Page 126 of Riches and Romance

He’d backed her against the wall, but not in a way that felt threatening. He was taller than she was and loomed over her, his broad shoulders blocking most of her line of sight. She was still in her heels and for most men that put her at eye level or taller. Not with this one. It was nice to look up to a man for once. “I think he would invite her back to his room where they wouldn’t shock anyone who happens to walk down the hallway.”

He watched her like he was studying something fascinating, something he wanted desperately to learn. “I happen to know there are only two rooms on this floor, and I saw the couple in the other room go upstairs a few hours ago. They seemed like they were ready for sleep. Not that older couples can’t party the night away, too, but they didn’t seem like the type. So we don’t have to worry about anyone catching us, though I’ll be honest, I wouldn’t be ashamed to get caught touching you.”

He was pushing all her buttons. The good kind. The kind that got her in trouble. “So these are the penthouse suites?”

“Yes. My dad’s company has an agreement with this hotel. We get priority for this suite. We do a lot of business in Dallas, though I don’t live here. I live far enough on the other side of Fort Worth to make it hard to get home, so I stay here, and our suite was open.”

His father’s company must be ridiculously successful, but she wasn’t going to get into that. Money was definitely not the reason she was interested in this hunk of cowboy. She had zero curiosity about his wallet. Now what he had in those jeans of his was another story altogether. “In that case, I suspect the hero would almost certainly kiss the heroine. He might press her against the wall and devour her. He might whisper all the things he’s thinking of doing to her.”

His eyes were on her mouth, as though he was thinking about doing exactly that. “Doing to her? What should I do to you, Nina? Should I take off your clothes? Should I unwrap you like the gift you are, taking my time because this is a present I didn’t expect to get tonight? Should I unbutton that shirt you’re wearing slowly, using every sense I have to catalog how gorgeous you are? Yes, I think that sounds like the way to go. I’ll do it first by touch.”

She was breathless as his fingers moved to unbutton the top two buttons of her blouse, brushing the skin he found there. He eased the sides back until he could see the tops of her breasts, a slight bit of her bra showing. She was damn glad she’d dressed for dinner with Sandra. She’d thought seriously about going the jeans and T-shirt route but at the last minute had wanted to look somewhat professional. A nice blouse meant a lacy bra.

“Soft, but then I knew your skin would feel like silk,” he said, his voice deep.

A shiver of pure desire went through her and at that moment she wouldn’t have cared if they’d been on the busiest floor in the building. He was all that mattered.

“After I’ve touched, I’ll use my eyes to memorize the sight of you.” He was staring down at the tops of her breasts. “You’re beautiful.” He reached out to trace the puckered scar that sat above her breast. “This is recent. Are you all right?”

It had been a couple of months since she’d taken a bullet from a German working against his country’s best interests. Another corporate spy. “I mentioned I work for a security company in London. It was work related, but I’m fine. I don’t want to talk about it, JT. Could we not?”

He seemed to want to press her, but he finally lowered his head. “Doesn’t matter how you got it. It’s part of you and still oddly lovely.”

He gently kissed the scarred flesh. It seemed to come alive under his lips.

She brought her hands up to touch his arms, running from his elbows up to those shoulders that went on for days. It had been far too long since she’d had sex. That was why her whole body was a live wire waiting to go off. It wasn’t merely the fact that JT seemed to know exactly how to touch her, the words to say to make her skin soften, the muscles loosening and readying.

“I’ll use my lips,” he continued. “I think that’s what the hero would do. He would use his lips and tongue and teeth to explore.”

He was going to drive her crazy. She was ready to get on her knees and submit to the man, if she didn’t think that might freak him out. She would tell him that he should definitely use his teeth on her because she liked a bite of pain. Yes, she wasn’t going there tonight. “He would definitely kiss me. I mean the heroine.”

He lifted his head and brought his lips up to hover over hers. So close that she could feel the heat coming off him. “Would he? Would he put his mouth over hers and devour her like the starving man he is? Would he steal her breath? Would he plunge his tongue in like he’s thinking of something else?”

Like his cock. “Yes. He would do all those things.”

“See, I’m thinking I should read some of those books now. Much more pleasant than the ones I end up reading. No one ever kisses in engineering manuals. It’s a mistake, I think.” He lowered his head and brushed his lips along her mouth. “I’m supposed to know how to make things work, how to ease a machine this way or that so we get the best production out of it. All I want to do right now is find a way to make you melt for me.”

He kissed her again, deeper this time, his tongue sliding along the seams of her lips, and she did exactly what he wanted. She melted, opening her mouth and letting him in. She felthis body move in as though he meant to capture every inch of territory she ceded to him. His tongue slid along hers, drawing her in and plunging deep. Showing her what he wanted to do with his dick.

She felt his hands moving from her neck down to her torso, one palm cupping her breast through her shirt. Her nipples peaked, getting hard and sensitive, and she wished there wasn’t all that fabric between them. He pressed her against the wall and she let her hands roam across his muscled back and down to his ass, which was equally muscled. This man worked. Not merely worked out. He worked. It was there in the calluses on his fingers, which deliciously scraped along her skin. She loved the feel of those work-roughened hands smoothing back her blouse, exposing her to his eyes.

She got lost in his kisses. Drugged by the way the man couldn’t seem to get enough. Over and over he kissed her, pulling her lower lip between his teeth and giving her a gentle nip that went straight to her pussy.

She needed more. More of him. More of his touch, more contact between them, more connection. She needed to get out of her skirt and blouse and show herself to him, see if he could handle what she needed.

His hands tugged at her skirt and she found herself pinned against the wall. His leg moved between hers.

“I want to watch you. I don’t know that I’ll be able to later,” he growled against her ear. “Later, I’ll be too far gone, so I want to watch you this once.”

“Watch me?” She wasn’t sure what he was doing, but he was even closer to her than before, their bodies in intimate contact.

“Watch you come.” He moved and she was on his strong thigh, her toes barely touching the ground.

Her skirt was pushed up around her waist and she could feel the denim of his jeans starting to grind against her. The thincotton of her underwear was absolutely no protection against the friction he was creating. But they were in the hall and she was off balance.

“Don’t tense up.” His voice had gone deep, commanding. “I’ve got you. I’m not going to let you fall, and I want you to stop worrying about anyone seeing us. It doesn’t matter. Trust me. Come for me.”

He was taking control in a way that did it for her. Even before she’d worked at The Garden, she’d known this was what she’d needed sexually. There was no backstory that had sent her looking for a dominant partner. That was something a lot of romance novels did get wrong. Oh, she knew some people who came to the lifestyle that way, but not the majority. It was simply how she was wired. She accepted it about herself, and that made it so easy to let him take control.

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