there a while. “I’m sure.”
He slid his hands down her sides to her waist then to her hips. She felt his warm breath by her ear. “I like your skirt.”
Her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth, and she swal owed hard. “It’s vintage.”
“It’s tight,” he whispered against the sensitive side of her neck. “It makes your ass look good.” His palms slid to her bel y and pul ed her back against his chest. The curve of her bottom pressed into his groin. “It gives me bad thoughts.” Through the fabric of his pants and her skirt, his erection brushed against her bottom. “Wanna hear a few?”
Yes, she did, but she knew it was a real y bad idea. Her voice was weak and not at al convincing when she answered, “No.”
He kissed the side of her throat. “Is this stil one of your sweet spots?” The wet press of his hot mouth forced a shudder to work through her relaxed body from the inside out. “Mmm,” he hummed against her skin, adding delicious little shivers and sending her into a sensory overload. She turned and put her hands on his chest to stop him. Through the thin wool of his sweater, and the hard muscles of his chest, she could feel the beating of his heart, much faster than the slow smooth touch of his hands. “We can’t do this.”
One of his hands moved across her bare shoulder to the side of her face. “I’ve been thinking about you a lot.” His lips touched hers, and her breath caught in her throat. “Thinking about you and wondering.”
“What?” Her fingers curled into his sweater.
“Wondering what it is about you that made me lose my mind six years ago.” His lips brushed hers, and hot little shivers tingled her spine. She couldn’t help it. It was involuntary, just like her palms sliding up his chest, over his shoulder. His face was so close, his nose touched hers. She didn’t want him to lose his mind. She didn’t want to lose her mind, either.
“Wondering if being with you would make me lose my mind now.” He slid his palms to her behind and cupped her bottom in his hands. “I wonder if it would be like the first time we had sex.”
She wondered if he even remembered.
He pressed her against him, against the long length of his erection just left of his zipper. “When we were going at it so hard we fel off the bed. So hard we both got rug burns.”
Okay. So he did remember.
He rocked against her pelvis. “Would it be like that again?”
Her breath caught in the top of her lungs, and she moaned a soft, “Yes.” She didn’t know if she meant yes she remembered or wondered or wanted more. Maybe al three. She couldn’t think straight, then he kissed her, and she couldn’t think at al . It started with a gentle press of his lips that she felt in the backs of her knees and the soles of her feet. Her heart pounded, and she opened her mouth beneath his. His tongue touched hers, warm and wet, and he tasted like suppressed aggression, reminding her of something she hadn’t had for a long time. Something she’d forgotten she liked so much. Hot sex with a hot-blooded man.
Her pounding heart sped up, flooding every part of her body with liquid fire. Her emotions remained detached from the long, slow kiss, but her body was ful y engaged. Aching with need. Itching for him to soothe the desire tightening her nipples. His pectoral muscles bunched as she slid her hands up his chest to his shoulders and rose to the bal s of her feet. She pressed the length of her body into his. Against her bare cleavage, she felt every fiber of his wool sweater. Against her pelvis, she felt his rock-hard erection, and she opened her mouth a little wider and devoured him with passionate, feeding, kisses. Undiluted lust twisted her stomach into knots. It had been so long since she’d felt so alive. So burned up inside. So long since the overwhelming urge to touch and be touched. To eat him up, run her mouth al over him. She moved her hands over his shoulders and back, ran her fingers through his cool hair. She wanted him badly. Wanted the hot push and aggressive tug of sex with Sam. The tumble and grind until she exploded and imploded al at the same time.
Just like before.
She pushed back from the insanity and gasped for breath. She couldn’t do this. Not with Sam of al people, and not while her son was in his bedroom coloring pictures.
His hands on her waist tightened, and he pul ed her toward him once more.
“No, Sam.”
His hands on her waist tightened, his breathing hard as if he’d just finished an hour of sprint training. “Yes, Autumn.”
“No.” Saying no to Sam wasn’t easy, but being with Sam was impossible. The last time had cost her a huge chunk of her heart and changed her life completely. She swal owed hard and shook her head. “No.”
He looked at her through blue eyes smoldering with lust and determination. She’d seen it before. Years ago. She’d fal en for it then. She was older now. Wiser, too.
“What are you doing, Sam?”
“The same thing you’re doing. Getting real y turned on.”
“Conner could walk in here at any second.” But that was only a part of why she’d stopped him.
“I’m sure you have a lock on a door in one of the rooms in this house.”
“That’s tacky.”
“That’s what adults do.”
She took a step back, and her shoulders hit the closed refrigerator door. “Is that what you do in your house? Lock yourself inside a bedroom with one of your girlfriends?”
His jaw tightened, and his gaze turned hard. “I’ve never had a girlfriend anywhere near Conner.”
She pul ed up the shoulders of her blouse. It didn’t matter. “Why are you here? Why did you want Conner to invite you to Thanksgiving? Like we’re a family?”
He ran his hands through the sides of his short blond hair, then dropped them to his sides. “I don’t know. Just bored, I guess.”
That’s what she’d thought. “Go find someone else to play with you.” She looked down and buttoned her shirt. “The last time you were bored, I ended up alone and pregnant in a Vegas hotel room.”
Chapter Thirteen
Rain pelted the windows of Autumn’s rented beach house as the storm pushed the black surging tide up the beach to crash within the long grasses whipping about in the extreme winds. A kitchen light il uminated her from behind as she stood in front of an entire wal of windows in the A-frame house. Lightning flashed within the black clouds, and white cracks splintered the night sky a second before thunder boomed. She felt it through the hardwood beneath her bare feet.
Upstairs, in one of the two bedrooms, Conner slept, blissful y unaware of Nature’s chaos. He’d passed out about an hour before, after a ful day of beachcombing in his rubber boots and raincoat. The weather had been fairly tame until the storm had rol ed in three hours ago. Autumn loved a good storm, and this one was proving to be spectacular.
She folded her arms across the thin top of her wiener-dog pajamas. If she hadn’t been alone with only an exhausted five-year-old, it might have been nice to crack open the bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon she’d bought to take back to Shiloh. It might be nice to turn up the fire and listen to the thunder as she laid her cheek on a big shoulder and enjoyed a glass of wine with a man.
Yesterday had been tense, from the moment Sam had arrived until the moment he’d left. Beyond the general tension she usual y felt near Sam, he and Vince had been at each other’s throats, and both took it to a whole new level.
She hunched her shoulders against the air that chil ed her skin and tightened her breasts beneath the T-shirt material. There had been a few brief moments yesterday when her tension had eased. When Sam had smoothed it away with his hands. Then he’d kissed her neck and fil ed the void with a whole different kind of tension. And in those few moments, when he’d kissed her and she’d kissed him back like she was starving, he’d woken every cel in
