Wicked Sexy

21

“I want you. Bad. Don’t know exactly why, you’re a complete pain in my ass and pretty much the most contrary, foul-tempered woman I’ve ever met, and you’ve made it really clear what you think about me, but every time I look at you, I have an almost overpowering urge to touch you, kiss you, do a lot of bad things to you, and I don’t know how to manage it. Yeah, it might be more prudent for me to keep this s**t to myself, but I know that when you don’t talk about s**t, it festers, gets worse, and if the way I feel about you gets any worse, I won’t be able to put my goddamn shoes on in the morning. So I’m puttin’ it out there.”

He takes a breath. Deeply shocked, I stare at him with my mouth open, my heart up in my throat. “We’re both professionals. We have a job to do. And I don’t mix business with pleasure. Ever. But the way I figure it, we’ve got one more night until the work actually starts, and if I don’t do something to get you straight in my head, I won’t be able to do the job at all.”

He stops abruptly. Then he waits, watching me with unwavering intensity as I attempt to digest what just happened.

I whisper in disbelief, “You’re propositioning me?”

His gaze drops to my lips. When he looks back into my eyes, his own are burning. “You liked that kiss.”

He gives me time to deny it, but I don’t. How could I? We both know I’d be lying.

He adds, “And you called me hot, so I know you don’t think I’m a complete troll, even though you act like you do.”

“That was an accident.”

“Yep.” He nods. “And you fuckin’ hated yourself for it. Which is why I know it was true.”

Things are happening in my body. My n*****s harden, my breath quickens, there is a distinctive throb and ache between my legs. All because this jarhead I hate just told me he wants to do bad things to me.

Bad things. Dear God, were any two sexier words ever spoken?

Connor says tersely, “It’s your turn to talk.”

Staring at him, I bite my lower lip. Seeing that, his eyes flare. He leans closer, and then closer still, until I can smell the fresh, soap-scrubbed scent of his skin, count every piece of stubble glinting copper along his hard jaw.

In a voice like sandpaper, he says, “Tabitha.”

I hesitate for a moment, fighting the simultaneous urges to slap him and surrender to him, hating myself for being intrigued, hating this excruciating disconnect between what my mind insists is logical and what my body is loudly demanding. Ultimately, my curiosity wins out by a hair.

I say, “About those bad things you mentioned…”

He reaches out and takes my wrist in his big, warm hand. He gently pulls me off my chair and toward him, so I’m standing between his open thighs, our chests almost touching. Our gazes locked together, he murmurs, “I want to make you come.”

I exhale, a small, astonished noise, my eyes flared wide and my heart pounding.

At my reaction, he presses closer, his mouth at my ear, his voice gruff with desire.

“I want to put my face between your legs and eat your beautiful sweet p***y until you come so hard, you forget your own name. Then I want to slide my hard c**k inside you and f**k you, slow and deep. And when you’re about to come again, I’ll put a finger in here—” He reaches around, palms my ass, slips a finger between my cheeks until he hits the tender spot that makes me gasp—“and kiss you, so that when you go off, you’re full of me everywhere, your whole body is full of me, and all you can think of is me, all you can do is feel me f*****g you, how much you love it, how incredible it feels, and how you never, ever want it to stop.”

A noise involuntarily escapes my lips, a low, breathy moan that sounds as if he’s already inside me.

A loud throat clearing. “Excuse me, folks.”

The waiter has arrived with our drinks. Connor and I ignore him completely. He sets the drinks down and quickly leaves.

Into my ear, Connor breathes, “Talk to me, sweetheart.”

I close my eyes, losing myself inch by inch to the most powerful desire I’ve ever felt. “We can’t.” “Yes, we can. One night. Just to get it out of our system.” His other hand finds my hip, curls possessively around it. He drags me closer to his body, so we’re flush against each other, crotch to chest.

He’s hard everywhere.

Nearby, someone snickers, enjoying the scene we’re making, but I could care less.

My trembling hands climb iron pecs and flatten over them. “We shouldn’t.”

Connor’s soft lips hover over the wildly fluttering pulse in my throat. He whispers, “We definitely should,” and touches his tongue to my skin.

Electricity crackles through me. I arch instinctively, sucking in a breath, my fingers digging into Connor’s chest. He makes a sound like an animal and takes a hot mouthful of my flesh.

The instant my eyes roll back in my head, an ear-piercing alarm sounds, shattering the moment.

People start to shout. Chairs scrape back from tables. Connor and I break apart, panting.

He says, “It’s a fire alarm.” Then, angrier, “A fuckin’ fire alarm,” like he can’t believe the timing.

Saved by the bell, I think. A semihysterical laugh bursts out of me.

Connor grabs my hand. We move in the opposite direction of the rest of the crowd and run to the door with the red Exit sign illuminated above it on the opposite side of the patio from the main entrance. Inside, a stairwell leads to the ground floor.