Or had him right there, right now.
She tried to shake away the temptation. The hell he wasn’t dangerous. He made her forget herself.
And his damned talented fingers were tickling between her thighs again.
Estrella’s head snapped back. A terrible thought had cut through. “Security cameras!”
Jesse immediately pulled down her skirt. At the same moment, the elevator stopped and the doors opened on the lobby—empty, luckily. She stared out, dumbfounded for a moment before it occurred to her that after the other man had exited, they’d forgotten to press the button for sixteen. The car had automatically returned to the ground floor.
She slapped at the panel, closing the doors, then hit the sixteen before looking up. Sure enough, there was a camera high in one corner, filming their every action. She cringed. Please don’t let there be one at the pool.
She pointed the camera out to Jesse. “You’re a bad influence on me. Look at all the trouble I’m in.”
He laughed, the bastard.
“Maybe I should show you what it’s like,” she said. “See how you enjoy being at my mercy.”
He held his arms open. “You can try.”
“You think I won’t?” With a mighty shove that moved him only because he allowed it, she backed him into a corner and attacked the front of his shirt, giving it a good wrench that popped a couple of buttons. They pinged off the stainless steel paneling. Clean-up on Elevator One.
“I’ll sew them back on,” she said while staring at his naked chest.
His laugh made a number of muscles ripple. She wasn’t sure what she’d said to get him to laugh—she wasn’t thinking too clearly again—but she hoped he’d do it often. Her hands reached out, spreading over his chest like a Braille reader. Watching him ripple was nice, but feeling him ripple was better.
She stroked the corrugated slab of his stomach. The heaviness and heat below his waistband drew her, but she resisted by traveling upward. Jesse gripped the steel rail that circled the enclosure and rested his head against the wall while she experimented on him, prodding and petting, tasting and teasing, peppering small kisses over the expanse of warm rounded muscle until she reached his shoulder, where she scraped back the damp cotton and opened her mouth wide, making an unabashed glutton of herself as she slurped with her tongue like a child with a melting ice cream cone. A moan rumbled in Jesse’s chest.
The elevator stopped; the doors opened. Reluctantly Estrella raised her head. She hadn’t even managed to get his shirt all the way off. Only his biceps were—
Her eyes widened. Ice crackled in her veins. An inch below the glistening skin where her mouth had been was a tattoo. Somehow, she’d missed it up to now.
Maybe she’d blocked it out on purpose, she realized, as the bottom of her stomach dropped out. It wasn’t a large tattoo—only a simple line drawing that had faded to the point where she had to stare to make it out. A curling wave, vaguely Japanese in style, with a moon above.
Not a threatening tattoo, so why had she backed all the way across the elevator? Why was she reaching for the doors, to be sure they didn’t close and trap her inside?
“What’s wrong?” Jesse said, coming toward her with his shirt hanging off his forearms.
She stiffened. He stopped.
“You have a tattoo.” It was nothing. Nothing. No reason to get all psycho.
“Yeah. And a couple on the other arm too.” He lifted his right shoulder to show her. “Just small ones, from years ago.”
She didn’t want to look. Or explain. But he deserved something, because suddenly her entire body was a Popsicle. Her teeth would be chattering if she hadn’t clenched them so tight. “I’m s-sorry. I have a thing about tattoos.”
“I don’t get it.”
“An aversion.”
Jesse frowned. “They’re only tattoos.”
The doors started to close and again she put her hand out to block them. “I can’t help it. I know it’s irrational, but they turn me off. Tattoos remind me of some—they bring back bad memories.”
Jesse was breathing heavily. He clenched his hands. “I’ve had them all along. Why would they matter now?”
There was no good answer for that. She looked away, her previous trepidation rising too high to deny. One foot edged over the elevator threshold into the hallway. It was all she could do not to bolt. “I didn’t notice before. You’re very tanned and I . . . I . . .”
She was miserable. And even though the hot animal attraction was gone, she could still remember every bit even if she couldn’t feel it. She hated having to leave him, aroused and frustrated.