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“Does it bother you that I talked to those women?”
“Why should it?”
“I don’t know,” she replied silkily, even though the flush in her cheeks made a lie of her nonchalance. “I wouldn’t want you to worry that a romantic idealist like me would set my sights too high and wind up disappointed.”
That lethal grin kicked up the corners of his mouth, and he gave a laugh. “Never fear, lovely Laura. I’ll live up to my press. Don’t give that a second thought.”
He nuzzled his face against hers, his smile still in place, and his faintly stubbled cheek abraded her skin, a simple touch that ignited her nerve endings everywhere.
“I don’t doubt it, Dale, and I won’t have any trouble handling you, either.”
“Then I’ll be your bad boy for the grand opening. If that’s what you want from me.”
“It is.”
His gaze never left hers as he pressed an openmouthed kiss to the juncture between neck and shoulder. “I’ve wanted to be bad with you for a long time. We’re going to be bad together, Laura. Very bad.”
That heat roared inside, and Laura caught a breath that made her chest rise and fall sharply. She could still see that smile where his mouth dragged against her skin.
“You like that.”
“I do.”
There was an incredible unreality about the moment. Sensory overload from the feel of his mouth, the sight of his dark head poised over her, the promise in those smoky eyes.
This was Dale Emerson, the man who’d been haunting her subconscious for so long that watching him touch her became surreal in the extreme. A scene from one of her fantasies come to life while she stood barely dressed in front of a mirror with him, his tongue darting out to taste her throat, a warm velvet stroke that left the gleam of dampness in its wake.
Suddenly he slipped his hands around her hips, dragged them along her stomach, up her ribs. His fingers looked so dark against her skin. They looked so sexy standing together, him fully dressed and her wearing only a bra and hose. The practical pumps—nothing much to look at normally, but professional and comfortable for long days running around the property—elevated her until her back arched and her breasts thrust forward.
“You’re so beautiful,” Dale whispered, and his gaze trailed down from hers, slowly taking in her reflection.
To her chagrin, that blush continued to deepen in a distinctly unbad-girl way. She resisted the urge to shut her eyes and block out the proof that Dale had been right. She was a romantic idealist looking to take a walk on the wild side.
She wanted to be a temptress, wanted to star in this man’s fantasies the way he’d starred in hers. She wanted to wipe out the memories of the untold women who’d found pleasure in his arms before her turn had come around.
But even this aroused, Laura hadn’t lost her senses completely. “We don’t have time for this. Dinner, remember?”
His grip tightened, a possessive move that made her inhale sharply. “We have time. You’re already undressed.”
She couldn’t refute his logic, especially when his head dropped out of sight behind her. She held her breath, waited. His mouth brushed her skin then his teeth…suddenly her bra sprang open and her breasts popped out.
She sucked in a hard breath as the climate-controlled air coaxed already hard nipples to tighter peaks, and he drew the straps over her shoulders, down her arms, and let the bra drop to the floor.
“I intend to find out what you like in bed,” he said.
She heard the challenge in his voice, and her gaze zeroed in on the utterly decadent sight she presented as he cupped her in his palms, kneaded her skin with deep, erotic strokes that made her insides melt. She leaned into his touch without thinking, helpless to do anything but respond.
She couldn’t have imagined feeling this way if she’d tried. She hadn’t expected him to move so fast, hadn’t in her heart of hearts believed this whole idea would work out. But Dale was back, and he’d agreed to be her date.
For three weeks of fantasy.
Resting his chin on her shoulder, he regarded her beneath heavy-lidded eyes, a look that drugged her with the promise of his next touch, a look that made it hard to draw a decent breath.
“You like how this feels.” It wasn’t a question, more a statement of fact that she couldn’t deny. “What about this?”
He caught her nipples in a firm pinch and fire shot through her like a lightning bolt, one hot blast that singed every nerve ending from warm to blistering.
“Yes.” The sound slipped out as a moan, an absurdly undignified sound that made his gaze twinkle.
“And this?”
He held on and tugged her nipples in a slow pull that splintered that bolt of heat until she could feel it everywhere. Her nipples flushed pink. Her breasts swelled visibly. She couldn’t stop herself from rising up on tiptoes to arch her whole body into his touch.
“Oh!”
Not the most articulate of replies, but given his grin, Dale got the general idea. He thumbed the now-swollen peaks and each stroke made her tremble in reply, full-bodied quivers that mirrored their achy counterparts deep inside.
“You have such beautiful skin.” His deep voice whispered against her ear, the caress of his warm breath making her sigh aloud. Trailing his fingers away from her nipples, he traced a vein that shone faintly along her breast. “You’ve got skin meant to be handled carefully and to be cherished.”
