“Now my turn.” His fingers went to the hem of her tank top. He drew it up and off, leaving her sitting in the short black shirt that was now riding high at the top of her thighs and her sheer black bra. “Oh yeah. Very nice.”
She swiped her tongue over her bottom lip as he looked at her, warmth rising from her chest up her throat and into her face. She loved the heat and the masculine admiration in his eyes.
“Sexy bra.” He palmed her through the sheer fabric. It felt amazing. He scraped over both nipples with his thumbnails and every nerve ending jumped, her nipples tightening.
“Th-thank you.”
Her skin tingled everywhere and pressure grew low in her belly. She pushed his shirt back off his shoulders and down his arms, taking in his body, tracing over his large biceps with her hands. She bit her lip. He was so beautiful. He had big muscles but wasn’t beefy, just ripped, his arms and chest dusted with brown hair. Her gaze tracked down over ridged abs, following the trail of hair that led into his low-rise jeans. Her breathing grew choppy as excitement built in her and her * quivered.
He was looking his fill too, following his hands as they curved over her shoulders, down her arms and back up, then fingertips brushing down over her collarbones to the top curves of her breasts, slipping inside the edge of her bra cup to caress sensitive skin there. She looked down at his big hands with blunt fingers right there at her breasts, and pleasure sizzled through her.
Then he shaped her rib cage and waist, down to the low waistband of the stretchy skirt.
“You’re beautiful, Amber,” he said, his voice low and rough.
Her breath sighed out of her. Pleasure warmed her inside that he thought so; but always in her life she’d been praised for being beautiful and what had it ever got her? What had she done to get how she looked? Nothing. A combination of genes from two people who weren’t even good parents didn’t seem like anything to be proud of.
“Thank you.” She shared none of her thoughts. She brushed her lips over his cheek, his stubble grazing them. “I think you’re beautiful too.”
“Right,” he grunted.
“Really.” She kissed his square jaw. “So”—another kiss—“beautiful.”
“Fuck, Amber.” He captured her mouth with his again in a long, slow, deep kiss that had heat stabbing through her core. She pressed into him, aching with need. Long moments later he drew back, panting. “Are we doing this?”
“God, I hope so.”
His lips quirked. “All right, then.”
“Wait. You have condoms, right?”
“Oh yeah.”
“Of course you do,” she muttered.
He moved to stand, prepared to pick her up and carry her to the bedroom, then paused. “Wait. What was that?”
“What?”
“That comment. It sounded…bitchy.”
Her eyes widened and she stared at him. “What?”
“Come on. What was that about? You said, ‘Of course you do’ like you think I’ve got a parade of chicks in and out of my bedroom.”
Crap. He was calling her on her bitchiness. She knew she had issues and it wasn’t fair to take them out on him. She wouldn’t be here with him if she really thought that little of him. “I’m sorry. That was uncalled for.”
He gazed at her intently. “Yeah. It was. And I wanna know what that was about.”
“Now?” She stroked his shoulder. “Do we have to talk about it now?”
She saw the conflict on his face, arousal mingled with stubborn annoyance. “Yeah. We do. I don’t want to have sex with someone who doesn’t respect me.”
She blinked, once, twice, three times. Then she couldn’t help the giggle that rose in her throat.
Luckily, he too saw the humor in this and smiled back at her. “That sounded like a girl, didn’t it?”
“No. Well, maybe a little role reversal. But you’re absolutely right. You should never have sex with someone who doesn’t respect you.”
He lifted his eyebrows, his mouth softening, eyes intent.
“I don’t want to like you,” she whispered. “But I do. I do respect you.”
“Good enough.” He stood, swinging her into his arms. “You can tell me more about that later.”
She gasped and grabbed on to his shoulders. “Duncan! You can’t carry me! I’m huge.”
He snorted. “Huge? As if.”
She let it go that he’d said they’d talk about it later. She didn’t really want to talk about her lurid past. “All right, farm boy, show me how strong you are.”
He grinned as he strode down the hall. He turned into the bedroom at the end, a huge master bedroom with another wall of windows overlooking the city, carried her to the big bed, and tossed her onto it.
He tossed her. Gently, but still. “Okay,” she panted. “I’m impressed.” She pushed up onto her elbows to look at him standing beside the bed. He reached over and flicked on a tiny halogen lamp and pointed the flexible neck at the ceiling so the room was subtly lit. Then he yanked open the drawer of the nightstand and grabbed something. He dropped several condoms onto the nightstand.
She smirked and met his eyes. “Apparently I’m about to be even more impressed.”
Chapter 10