Page 51 of Book People

He’s so gorgeous I can’t breathe.

Hard everywhere. Muscled and strong. Crisp hair on his chest, and shoulders to carry the world. Narrow hips and powerful thighs.

My God. This man isn’t a bookseller. He’s a god.

I reach for him, but he’s already pushing me down on the mattress, his warm skin sliding over mine, his weight settling on me. I make a sound and push at him, and we roll over so I’m on top.

I sit up, liking this for now, and look down at him, my palms on his bare chest. His skin is golden and velvety and I love touching it. I stroke him and he stares at me, his gaze dark.

‘Kiss me,’ he says, low and intense. ‘Now.’

‘So demanding,’ I murmur. ‘Not yet. It’s my turn.’

His fingers close around my hips and he holds me down on him, moving beneath me in a way that makes me gasp. ‘Not yet,’ he echoes.

Then he reaches one hand up and closes it in my hair and pulls my mouth down on his.

I love his demands. I love his intensity.

What seems too much in the bookstore is perfect here, and I feel myself change to meet him.

I grab his wrists and put them down on either side of his head and hold them on the pillows. I bite his lower lip and move on him, making him growl. ‘My turn,’ I whisper. ‘Deal with it.’

‘Then touch me, damn you.’

I do. I stroke him, caress him. I taste him. He tastes of salt and heat and musk and he’s delicious. I can’t get enough of him. Despite his demands and his growls, he lets me play, lets me do what I want and, at the end, when I grab another condom from his wallet and straddle him and ride, he grips my hips hard.

‘Fucking beautiful,’ he says roughly, looking up at me. ‘You’re fucking beautiful, Miss Jones.’

He’s the anti-Jasper. The antivenom to my ex’s venom. He gives me back what Jasper took away, and I love him for that.

I smile, then lean down and kiss him. ‘So are you, Mr Blackwood,’ I murmur against his mouth. ‘So are you.’

He makes another growling sound and then he turns us, pins me beneath him and he moves, slow and deep, and I’m lost.

I don’t think I’m ever going to recover from this.

And maybe I don’t want to.

Chapter Fourteen

‘You have bewitched me body and soul’. Forgive me for using another’s words, but sometimes only Austen will do.

H

SEBASTIAN

A warm, muted light presses against my closed lids and I open them, for a moment content to do nothing but lie, warm and sated, in sheets that smell of . . . sex. Of . . . vanilla. Of . . . her.

I blink. And turn my head.

There she is, lying next to me, her hair golden on the pillow and all spread out. She has her hands tucked beneath her chin like a child, and her golden eyelashes rest softly on her satiny cheeks.

She’s beautiful.

She’s fast asleep and I must leave her.

I don’t want to. Even now, I can feel my body hardening, wanting more of her heat, of the feeling of being inside her. Ofher breath in my ear and the sound of my name in her mouth as she comes.

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