She laughed aloud, and the musical sound hit him square in the solar plexus. “Not quite, but I’d like to be. I’ve got to get through nursing school first.”
“Well, you’ve got to start expanding your horizons somewhere. You know, it’s hard to figure out where you belong and what life might have in store for you if you never live a little. What’s that expression? All work and no play makes Jane a dull girl…”
“I must be the dullest person on the planet,” she groaned. “Nursing school really is harder than I thought. Good, though. I like the challenge. But I haven’t had time for much else since I started. That’s why I’m really looking forward to this winter break. A whole month without research papers and exams!”
“So you have time to spread your wings.” And if he stayed, he’d love to help her spread other appendages, too. “I have some ideas where you can start. Want suggestions?”
“Why not? I have a feeling you’ll give them to me, anyway.”
“You’re right, but I promise to make them good. We might not know each another well yet, but I’m a very good detective. I’ll figure you out…”
She stilled. Her lips parted in a pantomime of a smile. “Have you, um…deduced anything yet?”
Why are you suddenly so nervous, angel?
Seth didn’t want to spook her, like he had at the end of their picnic. She was beginning to open up, so he chose his words carefully. “Well, since you like to try new things, you’ve got courage. I also suspect wine could become one of your favorite indulgences.”
She exhaled the breath she’d been holding. “That’s probably true.”
“And I know you’d love to travel and explore the world.”
“I think about it all the time.”
“Hmm… And on your travels, I can imagine you acquiring a slew of eager lovers, only too happy to satisfy your every desire.” He dropped his voice and seized her stare. “Myself included.”
Her blush deepened to a rosy glow. “I don’t even have time for one man. What would I do with a slew of them?”
Heavenly might have scoffed, but under that she sounded almost wistful.
Seth leaned forward again, his hands dangling over his knees. He stared, his gaze deliberately direct as it traveled down her body. The longer he drank her in, the more her nipples poked the front of her dress. The more she fidgeted as if an ache settled between her legs.
Oh, this was getting good.
“I don’t know about any other guy, but I know what I’d do if you were mine…”
Heavenly downed the last third of her champagne, then set the flute aside before tilting her face his way. Her heavy-lidded gaze nearly had him hurdling the table and closing the distance to kiss her.
“What?”
Her rapt, breathless curiosity made his cock jerk. “You wouldn’t ever want for attention, angel. My hands, my lips, my body would be all over yours at every opportunity. You’d know I was thinking about you all the time and just how indecent my thoughts were.”
She dropped her gaze and hissed in an indrawn breath. The air between them hummed. He focused on the slender column of her neck, watching in satisfaction as the throb of her pulse leapt frantically at her throat.
“Indecent?”
“Filthy. I shouldn’t even repeat what I’d be thinking. It would shock you.”
“T-tell me,” she murmured. “I want to know what you’d imagine if you thought about me…in that way.”
“Once we go down this path, there’s no turning back. You’ll know exactly what’s burning through my brain every time I look at you. And you can’t ‘un-know’ that. Are you sure you want me to go on?”
She bit her lip, crossed her slender legs, then toyed with one earring before stilling again. He waited and watched, every cell in his body tense and desperate for her consent.
The flush of color spreading up her cheeks only made him want her more. The buzz between them charged him like a live wire. He clenched his fists to keep himself from touching her. He just needed that one word…
But she made him wait, staring, her breath uneven as she licked her lips before finally whispering what he wanted to hear. “Yes. Please…”
The rest of his blood rushed south to fill his already engorged cock. “I haven’t kissed you properly. Not yet. But you have no idea how badly I want to nip at those plump lips or how much I fantasize about tasting the rest of your sweetness.”
She blinked, eyes wide, then swallowed and seemingly forgot to breathe. Her nipples hardened even more. “Seth…”
The palpable pull between them thickened. It had him beyond hard and desperate. Christ, when was the last time he thought he’d lose his mind if he couldn’t have a woman? Especially one he’d never even touched?
“Once I showered you with kisses and love bites, you’d be aching to tear away your clothes and press your skin to mine, but I wouldn’t let you. I’d want to undress you myself. And I’d take forever doing it. I’d reveal you one creamy, tantalizing inch at a time, kissing every newly exposed bit of skin until you panted and whimpered and begged.”
She let out a ragged breath. The sound of it was an electric spark that lit up every erogenous zone in his body. She shifted restlessly in her seat again, her hands clasping and clenching in her lap. Her eyes were deliciously dilated.
“But you’d know how unbearably hard and aroused you’d made me, angel, because I’d lift you in my arms and drag you against me, wrapping your legs around my waist so I’d press my thick, hard cock—”
She gasped, the color in her cheeks deepening more. Even the shade of her lips had become a flushed red.
Fuck, she was absolutely stunning.
“I’m shocking you. Should I stop?”
The emphatic shake of her head was an urgent plea. “No. Tell me more.”
The triumph spilling through him was liquid pleasure. “Mmm, where was I?”
“Um, my legs. Around your
