His abs tightened but his smile loosened. “Not enough to distract me from how close your hand is to my cock.”
Heat flared in her cheeks. “Very close,” she said as she trailed the tip of her middle finger down the chestnut brown hair, then squeezed the hard shaft straining against his zipper. A few moments of one-handed work, all very slow and awkward and yet somehow sexy, and she’d unzipped his pants, then tugged the fabric to the tops of his thighs. He didn’t help, just lay there, the fingers of one hand tangled in her hair while the other flexed on her hip, and let her strip him.
The combination of utter availability and remoteness was so hot.
Then hard hands closed on her ass. “Take this off,” he growled as he worked the hem of her sweater over her hips.
“Why?”
He looked at her, the gold flecks in his brown eyes glowing in the lamplight. “Because I like watching you blush.”
“That’s a relief,” she said as he tugged the cashmere sweater over her head. Static electricity lifted her hair in a wild nimbus. He smoothed it down again, hands cupping her ears as his gaze traveled from her eyes to her lips, then to her throat and the tops of her breasts. “I do it all the time,” she added breathlessly.
“All the time?” he asked, as if he hadn’t noticed.
She nodded.
“Show me.”
? ? ?
THE WAY ALANA Wentworth blushed damn near slayed him. Every. Single. Time.
Blushing usually meant innocence, but the combination of soft hands on his body and the heated slide of her tongue banished any illusions he had about sheltered librarians. The color on her cheeks darkened from the pale shade of his grandmother’s Pierre de Ronsard roses into Fragrant Cloud, a color he would associate forevermore with arousal.
He waited a long moment, letting the heat coursing down his spine show in his eyes, until she kissed him again. Her lace bra chafed his chest. Her nipples pebbled as the kiss extended, her tongue rubbing seductively against his before she nipped at his lower lip. He reached behind her and unfastened her bra. The sweet, hot pressure of her breasts made his heart pound. He shifted and tightened one arm around her waist while cupping her breast in his other hand. Her thigh pressed hard against his erection, and for a few moments he indulged himself in the tantalizing, erotic tease of making out on the couch, lips pressed together, tongues sliding. Her hair tumbled on either side of his face, snagging on his five o’clock shadow.
Duke barked. Hands firmly gripping her seriously luscious ass, Lucas paused to listen.
Alana halted her progress down his throat. “What is it?” she murmured.
The last time a woman purred into his ear that plaintively he’d been deep inside her, moving slow and hard and steady.
Duke barked again. Lucas recognized the yelp. It meant Hey, Tall Guy Who Brings Food And Walks Me, there’s someone here! Come see! Come see! The dog, a cheerful, people-loving, retired K-9 member of the Denver PD was Lucas’s polar opposite.
Whoever it was, Lucas was ready to shoot them first and ask questions later.
Another bark. Alana lifted her head and peered in the direction of his house. Since they were in her living room, all she could see was a wall of bookshelves, but he got the idea. He relaxed his grip and groaned low in his throat. “Someone’s at my house.”
That got an unexpected reaction. She sat up, snagged her bra and sweater, and all but levitated backward into the bathroom, where, based on the sounds of lace and silk against skin, she was dressing like a teenager whose parents had come home without warning. For his part he sat up slowly, rubbed his face with both hands, then stood to button his shirt. Tucking his shirt back into his pants only confirmed how frustrated he was. He took a deep breath, thought about cold nights in cold cars staking out coldhearted criminals.
Not working. Blood thumped slow and hot in his veins as he plucked his tie from the floor and stuffed it in his pocket.
“Lucas?”
Mitch Turner. Lucas blew out his breath and thought about blizzards on the high plains.
Alana reappeared beside him, arms tense with the effort of holding the toolbox. “Here. This will . . . I’m sure it won’t look like . . .”
He took the box before she dropped it on her bare feet, but didn’t move. “Hey. We’re two consenting adults.”
“I know . . . it’s just . . . you have a position to maintain in the community, and I’m not . . .”
Was that some kind of code for I don’t want anyone to know what we were doing? He lifted the corners of his mouth in what passed as a smile for him these days. “Relax. I’m fine. You’re fine. It’s all fine.”
“Mayor Turner’s waiting for you!”
He felt his brows furrow. She didn’t seem like the type to get freaked out by a small-town mayor. “It’s still all fine,” he said.
She breathed in, smiled back at him. “Okay. Good. But—”
Next door his screen door slammed. “Lucas? You around?”