Page 2 of Reckless Kiss

I closed my eyes for just a moment. Women who drank good bourbon were my greatest weakness.Down boy. It’s just a damn drink.“Another for me and one for the lady.”

I couldn’t stop memorizing her details. Top to bottom, bottom to top. How she managed to make the pin-up look fashionable for work, I didn’t understand. Raven hair curled just so, one side pulled up to reveal her ear. A gorgeous ear. A lobe I wanted to nibble until she sighed. Her nose was narrow and her cheekbones pronounced, altogether a lovely face, but it was her piercing, dancing eyes that brought it all together. Curves in all the best ways, generous breasts, delicious hips, and calves that would make any man drop to their feet and worship.

When I met a new woman the air was always heavy with the promise of things to come, but tonight, with Esme, the air was so thick it was damn near suffocating. Why? I couldn’t really say. She was attractive but so were most women in their own way. There was beauty and sex appeal in anyone if you knew to look for it. And so each of these nights always began with promise, excitement, and the zing of anticipation.

What I was feeling now was not that. It was more. So much more.

She arched a dark, elegant brow as she gazed at me. “Are you really going to wine and dine me, fuck me, and let it be that?” There was nothing but pure curiosity in her question, and maybe some amusement.

“I don’t fuck women.” I offered her the last sip of my Blanton’s but she declined, so I threw it back. “Fuckingimplies using.Fuckingimplies taking. I do not use and I do not take.”

“Well then what do you call it?”

For the life of me I couldn’t get over the mischief in her eyes. “I call it what it is. Sex between two consenting adults.” Except I already knew what we were about to do was more than that. I was half dizzy from her nearness. I had to resist the urge to move closer so I could breathe her in, taste her, feel her skin beneath my palm. My muscles fired, demanding I take the action, all while my mind simultaneously refused to follow through.

“WhyRomance on the Red-Eye?” A smile twitched at the corner of her red lips.

I replied automatically. “Because it was the number one romance on this week’s bestselling charts.”

“You follow bestseller charts?” She flipped through the book, sniffing the pages.

Only a bookworm did such a thing. My skin itched with the feeling of familiarity. As if I knew this woman. No, more that that. It was as if I’dalwaysknown her. As if her smile and her quirks were already memorized by my body. I knew later, when I took her to my bed, she would feel like she’d always been there, that I would already know what she needed, how she needed to be touched. That ache I had to run my tongue over the skin of her throat wasn’t out of curiosity. I had the strangest sensation I already knew exactly how she’d taste, and until I had it, I wouldn’t be whole.

I cleared my throat, hoping it would clear the insanity from my head. “It’s my gimmick. I bring a book to these meetings. I usually choose a romance because while some might not think what we’re agreeing to do is very romantic, I happen to think there is a great deal of romance to it.”

The corner of her mouth quirked up. “I am so intrigued by you Mr. Hancock. Please, tell me how tonight is romantic.”

Romance wasn’t about candles and flowers. It was about intention. I turned my glass on the bar, studying the golden liquid, then held it up for a toast. “Here’s romance for you, Esme. Tonight I promise to fulfill your every need, to give you the pleasure you deserve and worship your body the way it was intended.” Her eyes widened and darkened, the pulse in her throat quickened, her cheeks flushed. My dick hardened in response. “Tonight I am yours and you are mine and nothing else matters.”

She took a shaky breath and touched her glass to mine, then shot it back. “And here I thought romance was dead,” she whispered, clearly affected by my little speech.

Hell, I’d affected myself. I’d said a lot of nice things over the years about why I did what I did, but I’d never spoken with such emotion or intention, as if I needed this night every bit as much as she did.

“Dinner?”

She nodded so I stood and waited while she gracefully slid off the stool. Her pencil skirt clung to her curves, her high heels forcing her hips to sway in that incredibly sexy way as she walked ahead of me.

The hostess saw us coming and waved us to the table I had ready and waiting. Wanting to impress Esme I pulled out her chair before seating myself. We ordered quickly and moved on to flirting. Or maybe it was foreplay. I wasn’t sure anything I’d done since I first laid eyes on her hand had been anything but sexually driven.

We both carefully avoided all mention of careers and family, sticking to safer topics. We shared a love of screwball comedies and horror flicks. We both loved to read. She had an IUD and I promised to wear a condom at all times.

Every moment I slipped a little deeper into lust. The world forgotten and in its place three objectives: taste, breathe, consume.

I had to have her on my tongue. I wanted to drink her in, lick every inch of her body, drown in her flavor. The instinct to have my lips on her created a fog in my head that blotted out everything else.

I needed to breathe her in. I wanted to memorize her scent. Get high on her arousal. I wanted to know what she smelled like now, before me, and then how different she was after I’d pleasured her.

Because I was consumed and I wouldn’t be satisfied until she felt the same way. I needed to be inside her, to feel her muscles clamped around my shaft, locking us together. I was absolutely certain there would be no greater pleasure.

I’d heard of men losing their minds to their dicks but I’d never lost control in that way. What I was feeling now wasn’t that, my dick wasn’t in charge, but I had a feeling this was similar.

And Esme seemed to be affected as well. Neither of us drank anything with dinner and yet her cheeks remained flushed, her eyes bright, and if she sank her white teeth into her damned red lower lip one more time I was going to come in my pants.

She pushed her dark hair behind her ear and rested on her elbow. “How does this work? Is it a one and done kind of deal or is there an open option on the night?”

My body exploded with heat and my heart actually skipped an entire beat from the sudden reaction. “It’s whatever you need, Esme,” I managed to say with a full voice, “I’m yours for the night.”

Her eyes locked with mine, the need and electricity sparking through the air between us. “Good.”

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