Therefore, he thought he knew every variation on a kiss. The gentle kiss, the rough kiss. The soft slide of lip against lip and the thrusting duel of tongues. The nibble, the suck, the grind, the bite.
Then Danica kissed him. And he knew he had missed out on kissing all these years.
Kissing her was a shot of pure adrenaline, a narcotic hit to his system no manufactured drug could ever hope to match. It acted like a rocket booster, taking what had been a very pleasurable activity and sending it into the stratosphere. A pure jolt of electricity traveled straight from where their mouths met to his cock. He was rock hard in half a second.
His fingers tangled in those glorious blond curls. He loved the infinite variety of golds in its strands. It was as soft and yet as wildly dimensional as he thought it would be—alive to the touch.
Seeing her still on the ground, eyes closed, had shut his throat with fear. He may have used protecting the charity from lawsuits as an excuse to take care of her, but it was as transparent as the walls in his office. He’d needed, on some primal level he still hadn’t fully acknowledged, to ensure she wasn’t hurt.
And now he needed to kiss her senseless.
Her mouth was hot and insistent and greedy. He met her demands with his own, their tongues tangling and exploring. The scant millimeters separating them on the sofa felt like miles, and he gathered Danica to him, pulling her until she half lay across his lap. Her scent, vanilla and cinnamon, sweet and spicy, surrounded him. She shifted even closer, the curve of her bottom just brushing his groin. An involuntary shudder ran through to his toes, shocking his brain back to a limited cognitive function.
He should stop. She was his consultant. Her job was to find him a wife. A wife in every sense of the word. If all went to plan, he would be in front of a judge with another woman in a matter of weeks.
He couldn’t stop even if a 7.8 earthquake hit the Bay Area that instant.
Her hands reached out to tug his shirt free from his pants and moved up to work the buttons of his shirt free. The brush of her fingers against his chest brought his cock to a whole different level of density.
Turnabout was fair play. He undid the buttons on her shirtdress from throat to waist. Her skin was smooth, warm. He disengaged from her mouth so he could press his lips to where her neck joined her shoulder, inhaling her vanilla-cinnamon scent. He had to see if she tasted as good as she smelled, and he kissed-licked a path across her collarbone to where the dress gaped open. He pushed the top of the dress down, exposing high, full breasts straining against a cotton bra.
He trailed his right index finger over the generous swells, dipped it into the shadowy crevice between. Hard nipples pushed against the bra cups and with his thumbs he traced slow, tiny circles around each one.
“Luke,” she breathed and tugged on his hair. He looked up to catch her gaze, wide and wild and dark. “You’re still wearing your shirt.”
He grinned. “I’m much more interested in removing yours.” He kissed her again, his hands busy untying the sash at her waist then removing all the buttons he could find from their buttonholes, until her dress parted in the middle.
She really was beautiful. He shook his head in silent admiration and ran his index finger from the shadowy valley between her breasts to the top of her plain white panties. She shivered and gasped, her eyes squeezed shut.
“Are you cold?” he asked. He wasn’t. He was burning up.
She shook her head, but when he undid the clasp of her bra, her hands came up to cross over her chest. “Wait. Before the rest comes off, I think we need to negotiate,” she said, her words coming in bursts between gulps of air.
Those deep breaths caused her breasts to rise and fall, the fabric of her bra slipping even as she tried to hold it in place. It took a moment for him to realize she was speaking. “Negotiate?”
“Set boundaries, then. This is just for tonight. Nothing will change,” she said. “Right?”
It was hard to think since all his blood had rushed south, but he managed to nod. “Of course.”
She searched his gaze for a moment, her lower lip caught by her upper teeth. Then she nodded. “Of course.” She stood up and let her arms drop, her bra falling with them. Her breasts were two perfect orbs custom-made to fill his hands. “This is comfy, but wouldn’t a bed be preferable?”