“Sorry to disappoint you. But I’m no better than all the others. You’re funny. You’re smart. You’re brave and courageous. And you’re hot. And I do want to rock your bod. But—”
“Samantha…” He tried to cut in, even though he had no idea what he wanted to say. She thought he was smart and brave and courageous and hot? He wanted to howl! He wanted to jump in the air and click his heels! He wanted to…screw her brains out.
“I’d much rather lose you as a lover than a friend.” She spoke over him. “So can we just forget the last five minutes? Can we go back to the way things were?”
“No,” he said. Or rather croaked.
Her shoulders slumped. “Damnit.” She stared dejectedly at her sparkly toes.
He’d never been a foot man, but right then he wanted nothing more than to kiss every one of those dainty digits.
“I should never have—”
“I don’t want to go back,” he interrupted. And like so many times that night, the minute he said the words aloud was the minute he realized they were true. But there were so many obstacles between them. There’d been so much deception. And what about afterward? What happened then?
“You don’t?” Her eyes searched his face. Her breaths came short and fast.
He was sure he could see the gentle jut of her nipples against the fabric of her sweatshirt. His dick, which had been seesawing between semihard and rock-hard all night, took one look at those sweet peaks and rose to the challenge.
“No.” He shook his head. In that moment, he didn’t care about the obstacles or the deception. In that moment, he couldn’t think about the future. There was only now. Only her. Wonderful, adorable Samantha.
She wants me! She wants…ME!
If his heart had a voice, it would sing the refrain over and over.
The rain was still coming down by the bucketful outside, but the storm had released the last of its electrical energy. Inside, however, the atmosphere was charged. Ozzie imagined he could see bolts of sexual lightning arcing through the air, making the entire kitchen crackle and glow, making the torn flesh of his thigh tingle.
He knew that thunder followed lightning. And he waited anxiously for the explosion.
“But…you never touch me,” she whispered, her voice sexy in its hoarseness. “You touch everyone else, but you never touch me.”
“Because if I started, I’d never want to stop.” And there it was. Another truth. Perhaps the most important truth of the night.
One of those gap-toothed grins took up her whole face. Then it happened. She ran across the room, launched herself into his arms, and slammed her mouth over his.
BOOM!
*
The minute Samantha’s mouth touched Ozzie’s, she was completely obliterated. His lips were hotter than dynamite, and the first slick glide of his tongue between her teeth was an atomic blast that sent wave after wave of molten fire through her body.
There was no hesitation. No tentative exploration. It was pedal to the metal from the get-go. Which might have been a turnoff, had they not been engaged in foreplay for the last few months. At least that’s how it felt to her. All the talks, all the smiles, all the jokes and the gibes and days out and about had been leading up to this. This moment, right here, right now, when she finally got her hands on him.
Her fingers tangled in his crazy, wonderful hair. It was softer than it looked. Her aching breasts smashed against his chest. It was harder than she’d imagined. And her belly cradled the evidence of his desire. Which, holy smokes, was larger than she’d expected.
He was hot. A wall of heat against her front, making the air in the room feel cold against her back.
She ate at his mouth, one kind of hunger quickly replaced by another. He met her carnal demands with more of his own. It was all teeth and tongues, lips and scratchy beard and…hands. Hers skated over his broad shoulders, down his back. She dug her fingers into the groove of his spine. His were on her face, cupping her jaw. He curled his fingers around the back of her head to hold her in place.
She had no idea how long they stayed that way, how long they ravaged each other before he pulled back slightly. She murmured her disappointment, then hummed with delight. He was only adjusting the angle so he could kiss her more deeply.
So deep.
So good.
So sweet.
The stroke of his tongue was an experienced glide of velvet warmth. He knew just what she liked, just what she craved. In and out. Mimicking the joining of two bodies. Tasting. Savoring. Rejoicing.
Pleasure rippled down her spine, making the place between her legs feel even achier and hotter. She lost her breath. He fed it back to her. Her heart pounded out of control. His matched the rhythm. She lost her mind. But it didn’t matter, because he was the one in control, molding her, shaping her, loving her lick by deep, penetrating lick. Suck by wet, wonderful suck.
“God, you taste good,” he murmured against the corner of her mouth, leaving a trail of hot kisses along her cheek back to her ear. He gently bit the lobe, his warm breath whirling against the shell. The muscles of her vagina clenched like a fist. “Samantha, I—”
“More,” she demanded, guiding his mouth back to hers. She wanted to kiss him forever. And then kiss him a day past that. “Please, Ozzie. I want more.”
With a sound of need, or maybe it was impatience, he wrapped his large hands around her hips and hoisted her onto the kitchen island as if she weighed no more than a feather. Just to be clear, she weighed a lot more than a feather. But in his strong arms, she felt fragile, feminine.
Everything that was woman in her responded to the man in him.
When he stepped between her thighs, her warmth and wetness welcomed his steely hardness. His callused hands slipped beneath the hem of her sweatshirt, finding bare flesh, and goose bumps followed the path of his fingers.
“Samantha…” The way he said her name, enunciating each syllable, made it sound sexy. Or maybe that was just him. Just Ozzie. Just the sexiest man alive. “Slow down, sweetheart. Let’s—”
“No!” She was quick to cut him off, feeling desperate in a way she never had before. “I can’t stop. Don’t make me stop.” The thought of not touching him, not kissing him, not tasting him for even a second when she’d waited so long… No. Just…no.
A moan—of surrender?—rumbled from the back of his throat. And then he grabbed her long hair in his fist and wrapped a loop of it around his thick wrist, pulling her head back and exposing her neck. He bent to suck the spot where her heart beat close to the surface of her skin. Her blood bubbled up to meet the wet suction of his lips, the heated stroke of his tongue. And lower, her body began to hum in earnest.
“Ozzie…” His name was an entreaty, a plea, a prayer all rolled into one.
“Say it again,” he commanded in a low growl, all that amiable charm having disappeared. This was Ozzie at his rawest. Ozzie pared down to his truest essence. And it was nothing more, nothing less than one-hundred-percent alpha male. He was all passion. All assertive control. And she was such a cliché, because that just did it for her.