Barefoot by the Sea

separate. Sense was derailed again.

“Or will your friends have me arrested?” he asked into the next kiss.

“Hard to say.” The way they’d been talking, the girls were likely to shove Tessa into his car and say “Call us in the morning” instead of rescuing her from doing something really impulsive and stupid and…and…

His tongue trailed the roof of her mouth, sending an avalanche of chills down her spine.

Amazing.

He finally drew away, still so close that she couldn’t focus on anything but the silvery blue of his eyes, the irises rimmed in a smoky charcoal, all fringed with thick black lashes that brushed together as he squinted at her. “I’d prefer they didn’t have me arrested.”

“I’d prefer not to take off with an ax murderer.”

He twirled her hair around one finger, thumbing the nape of her neck with a maddeningly light touch. “I’m not an ax murderer.” Though deep and rumbly, his voice had a strange flatness to it when he said that. “I’m a guy passing through town and you just admitted you’re looking for a man.”

She had, hadn’t she?

“Not exactly a man…” She said vaguely, her brain finally engaging into something close to functional since the moment he’d approached the table and decomposed her gray matter.

“Then what exactly?”

“More like the essence of a man.”

He lifted a brow and fought an amused smile. “What the hell is essence?”

Liquid gold. She tried to scoot back, but she hit the wall and he didn’t give an inch.

“Can you do complicated?” she asked.

“No.” Still holding her head with fingers tunneled into her hair, he took her chin in his other hand and turned her face away from him, leaning so close his lips grazed her ear. “You want me to tell you what I can do?”

She quivered at the warmth of his breath and the heat of his tone. She managed the slightest nod because, yes, please, every nerve in her body tingled in anticipation of what he could do.

“I can kiss you until you can’t even remember your name…or mine.”

John Brown. She couldn’t forget that.

“And…” He dragged a fingertip under her chin and down her throat, a single stroke of fire, stopping right at the dip between her collarbones. With his thumb, he flicked at the neckline of her T-shirt. “I can strip you out of this top without ever taking my tongue out of your mouth.”

That was…a good trick. Yep. She’d like to see that.

“And I could…” His finger dropped a few inches, settling on her breastbone. “I could lick a tattoo right across this sweet, sweet skin.” He flicked her earlobe in case she hadn’t figured out just how talented a tongue he had.

“And I could…” He took a quick pass right over her nipple with one fingertip, making her suck in a surprised breath as she budded like an acorn, her breasts already aching and heavy with need. “Suck on these tasty rosebuds until you melted like chocolate in the sun.”

“Mmmm.” She closed her eyes. “I like chocolate.” And rosebuds. And this. She really liked this.

“Then we’ll get some for you. You can eat it off my…body.”

Silently, she closed her eyes and dug for composure, coming up with nothing but a helpless shudder.

He blew more warm breath into her ear. “Want to know what else I can do?”

“I’m actually…no, well, yeah. Okay.”

He laughed softly. “How ’bout I show instead of tell you?”

The suggestion vibrated through her, tightening every muscle in her body, especially the ones between her legs. She tipped her head to get a look at his smoky eyes, the dark shadows of an unshaved face, the perfect bow of lips she’d already sampled and wanted to taste some more. “You better tell me first.”

“Show.” He closed in for a ferocious kiss, wild and hot, his tongue sliding right into her mouth as his finger continued straight down her body, between her breasts, over her stomach, and stopped right at the snap of her jeans.

“Um, we’re in a bar,” she murmured into his mouth.

“That can be changed.”

Sense. Common freaking sense disappeared at the sight of him. Was this the desperate act of a woman craving sex so badly that she could have it in a bar booth…or was he so unspeakably attractive that she’d let him…

Snap.

Was that the sound of her jeans or the last shreds of her dignity? “I think we should…take a breather here.” She backed into the wall and he put his hand on her thigh.

“I’m breathing fine.” He scooted his hand a little farther between her legs. And, God help her, she didn’t push it away. Even though all she wanted was a sperm donor.

Right? Yes…and no. She wanted the sperm, but she also wanted a man. This man. She closed her eyes and tried to take a steadying breath, putting her hand on his but not exactly moving him off the thigh real estate. Damn, girl, talk about giving mixed messages.

She cleared her throat. “Like I said, it’s complicated.”

“Doesn’t have to be.”

Actually, it did. There’d be explanations, interviews, legal documents. So not what this hot kisser had in mind. “I have some important issues.”

He frowned slightly. “Are you married, Tessa?”

“No.”

“Involved?”

“No.”

“Psychotic?”

Right now? Debatable. “No.”

“Straight?”

“Yes.”

Finally, he relaxed into a smile, a sinful affair that made his eyes gleam and hinted at sexy dimples under the shadow of his beard. “Plus you’ve got bedroom eyes, a delectable mouth, and”—his gaze dropped to her chest—“a sweet rack. Meets all my criteria. What are yours?”

She finally managed to grip his hand and extricate it completely from her leg. “Availability and attraction is all you need to go to bed with someone?”

“Don’t forget the sweet rack.”

Another soft laugh caught in her throat and she studied him. “Well, you are honest, and I like that.”

The faintest, fastest, nearly indecipherable response flickered in his eyes. “What else is on your list for a hookup?”

Someone who didn’t want a hookup. But then, maybe a hookup was exactly what the doctor ordered. No, the fertility doctor ordered sperm, not sex. Couldn’t she have both? Weren’t they supposed to show up at the same party?

“Tessa?” he prompted. “Your list?”

She conjured up the form she’d recently filled out in a clinic. “Blue eyes.” She’d always wanted a blue-eyed baby. Magnetic, mercurial, blinding blue with dark-rimmed irises like the ones she was staring into.

He winked. “Check.”

“Over six feet.” In case she had a boy, she’d want him to have a shot past her own five-foot-four.

“Plus an inch,” he assured her. “And maybe another quarter past that.”

“Athletic and strong.”

He raised his arm and tensed his biceps, letting the bunched muscle wrapped in a tattoo of deep purple thorns speak for itself.

“No illegal drug use, ever.”

Rattling his ice, he said, “As long as scotch is legal, we’re good.”