He touched her with teasing swirls of his fingers, leaving her to savor the ache he’d started, an awareness that echoed down to her toes.
Dale understood pleasure. He understood how to make a woman respond to his touch, and he handled that knowledge with as much skill and experience as he’d ever demonstrated at work.
On the job he’d known how to interpret her architectural needs. He’d taken her vision to create the Wedding Wing. In this honeymoon suite, he understood her desires and how to fulfill them. He took her unspoken fantasies and made them reality.
She thought about making a few demands of her own. She wanted to kiss his mouth, wanted to wrap herself around him and learn the feel of all his hard places. She wanted to taste him and tempt him the way he tasted and tempted her, so much.
She wanted to prove that even though she didn’t normally indulge in flings, she would play by the rules. Bad was an attitude, after all, and she could wield attitude if it meant this man pleasuring her. And getting a chance to pleasure him.
But even through the haze of steamy sensation that made her melt against him, Laura recognized that she’d both offended and challenged Dale with her frankness about his personal life. She hadn’t intended to, but explaining herself had brought his actions and her opinion up for discussion.
Dale Emerson might be a lot of things—a brilliant architect and construction manager, an oh-so charming man—but first and foremost he was male. He wanted to prove himself.
Right now she would let him. She’d told him she could handle a fling, and she would have plenty of time during the upcoming weeks to back up her statement with proof. At the moment, Dale wanted the upper hand so she gave up all thoughts of demands and let him do what he did best—be bad.
Raising her arms, she stretched until she could slip her hands around his neck and contented herself with fingering the silky hairs at his nape. He raked a hungry gaze over her reflection and dragged his strong hands over her, solid, persuasive strokes that skidded along her skin, made her imagine what it would feel like to press her body full against him.
Running his palms over her hose-clad backside, he massaged her cheeks, rounded her hips, then drove his fingers between her thighs with an intimacy that made her gasp. He anchored her close, riding that rock-hard erection against her, and his expression sharpened into a look of white-hot need.
“I want you,” he said.
“You said we have time,” she reminded him in a stranger’s voice.
His eyes closed. He exhaled a sound that wasn’t quite a groan, a sound so needy Laura knew instinctively that her effect on him rivaled his on her. And knowing she was the object of this man’s desire blindsided her with its potency, a physical reaction that made her tingle with arousal.
“We do.” He exhaled those words on a kiss. “If we move fast. But I’ve waited so long to make love to you that I won’t be rushed.” He brushed another kiss along her temple. “Do you know I’ve never seen your hair down? Will you take out your braid for me later? I want to see you wearing nothing but hair.”
Even such a simple request meant he’d been thinking about her, perhaps even fantasizing, and she found the thought exciting. “It’ll be my pleasure.”
His eyes fluttered open again, and he speared her on a heated gaze. “Mine, too. And speaking of pleasure…” His voice trailed off as he slipped his fingers into the waistband of her hose and dragged them down.
She suddenly stood there with her arms wrapped around his neck, her breasts thrust outward and her sex exposed, looking decadently bare with the hose tangled around her thighs.
His low growl rumbled near her ear, and he ground that hot erection against her for good measure. But before she had a chance to ride his length and share some of her excitement, he stepped away. The air suddenly caressed her bottom, punctuating the distance he put between them.
“I’m going to bring you pleasure, Laura.” His husky-voiced declaration filtered through her, almost as potent as the hands he grazed along her bare skin.
Threading one hand between her thighs, he zeroed right in on the knot of nerve endings there. Coaxing the tiny bundle from its hiding place, he expertly rolled his fingers, sending a jolt through her.
Their gazes locked in the mirror. The intensity on his handsome face, those thick lashes hooding smoky eyes, promised her more pleasure than she’d ever imagined, promised that he would enjoy making her come apart at his command.
Forcing her to part her thighs, he explored her at his leisure. With sleek curls of his fingers, he spread moist arousal along her most intimate places, and Laura arched back against him, surrendering to the heat, letting him have all the control, payback for having resisted him for so long.
And he welcomed her payment, taking liberties that seemed astonishingly brazen for two people who’d only just decided to get intimate. But obviously Dale felt as if two years of unrequited attraction entitled him to privileges.
He thrust those fingers silkily in, and her body grew slick beneath his skilled touch. The mirror displayed every nuance of her expression, the way he worked her in long pleasured strokes, the way she swayed sinuously to feed this awakening need within.
“I want to watch you come,” he whispered. “Let go.”
Let go? She barely hung on. She rode his hand with an urgency she’d never known before, didn’t want to control, a need that tossed her normally sound reason to the winds to keep up this steady rocking motion… A motion that created friction exactly where she needed it.
