Okay, maybe not soon enough. She turned to face him. “Would you like some wine or a beer?”
“No, I’m good. But if you need a glass of wine to relax you, go ahead.”
She felt his energy. It fueled her own. “Honestly, Barrett, I’m so pent up right now I don’t think it would help.”
He stepped toward her and smoothed his hands up and down her arms. “Pent up?”
“Yes.”
“Do I make you nervous, Harmony?”
“No. I’m never nervous around you. Not anymore. More like . . . aware of you.” She laid her hands on his chest. “The way you stand, the way you cock your head to the side when you’re thinking about something, your crooked smile—”
“You notice a lot.”
“About you? Hard not to, you being all imposing and hot.”
He laughed. “Thanks for the compliment. Now let’s talk about you.”
“Me? What about me?”
He tipped his finger under her chin and tilted her head back. “You have the prettiest eyes, Harmony. And the way you smile makes me catch my breath. And your mouth—damn you have a sexy mouth. Your laugh makes me turn my head whenever we’re in the same room. It’s like you put your entire soul into your laugh. It’s genuine, and if there’s one thing that makes a woman attractive to me, it’s when she’s real. And everything about you is real. There’s no bullshit about you. I know when you say something, you mean it.”
“Well, that’s true.” She loved that he told her what he liked about her. It made her toes curl.
And when he leaned in, his breath sailed across her cheek. He cupped the back of her neck. “Did I mention how much I like your mouth?”
Her breath caught when he kissed her and she grasped his arms, digging her nails in.
He groaned, then wrapped his arm around her back, tugging her closer, fitting his mouth firmly with hers and sliding his tongue inside to lick against hers.
She was swamped with sensation. She breathed in his crisp, clean scent, taking in how hard his body felt as he pushed her against the counter. Her nipples tingled and she pulsed with damp desire as he cupped her butt to draw her in closer to his erection.
And when he arched against her, rubbing his cock against her *, she wanted to lift her dress, draw down her panties and get off against him. She needed release, the kind only Barrett could give her.
She’d fantasized about this moment for years, of what it would be like to have him touch her and make her come. It was almost surreal to believe it was about to become reality.
When he pulled his mouth from hers to rain kisses along her jaw and her throat, he whispered in her ear.
“I’ve thought about fucking you, Harmony. I’ve thought about it for a long time.”
She leaned back, searching his face to see if she could read that as some kind of bullshit line men laid on women.
All she saw on his face was earnest desire. “Did you?”
“Yeah. Last year at New Year’s Eve at your mom’s. You leaned over to get something out of the oven and your dress rode up. I wanted to come up behind you and lift your dress and touch you. Hell, if I’m being honest, I wanted to do a lot more than just touch you.”
She shuddered at the visual. “Why didn’t you ever say anything to me?”
He ran his hands down her rib cage and over her hips. “You know why.”
She most definitely did not want the topic of Barrett’s friendship with Drake to interfere in what was happening with them tonight. “Touch me now. Do whatever you want to me now. I’m here and I’m all yours.”
He had a handful of her dress and bunched it, then lifted it over her hip, smoothing his hand over her butt. “I love your ass, Harmony. So soft and curvy. You’re built like a woman. Did I ever tell you how much I appreciate your body?”
She was going to swoon in an embarrassing way if he kept tossing out the compliments, not to mention feeling weak in the knees from his hand on her ass. She clutched his shirt and drew his mouth to hers.
When he kissed her, it was an explosion of hot passion. Suddenly his hands were everywhere, lifting her dress, his fingers on a quest inside her underwear to grab her butt. She was out of breath as he pulled her closer to his erection.
Oh, why weren’t they naked yet?
He lifted her as if she weighed nothing. She wrapped her legs around his hips and he walked up the stairs toward her bedroom.
“You don’t have to carry me,” she whispered against his lips.
“Faster this way.” He set her down next to her bed, then untied the straps of her sundress, letting it fall to the floor. “And if I didn’t get you up here right now, I was going to fuck you in the kitchen.”
Her lips curved. “I would have been all right with that.”
“I’ll keep that in mind for round two.”
She was happy to hear he was game for round two. She’d already made sure to clear her calendar for tomorrow morning. She intended to keep Barrett up all night.