And she had let him in.
Oh my God, can he tell how nervous and f**ked up I really am? Josie wondered as their wine glasses connected, her hand frozen in space as she tried not to shatter. Not the glass—herself.
On the outside, she worked very hard to be casual and free, but on the inside all she wanted was to pile into bed with him and be f**ked mindless.
No! Sex couldn’t be the focus here. Dinner was. Food, wine, talk, and just being together. The kiss they’d shared was a way to say “hello,” not necessarily a preliminary to hot monkey sex. Whether they ended up in bed or not didn’t matter.
Ah, hell. She could hear the snort in her head. Fooling herself was getting harder and harder.
And judging by what she could see of Alex’s package, so was he.
Good thing she hadn’t boiled the pasta yet. A part of her wanted tonight to be about getting to know each other, talking late into the night, curled up and cuddling in the living room. Or enjoying a nice summer stroll.
But…no.
Hot monkey sex it was.
His eyes raked over her body like a man determined, with a look of fire that licked at the edges of her skin, his heat unmistakable and impossible to avoid (not that she wanted to).
How could this feel so right, even through her nervousness? In the morning, she expected to see him in the kitchen at the table, shirtless and tousled, enjoying coffee with her and then, of course, enjoying her for breakfast. The coffee was merely a vehicle for extra energy and a second (third, fourth, fifth) wind. Plus the idea of a shirtless Alex relaxing in a sunbeam in her kitchen made her drool.
Drool was good.
Why try to fight it? She squared her shoulders unconsciously with the decision to go forth, and was keenly aware that the gesture pushed her br**sts forward. Shifting to relax a bit only succeeded in loosening her hips, and the thought flashed through her mind of her legs wrapped around his hips. A flood of heat pooled between her legs and she sighed. The form-fitting cotton pants she’d chosen so carefully for the way they made her ass look now plagued her as she shifted slightly, cl*t warming up and raring to go.
He took her sigh as an invitation to step closer.
Excellent.
What he had chosen to wear intrigued her, turning up the fire inside yet another level. A button-down oxford, somewhere between turquoise and light blue, with the top two buttons undone. A sprinkling of dark chest hair peeked out from the V at his throat. His leather belt was so distressed it might very well have been made from a dead cow dragged twenty miles through Arizona desert, but he’d looped it through very simple dark blue pants. His dark eyes watched her watching him.
The air between them held the scent of wine and a hungry tension. Neither seemed able to put anything to words, but gestures and expressions were also inadequate. The longer they stared, the more the energy seemed poised to crackle into actual sparks; even her fat cat, languidly sauntering past them, seemed to notice it, glancing their way and dashing inexplicably in a new direction. Cars rumbled past outside, and a sudden burst of field lights from across the street told her the Little League game was in session. Their glow added a surreal shine to Alex’s eyes, fixed on hers as he finished the rest of his wine in one long gulp.
Copying him, she gulped the rest of her glass and held out the bottle, tipping the neck as if to say, More? He nodded, and her hand rotated slowly, his eyes burning into her as she poured his second glass. She flickered her gaze away only enough to ensure she didn’t spill the wine, but missed only a blink or two of Möbius strip of reciprocal observation.
And then he asked, “Is Josie short for Josephine?”
Another preliminary to get out of the way. Names. “Yes. Josephine Elizabeth Mendham.”
His smile lit up the room. And her heart. He bowed slightly, a joking move, and said, “Alexander Edward Derjian. At your service.”
That name rang a bell, but before she could think twice, he closed the space between them and slipped an arm around her waist, his free hand first setting down his wine glass and then carefully prying hers from her own hand. His fingers so gentle and facile on the stem that she swooned. Surgeon’s hands. Long fingers. Oh, what could those do to parts of her that cried out for heat and touch and more?
She was about to find out.
“Alex, I—” His fingers, achingly soft, landed on her lips, silencing her, and the arm around her waist tightened, the hand splayed against the middle of her back where her shoulder blades met.
“Let me speak first, Ms. Josephine Elizabeth Mendham.” The roll of her full name off his tongue sent her knees into a weak state, thighs humming, and her breathing becoming a bit labored with lust. The very air between them felt changed, now thick with a new element, one of luscious, unqualified want.
His hair slid over his forehead, the brown waves out of place yet damn near perfect. His wide cheekbones and bright eyes competed for her attention with his fingers, which now played with her lower lip. Two fingers rolling out a peek of the wetness of her mouth as his touch trailed to her chin.
“I said the other day that this isn’t just about sex,” he continued.
“I know—” Now he pressed his middle three fingers against her mouth, harder. She moaned involuntarily, her hard swallow and slow, long inhale the only way to hold back from coming right there in his arms in full view of the damn cat, who had now decided to come back and study them like intriguing prey.
“I know you think you know.” Alex pivoted and grabbed a kitchen chair with the hand that wasn’t making love to her mouth, sitting down and pulling her into his lap. The push of his hardness under her ass made her center swell, her throat tighten with need, and her mouth seek his.
A smile tickled his lips as he stroked her hip, running one wide palm down her thigh. This was a man who enjoyed touching women, sending a thrill of damn near everything through her, as if what she had thought was an isolated, insular act—making love—was instead a blanket that covered her entire world. Instead of separating and compartmentalizing—This is sex time. This is lunch time. This is work time.—he made it seem, in this split second, that it could all be integrated into This is life.
“I need to make sure you know, Josie. This is me telling you so. But first, I want to make love with you, because no matter how many times I tell myself this isn’t only about sex, and that I don’t want to scare you off by making you think I think it’s only about sex, all I can think about is getting you stripped bare and using my hands and tongue and”—he shifted, making it obvious which other part of his body he wished to use—“to make you cry out my name like it’s the only word left in your mind.”