Dale promised to bring her pleasure and he did. Tension mounted, a coiling pressure that wound its way through her, and took over until she recognized the look of casual determination on his face. He hadn’t been joking. He wouldn’t stop until he made her come. Right here. Right now.
While he watched.
And when he hauled her back against him to find a deeper position, she did let go. She couldn’t keep her eyes open anymore, wasn’t sure she even wanted to as her body moved decadently in time with his strokes. Let him enjoy the show because once he used the heel of his palm to knead her orgasm into breaking, she couldn’t worry about anything but the way her body had started to vibrate….
When Laura came, it was an expansive, glorious sensation that rolled through her body, as if two years of longing had crested and finally broke. Two years of fantasies that had grown into almost an obsession. A climax that shocked her with its intensity, left her panting as she leaned against him to support herself because her legs wouldn’t do the job.
She wasn’t sure how long it was until she could force her eyes open, but when she did, she almost wished she hadn’t. Dale still watched her with that hungry expression, seemingly content to stand there forever with his hands wedged between her thighs.
She wasn’t sure what to say, but Dale proved that bad boys could still be gentlemen when he eased his hands away and slid her hose back into place with a few efficient moves.
Steadying her until she could stand on her own, he leaned over and kissed her cheek.
His smile was pure male satisfaction, his voice a dare when he whispered, “One down. Seven to go.”
4
DALE ADJUSTED HIS tie in front of the dresser mirror, surprised and content with this turn of events.
A bad boy.
Leave it to Laura to dissect him. Yes, he’d enjoyed an active sex life before he’d starting building the Wedding Wing. And had he been enjoying himself during this job as he ordinarily would, he would never have had the kind of hard-on for this gorgeous blonde that wouldn’t go away. The kind that had made him desperate enough to invite heartbroken Monique on this trip.
He shook his head, exasperated by his own obsession with a woman, and at Laura’s idealistic notions about him and sex. If she wanted bad, he’d give her bad beyond her wildest dreams.
I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you.
It went a long way to salvage his pride that he wasn’t the only one suffering a serious case of unrequited lust. Just the memory of her smooth skin had his fingertips tingling. He had it so bad that he wanted tonight’s dinner over with so he could get her back to this room and start exorcising his demons.
He hoped Laura understood what she was getting into, because Dale meant exactly what he’d said—he didn’t intend to be rushed. He was going to make slow, careful love to her and explore this chemistry they shared. He would learn every inch of her tempting body and what touches made her melt the way she had in his arms.
“Heading out tonight?” Laura asked.
He glanced around to find her standing in the doorway dressed in a clingy blue dress that invited his gaze to linger over every shapely inch of her. “I’m escorting you to dinner.”
“Oh.”
Her beautiful face still looked soft-edged with pleasure, and with the dress accentuating the unusual blue of her eyes, she looked more edible than any feast Falling Inn Bed’s chef could prepare. Covering the distance between them, he slid his arm around her waist and tucked her close so he could feel all those sleek curves neatly against him.
A soft gasp slipped from that kissable mouth and she slid into his arms with such gratifying ease that he couldn’t resist a taste. Just one taste to test the reality against the fantasy.
He brushed his mouth across hers, sampled velvet moistness and his own lightning-hot response. Just a taste.
“We only have three weeks together, Laura, and I don’t plan to miss a second.” He traced her full lower lip with his tongue. “Not even for your business dinners.”
“I’d like you to come.”
“I plan to—four times, remember?”
Her gaze darted upward, her eyes so wide with surprise that he kissed her again to stop from laughing. What was it about this woman that pushed his buttons on such an instinctive level?
Deprivation, maybe. For a guy who usually dated a different woman each week he’d curtailed his dating for an obscene amount of time to behave like a boss on this project. Or perhaps deprivation had only intensified the effect. He recalled feeling as wildly attracted to her the day they’d met. A feeling that translated into a desire to distract her so he could keep stealing kisses.
Her mouth parted beneath his and he thrust his tongue inside, tasting her sweet warmth, savoring the easy way she responded. She tasted of inevitability. She wanted him as much as he wanted her and had finally accepted that this heat raging between them was a gift to be explored and enjoyed. Her kiss told him that she’d stopped resisting the truth and abandoned any thoughts of wasting more time.
They’d wasted too much already.
Back to deprivation again, which just might account for the urgency Dale felt right now, the need to thread his hands around her neck, tilt her head back just enough so he could plunge a little deeper, taste a little more. Her body rode his, all swells and hollows of sleek muscle, enticing him with the memory of the way her skin had felt beneath his hands, tempting him to shift his hips to ease the ache of another growing erection.
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