on his own before he had to get started in the kitchen, but he’d seen her standing here and had been drawn to her like a metal rod to a magnet.
What was it about her? He wished he knew. He’d always been attracted to beautiful women, the more outspoken and unabashedly sexual the better. Em was beautiful, no doubt, but neither outspoken nor unabashedly sexual, and yet she fascinated him. She stood there in a long floral skirt and cream angora sweater with a row of tiny buttons down the front, looking very together despite her blush and wry smile. She’d made an attempt at taming her hair, which amused him. The sides were pulled up in clips, but her long bangs had escaped, framing her jaw on either side. She wore gloss on her lips, something peachy, and he was hungry for it, for her.
Then there was the way she was looking at him, with a repressed yearning that stopped his jaded heart. Damn, her eyes were intoxicating, and suddenly, or maybe not so suddenly at all, he wanted to know what made her tick, what her bare skin felt like, what it tasted like, every inch of it. He wanted to see her lost in him, coming for him, wanted to feel her wrapped around him, panting his name.
No, make that
Em turned back to the erotically charged painting, but he put his hands on her arms and pulled her around to face him. Her eyes were a little dilated now, the pulse at the base of her throat racing. She was every bit as turned-on as he was, which made his condition worse. “Let’s go.”
“What? Where?”
He looked into her wary, but undoubtedly excited, eyes. “You up for an adventure, Emmaline Harris?”
“An adventure? I don’t know…”
“Say yes.”
She stared at him for a long moment. “Yes,” she said softly, then hemmed when he led her to the front doors of the hotel. “Where are we going?”
“It’s an amazing day out there, have you seen it?”
“I haven’t been out yet.”
“Can’t stay inside all day. Not on a day like today.” Jacob nodded to the doorman. It was Jon, who grinned and gave Jacob the thumbs-up sign behind Em’s back.
As they stepped through the doors, a gust of wind wrapped around them in a chilly caress, and Jacob took a moment to admire how it molded Em’s clothes to her belly, hips, legs and breasts, which were not big but not small, either, just right.
Unaware of his perusal of her body, Em tugged a rioting strand of hair out of her mouth. “Jacob, there’s something I really wanted to talk to you about first. My work-”
“No work. Not yet. Look at that sky.” It was a brilliant, shimmering blue, and when Em tipped her head up, it brought a slow, beautiful smile to her face.
He stroked another wayward strand of hair from her cheek just for the excuse of touching her. “Come on. It’s too perfect a day to waste.” Taking her hand in his, he began walking.
Keeping up with him, she said, “Do you ever ask?”
“What?”
She shook her head. “I don’t think you do. You just do whatever you want.”
“Is that a problem?”
“I just can’t believe women let you get away with it. Why would they? Wait, don’t answer that.” She looked baffled and just a little off her axis at the same time. “You are a very spoiled man, Jacob Hill.”
“Spoiled?”
At that, she actually laughed at him at that, a sound he thoroughly enjoyed.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“You are not.”
That tugged a grin out of him. “How about some coffee?” He spread his hands. “Hear that? I’m asking.”
“You’re teasing me is what you’re doing. But yes. Coffee would be great.”
He loved that, quiet or not, she spoke her mind. No pretense. No games.
Traffic was a bitch this morning, nothing new, so he steered her through a throng of pedestrians, easily weaving her across the street between bikes and cabs and honking cars.
“Oh, my God,” Em grumbled beneath her breath when a car came close.
“It’s New York.”
“In L.A.,” she gasped breathlessly, as she kept up, “cars actually stop for people.”
“Here, cars use pedestrians for parking spaces.” He grabbed her arm and tugged her to him when a cab nearly did just that with her toes. “Stick close.”
“Yikes,” she muttered, but stayed against him. Now the strands of her hair stroked his face, the scent delicious enough that he wanted to breathe her in. As her long legs moved in tandem with his, he enjoyed the feel of her thigh brushing against his every step they took. Her breast was pressed up against his ribs and he wanted to turn her to face him, to savor the full experience, but when traffic slowed, she pulled away.
Where was a speeding cab when he needed one?
They walked through the gorgeous Bryant Park, an oasis in the midst of chaos, and were only one block from their destination when a bicyclist came out of nowhere, barreling down the middle of the sidewalk, without any apparent concern that they were in his way.
Perfect. Jacob turned toward Em, put his hands on her waist and pushed her back against the wall of the building at their right.
The bicyclist sped past, swearing at them for good measure.
Em lifted her head, blew a strand of hair out of her mouth and blinked at him. “That man should get a ticket.”
“Not likely, not here.” He touched her chilly cheek, letting his finger linger on her soft skin. “Em.”
Her eyes flickered with something far more than irritation at the cyclist as she licked her lips and slowly raised her gaze to his. The pulse at the base of her neck beat like a poor overworked hummingbird’s wings.
“I’m not going to ask if you mind this time,” he said softly.
Understanding lit her gaze as he lowered his mouth toward hers. In spite of his words, he gave her the chance to stop him. Even a slight pressure from the hands she’d set on his chest would have done it. Instead she did the opposite, slowly curling her fingers into his shirt.
He smiled then, and as he kissed her, he thought,
LOGICALLY EM KNEW this was a mistake but once Jacob’s mouth touched hers, logic flew right out the window, and her body cut off all circulation to her brain cells, including the one that was supposed to say, “Don’t even think about it!”
With a low, rough murmur deep in his throat, his hands came up and framed her face, sliding into her hair to palm her head, changing the angle of the kiss, deepening it.
Oh. My. God.
Helpless against the onslaught of pure lust, Em did as any woman who’d already tasted heaven and wanted to savor it some more would have done-she pulled him even closer and held on for all she was worth. But it was more than just his kiss, his touch. He aroused her physically, no doubt, and yet her need for him came from her heart, too.
If she could think, she’d have been terrified. But she couldn’t think, couldn’t do anything other than feel.
When his tongue slid to find hers, she heard a throaty, desperate sort of growl and realized it came from her.
Oh, boy. She was a goner.
It wasn’t her fault, though. The man was the best kisser she’d ever been with. The best kisser on the planet. She shouldn’t have been surprised. He was a walking dream.
And she didn’t want to wake up.
So she tuned out the sounds of the streets around them-the talking, the footsteps, the honking of impatient drivers-and did what she knew she didn’t do enough: let the experience wash over her. And it did wash over her, everything, his scent, deliciously male, the feel of his long, hard-muscled body pressed to hers, her soft thighs spread by one of his, and his hands…the way they slowly, knowingly glided up and down her arms, then up her
