Page 42 of Fashionista's Playbook

My whisper stopped him at the foot of the stairs.

“Mariposa, if you’re having second thoughts make them now.” He said, his voice thick and husky. Then he swore under his breath. “I can’t do this.”

I was gripped by a moment of panic, of rejection, before he pushed off the stair rail and spun on me.

Travis moved so fast, his hand was wrapped around the back of my neck and my body pinned against the wall before I registered what was happening. My heart raced, an electric excitement coursing through me.

This was nothing like when Ward hovered over me.

Travis’ breath was warm against my face. His nimble fingers kneaded the back of my neck, while he traced my jaw with the knuckles of his other hand. His gaze was heated with desire, but tender with question.

His muscles were tense, like he was holding himself back. The war inside him, to be gentle when he wanted something else, tipped me over the edge.

No going back. “Kiss me, Travis.”

And he did.

My eyes closed and I gave myself over to the moment. The sensation of my lips against his wasn’t tentative like that first time. There was no hesitation now, Travis’ mouth moved so that his tongue dipped in, tasting and then taking.

I’d never been kissed like that, never had a man claim my mouth like he was starving.

I clung to the muscles in his upper arms, gripping tightly. It was like trying to hold onto steel, hard and unyielding.

When he finally broke free, I was trembling, panting, and wet. All from a kiss.

He glanced down, his eyes no longer questioning, and slid his thigh between mine, which hitched me higher up on the wall.

When he grabbed my hips and jerked me all the way up, I squeaked. “You can’t—” I was too big for a guy to hold up on a wall like that. Fear and a tinge of embarrassment replaced the arousal.

“Mariposa,” he chuckled and trailed his lips down the side of my neck. “I bench press two of you. And hold back men twice your size.”

My muscles relaxed slightly, his hands moving around to grip my ass. His blatant show of strength quieted my insecurities and that one possessive maneuver turned me inside out.

Travis’ hard, muscular body held me pinned to the wall, suspended in midair, with pleasure contracting rhythmically. A shot of adrenaline that spiked me closer and closer to climax, then tempered down to a purr.

His lips found their way back to mine and each kiss was more heated than before.

When he pulled away from the wall, taking me with him, I gasped but didn’t argue. Fear evaporated in all things Travis. God, how I wanted him. The need pulsed between my thighs, hot, wet, and wanting as he laid me on the stairs, spread out on the carpeted runner.

He kissed a hot trail down the front of my throat, between my breasts, pausing only long enough tug at my shirt.

Panic swooped back in. This man was all muscle, coated in tattoos and confidence. No way in hell he was seeing my mid-section.

I jerked it back down, and before he could argue, I wiggled so that my breasts snaked out the top.

His heavy lidded but pointed look told me I’d won, this time. My bra was loose and pushed down before I could think to do it myself. The grin he shot me as he wrapped his mouth around one nipple slid straight to all the naughty parts of me.

He sucked first from one, then the other. Both pink buds stood at attention, throbbing while I trembled.

And when he hooked his fingers in the band of my pants and slid them down my hips, sweeping my panties with them, that genuine anticipation coiled at my core. This was it. This is when I’d have all of him.

Except Travis had other ideas. That began with tossing my pants aside and hooking one leg over his shoulder.

I’d had sex before, but…

“Wait, Travis—” I reached for him, panting, catching him by the shoulders as he began to crawl down the stairs and between my thighs. “I’ve never—”

“You’re a virgin?” Surprise lit his face.

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