“Because I’ve had a hard-on all week imagining you naked in this bed. A man can’t paint in high places with a hard-on. I think there’s some kind of local ordinance against it.” He moved his mouth to the sensitive skin below her ear and traced lazy circles with his tongue.
Mistake, mistake, mistake! Amanda sighed. Her mature self may as well shut up. It was a big fat loser. She was going to ignore her common sense and ten years of accumulated lessons learned. She’d go with what she wanted just because she wanted it. Her desire for Con went beyond the hurt feelings of a seventeen-year-old, beyond her fear of any complication that would interfere with her New York career. If New York couldn’t stand up to one night with Con, then she needed to find out now.
“We can’t have you turning into an outlaw.” Leaning forward, she slid her tongue across one of his nipples. He sucked in his breath. “Of course, there’s something really sexy about an outlaw with a hard-on.”
His soft laughter spurred her on.
“Just call me the Lone Arranger. I can arrange your furniture or a hot night of sex.” She laid both palms flat against his chest. “Kinky or otherwise.” His skin was still damp from his shower, and his nipples pressed into her palms. The pressure registered as an anticipatory clenching low in her belly. “I’m here to save you from a life of crime, restore Sweetie Pie to perkiness, and find out if you’re still as spectacular as I remember.” She reached between them with one hand and yanked his towel from his hips. As she let the towel drop to the floor, she glanced down. “Everything does grow bigger in Texas.”
“Well, hell.” His voice was husky with need and more than a little surprise. “Kinky or otherwise? I like it. I knew my wicked woman was hiding in there somewhere. Looks like Ms. Neutral has shifted into first gear.”
She leaned into him, feeling the length of his bare body pressed against her. It had been so long, and she was so eager. “Wrong, oh great and magical painter of snakes. It’s been a lot of years since I’ve traveled the open road”—she slid her hands over his arms, his torso, and his thighs to indicate the road she had in mind—“and I’m shifting right through to fifth gear.”
His answer was to put his hands on her shoulders and lower his head to cover her mouth with his. She kept her lips closed so he’d understand the walls might be breached, but she wasn’t flinging the gate open for him. Not right away, anyway.
Walls. Uh-uh, didn’t want to think of walls, or her job, or the snakes now. She wanted to immerse herself in Conleth Maguire and maybe recapture a little of what she’d left behind ten years ago.
He traced her lower lip with his tongue and then gently nipped it. Okay, fifteen seconds was long enough to make her point. Time to fling the gates open. She parted her lips and met his tongue with an eagerness that told her she’d wanted this for longer than she realized.
With a low moan of joy, she savored the taste of toothpaste and the essence of what had always made him an irresistible temptation to her. The pressure of his lips increased, signaling his escalating excitement.
He dropped his hands from her shoulders and stepped away, his breathing ragged in the quiet room. “We need to take our time, sweet-heat. Ten years ago, we ripped each other’s clothes off, fell on the sand, and went crazy. This time we should savor it.”
“Right. We’re adults now. We’ll walk to the bed, I’ll calmly undress—”
“No way. I’ll calmly undress you.”
From the length, breadth, and stiffness of his erection, Amanda doubted his ability to do anything calmly. She, on the other hand, had spent ten years training in the “calm” arena.
She reached for a button on her blouse with shaking fingers. Calm. She took a step toward the bed. Calm. She slid her gaze up Con’s beautiful male body and thought about raking her fingers through his dark hair. Calm. She met his gaze.
He was heat, flame, and she was a damned moth. If she singed her wings, so be it. “What the hell, I can’t wait.” She pulled her blouse from her skirt and fumbled with the buttons.
Con joined her in a tangle of fingers and muffled curses. She was never quite sure who was responsible, but her blouse fell to the rug in a flurry of flying buttons. She kicked off her sandals, shimmied out of her skirt, and wrestled with Con for the privilege of ripping off her bra and panties.
As soon as he retrieved his foil package from the night table, she pulled him down with her onto the bed chanting her mantra of the moment, “Quickquickquick.”
He eased her onto her back. She spread her legs so he could kneel between them. Since they were doing the mature love scene, she’d allow for about, say, three minutes of foreplay. Hey, she didn’t want to rush things.
She pulled his head down to her breasts. It’d been a lot of years. Maybe he’d forgotten where they were. But when he slid his tongue across one nipple and then nipped it, she immediately forgot where she was. He closed his lips around her nipple, and the triple assault of heat, tongue, and pressure narrowed her world to only one sense: touch.
Burying her fingers in his hair, she let the silky strands slide through them. Her nipples were sensitive points of pleasure-pain, and she arched her back just in case he was thinking of abandoning them.
He did. The rat. With complete unconcern for her
