispered, watching as his hands skimmed over her sides. “So damned—”
Leah pulled his mouth down to hers with one hand as the other gripped his wrist, putting his palm over her breast. “Touch me.”
He smiled against her mouth. There was his girl.
He rewarded her with a sweep of his thumb over her nipple, feeling the slight roughness of her lace bra over the hard tip of her breast. She’d always loved pretty lingerie, joking that she blew most of her clothing budget on bras only to throw a five-dollar T-shirt over the top.
That was damn fine with him. She could wear a tarp for all he cared. It was worth it when he finally saw her in the naughty bra and panty sets she loved.
Undressing Leah had always been like unwrapping a beautiful gift, each revealed layer more stunning than the last until you got to the best gift of all: her bare skin.
He pulled back, his eyes locking on hers as his fingers slid down to the hem of her shirt. He lifted his eyebrows in question, and wordlessly she lifted her arms so that he could slide her sleeveless top up and off.
The second the shirt cleared her head, Jason groaned.
As expected, her breasts were covered in black lace, the pretty fabric displaying her tits to their full, creamy perfection.
Jason breathed out a reverent sigh, dipping his head forward and brushing his lips across the top slope of her breast as he gently grazed her nipples with the knuckles of two fingers. They hardened even more beneath his touch, and he reached down to adjust the cock that was straining painfully against his jeans.
He was torn between keeping both of his hands full of her versus using one of them to stroke himself while he feasted on her.
In the end, there was no question. It was her. Always her. He could get himself off anytime. And he had plenty in the last year while picturing exactly this sight:
Leah McHale all flushed and rosy and panting for him.
Jason’s tongue slipped under the edge of her bra to flick at her nipple and she cried out, her hands going to his waistband, hooking her fingers into his belt buckle and jerking him forward.
She rubbed the front of her black pants against his cock, making sexy little want noises that nearly had him coming in his pants like a teenage boy.
“Jesus,” he muttered, pulling back.