"Good. Because that's all I have to give you," he said, and then his tongue darted out and swirled around the wet tip of hers, teasing them both to distraction. She tasted moist and sweet and so damn good. He groaned as, lowering more of his weight atop her, he sealed their lips in a hard, hungry kiss.
He'd dreamed of this, in the few minutes of sleep that thoughts of Amanda had allowed him to snatch. He'd dreamed of her taste, of how her soft white curves felt beneath him. The dreams—wisps of veiled fantasies and suppressed memories—had gotten him hard and hot. That was what had brought him out of the barn and into a house he'd sworn never to step foot in again. That was what had made him swallow his pride and seek her out tonight. He couldn't stay away from her, couldn't deny this unreasonably strong urge to see and touch and lay with her again. He wanted to know if it would be as good with her a second time, or if good had only been in his imagination.
It hadn't been. His imagination could never conjure up the way this woman felt moving hungrily beneath him, or the way her s
weet, distracting tongue met his every thrust and parry. Their mouths clung, their tongues initiated a rhythmic dance that their bodies, straining against each other, begged to follow. Her hips rose, strained into his, retreated, then lifted again. The feminine heat of her meshed with his hard male strength, making the core of his need swell.
He'd had this woman once, barely six hours ago. He shouldn't want her again so soon, and he definitely shouldn't want her again so badly. But he did. There was no rhyme or reason to it, no obstacles or barriers. There was no logic in the way he wanted to plant himself inside of Amanda Lennox so badly it was an acute, physical pain inside of him, a deep, festering, intolerable need.
He eased the intimacy of their kiss, but not the intimacy of their embrace. His lips trailed hot, sipping kisses down her chin and the thin white taper of her neck. He shifted them so that he was now the one laying atop the table. Amanda lay sprawled atop him, her bent knees straddling his hips, her hands splayed on the chipped wood that lay to either side of his head. She arched her neck to give his mouth freedom to roam.
Jake's tongue caressed the pulse drumming wildly in the base of her throat. He reached down and tugged her skirt up and out of the way. And then he lifted his own bent knee as high as it would go. He ground his thigh against the warm, moist part of her that his body was urging him to reexplore. A part that—soon, Jake silently promised them both—would be reexplored. Thoroughly.
Amanda gasped and her hips arched forward. The feel of Jake's denim-encased thigh rubbing the most sensitive, most intimate part of her was electrifying. White heat flamed through her blood, leaving a tingling wake of fire.
Her body went weak. The energy drained out of her arms, and she lowered herself onto the hard cushion of his chest. Though her lips nuzzled his neck and ear, her hips remained cautiously still. She was afraid to move a muscle, afraid feelings that good could not be contained. And she wanted to contain them. Forever. She wanted the sensations this man was lighting in her to go on and on and on.
Jake had other ideas. He'd lit the fire in her, ignited her fiery passions, now he wanted to drive her wild with it.
His strong hands flanked her hips, his fingers curling inward, tunneling through the bunches of material, tunneling into the soft white flesh beneath. Slowly, slowly, he guided her hips forward, dragging her up his thigh. Her body quivered violently. He absorbed the vibrations with his palms and chest, even as he guided her in the opposite direction. Again. And again.
It was a gentle parody of lovemaking that was, he discovered belatedly, double edged. As much as the erotic sensations were a sensuous torture to her, they were more so to him. Every time she slid forward, the top of her thigh rubbed against the burning heat of him. The rhythmic friction filled him with new, blinding surges of desire.
"God, did I teach you this?" he murmured huskily.
"Oh yes," she answered, just as rawly. Her hips picked up the pace his hands had set. "Don't you remember? You taught me how to light a fire, showed me how to make it burn."
"Damn. I did, didn't I?" he grumbled, and thought that if this sweet, stimulating torture kept up, he wouldn't last. And he intended to last if it killed him.
He thought it might do just that.
Jake didn't know why the urge to roll her onto her back and take her right now, hard and fast, was so damn overpowering—it just was. God, had he ever been this weak with a woman in his life? No. But then, this wasn't just any woman, this was Amanda Lennox. He should have learned by now that he had no self-control when it came to her. He should have learned that, with her, the desire to give pleasure was as strong, if not stronger, than the desire to get it.
She was hot. He knew by the way she writhed against him, the way her heart pounded a wild, desperate beat against his. He wanted her hotter, burning up; he wanted her body humming with a desperation that surpassed his own.
His fingers tightened around her hips, halting her. Then they strayed up to cup her ribcage as he lowered his leg. His face was buried in her neck. He nuzzled the silky flesh there before carefully levering her up and away from him.
Her eyes had been closed. The thick, honey-tipped lashes flickered up, revealing glassy eyes that struggled to bring him into focus. "Why did you stop?" she asked, her tone raw and passion-slurred.
His grin was wicked and quick, his gaze darkly seductive. "We can't do much with our clothes on, princess."
One golden brow lifted, and the way her huge green eyes shimmered in the flickering firelight told Jake that she was thinking of at least a dozen mutually satisfying things that could be done completely clothed. The pink stain in her cheeks, and the way she rolled her lips inward, said her thoughts were decidedly unladylike.
That was fine by Jake; his own thoughts were dirty as hell.
"I want you naked," he rasped, and pushed her up until she knelt, straddling his hips. His gaze dropped to the swell of her breasts, and his mind flashed an excruciatingly detailed picture of what she looked like without the barrier of clothes separating her creamy white flesh from his devouring gaze. It was a sight he'd give his life to see again. Now. His attention lifted, his gaze meshed with hers. "Undress for me, princess. Slowly. And do it in front of the fire so I can see all of you, inch by beautiful inch."
Her chin dipped, but not before he saw the way her cheeks flamed. "That wouldn't be..." she shrugged nervously, and wet her suddenly parched lips, "proper."
"Or ladylike," he agreed flatly.
"Jake, what if Gail or Little Bear comes downstairs?"
"They won't."
"How do you know?"
"I know," He said it with such conviction that Amanda instinctively believed him.