Page 54 of Baby Bodyguard

His smile grew. “And how would you go about that?”

She tilted her head to one side as she considered. “First I’d kiss you. The kind of kiss you’d exchange listening to Barry White’s music. Ones that are slow and deep and vibrate all the way to your toes. Midnight kisses.” A slumbrous quality entered her voice. “Bedroom kisses.”

He nodded, conceding the point. “That might keep me standing here for a bit longer.”

She drifted toward him, her dress whispering silken promises. “Then while you were standing there and I was kissing you senseless, I’d slip off your jacket and unbutton your shirt.”

“Do you think taking off my shirt’s enough to keep me from leaving?”

“There’s no question in my mind.”

He shot her a challenging look. “Prove it. First the kiss. Slow, deep, and vibrating to my toes. That’s what you promised in order to keep me here.”

“And that’s what you’ll get.”

Standing on tiptoe, she slid her fingers into his hair and captured his mouth with hers. Tilting her head to one side she gave him a thorough introduction to slow, followed by one in deep. Just when he thought she’d given him her best shot, she tugged at his bottom lip and proceeded to prove she knew precisely how to make him vibrate straight down to histoes.

Noah cupped her hips and aligned them with his, moving her against him to the music his imagination provided. “Remind me to play Barry White on a regular basis.”

“Oh, but it gets better.” Was she warning or promising? “Now midnight kisses.”

She threatened his sanity with each lazy sweep of her tongue. Tantalizing him one minute, consuming him the next. Teasing with tiny nips before softening the kiss with the gentlest of caresses. Taking him with delicate parries, then aggressive demand.

He fought for breath. “If those are midnight kisses, what the hell qualifies as bedroom ones?”

Her lips slid to his earlobe and she whispered in wicked detail the difference between the two. His arousal hit, instantaneous as it was painful. “Now do you understand why they’re limited to the bedroom?” she teased.

“Because we’d be arrested if we tried it in public?”

“Well… One of us would.” She wrapped her hands around his lapel and smiled up at him, her expression filled with an irresistible combination of mischief and hunger. “I believe I’m supposed to be stripping you while kissing you senseless.”

“Only if you’re still intent on convincing me to stay.”

“Oh, trust me. Iam.”

Noah watched in wry amusement as she pushed and prodded his arms out of his jacket, finally discarding the Armani as though it were a used rag. It went winging through the air to crumple in a heap by the bed, his cummerbund following behind. Next shirt studs rained onto the floor like fallen stars and after what felt like an interminable delay, she dragged his dress shirt off his shoulders. She’d bared him to the waist and he waited to see what she’d do next. She didn’t leave him guessing forlong.

With the lightest of touches, she trailed her fingertips across his shoulders to the hollow at the base of his throat, leaving behind a path of fire. “Do you want to go now?” she murmured.

He fought to organize his thoughts enough to speak. “I’m considering my options.”

“Then I suggest you take this into consideration….”

Her index finger drifted down the center line of his chest, over the planes of his abdomen to the top of his trousers. Heswallowed a groan. How did she manage to rouse such a reaction with one tiny finger? It didn’t seem possible.

She fixed her gaze on him, her rich green eyes filled with sultry promise. The opening of his trousers loosened and she flattened her hand against his belly, warming him with herheat.

“Have I convinced you to stay?”

“Almost.” The word tore from his throat, heavy and guttural and filled with demand.

“Almost?” Her rich laughter stirred an even more painful reaction. “You can’t fool me, Noah. You’re definitely going to stay. Shall I prove it to you?”

She didn’t wait for an answer, but slipped beneath his clothing, cupping his weight in her hands. She offered a smile as knowing as it was filled with ancient feminine mystique. And then, ever so gently, she squeezed.

A roaring filled his head and a cry welled up from someplace raw and elemental. He’d always prided himself on his control, always been the one to take charge. But that control became an illusion. Colors burst behind his closed eyelids. The same blazing orange and excruciating lime-green as the first outfit he’d seen her wear. Carnal Coral combined with Shell Shock Pink and Insatiable Indigo. They whirled through his mind like the colorful bracelets he seen whirling on a slender wrist.

Reason deserted him and he reached for her. The single shoulder strap of her flapper-style dress ripped beneath his hand. Silk rustled suggestively as it slipped from her body and pooled at her feet. She stood before him, unmoving, her skin touched with moonlight, her eyes filled with emerald fire, her moist lips the color of passion. Only the golden delta betweenher thighs remained shadowed, ascrap of black lace preserving her modesty.

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