Page 33 of Sweet Passions at Bayside
The showroom and the people in it fell away as his arms circled her. One hand came to rest at the top of her spine, the other on her lower back, pressing her closer. Her heart beat rapidly against his, and her breathing shallowed. Her fingers dug into him through the thick denim of his pocket.Finally, she was right there with him.
“Emery—”
“Did you get it all worked out?” Blaine’s voice broke through their connection but didn’t sever it completely.
Emery’s gaze never left Dean’s. He expected her to pull away at any second, but her fingers pressed harder. Oh, how he wished they were someplace private.
“We did,” he finally said to Blaine, unwilling to look away from Emery.
In the next moment, her gaze dropped to his mouth, hovering long enough for him to weave a quick and dirty fantasy about what he’d like to do with said mouth. Dean cleared his throat to try to erase the image he’d conjured of Emery propped up on the edge of the worktable, moaning his name as he devoured her sweetness, but the image had burned into his mind. She was looking at him like she could read his mind—and liked it. Getting turned on in front of Blaine was not on his agenda.
Emery bit her lower lip, her eyes dancing with devilish mischief. She stepped sideways, her fingers slipping from his pocket, leaving him to bear the brunt of his fantasy in front of his buddy. He scrubbed a hand down his face and quickly glanced down, relieved to find his shirt was long enough to hide his arousal.
“Yeah,” Dean uttered, trying not to sound as sexually frustrated as he was. He gathered and rolled the plans, holding them in one hand as he took Emery’s arm in the other. “We’re good. I’ll email you the order.”
She giggled as he hurried her toward the door.
Outside, he said, “You think that’s funny?”
He turned her in his arms, backing her up against the side of the truck, and boxed her in with his body.
“Seeing your bad self out of control?” she asked with another sweet, infuriating laugh. “Heck, yes, it’s funny.”
He grabbed her wrists and pinned them beside her head. The plans sailed to the pavement. He sank down and arched forward, pressing against her, and her eyes took on that hazy, sensual look he was earning so often today. Her skin flushed, and her lips parted. For all her sass, and self-pronounced strength and resilience, she looked anything butin control.
He dipped his head, touching his lips to her neck, and dragged his tongue along her heated flesh until he reached her earlobe, which he took between his teeth, biting just hard enough for her to inhale sharply. She struggled against his grip, but her head tilted away, exposing more of her neck for him to devour. But he had something else in mind. A little lesson.
Using his fingers, he stretched her hand flat against the truck, and he lowered his mouth to the tender skin of her palm, lavishing it with a long, hot, openmouthed kiss. She sighed wantonly, her back bowing off the truck, and she rubbed her body against him like a cat in heat. He grazed his teeth along her wrist and followed the sleek lines of her smooth skin all the way up her arm to her shoulder.
Needy, sinful sounds escaped her, and when he brushed his lips over her cheek, his name sailed from her lungs like a plea—“Dean—” Her fingers stretched to touch him. “Please,” she begged.
“Oh yeah, doll,” he practically growled into her ear, before sliding his tongue along the shell, earning another lustful sound. He lifted her hands higher, grasping them both within one of his, and ran his fingers lightly down her side, making her shiver. “That’s it, sweetness.”
He flattened his hand over her hip and slipped it around her, bringing her even tighter against him. “Don’t even try to tell me you don’t want me. You don’t wantthis.” He accentuated his words with a pulse of his body against hers. “Friends or not,I’mthe man you crave.”
She was breathing fast, her eyes narrowing. His hand slid to her butt and she held her breath, her eyes pleading for more.
“I’d bet my life, if I were to touch you, I’d find you ready for me.”
Her cheeks flamed.
“Tell me I’m wrong, doll.” He kissed the corner of her mouth. “You can see my arousal. I cansenseyours.”
Her mouth clamped shut.
Still holding her wrists in one hand, he cupped her jaw with the other and brushed his thumb over her lips. Her tongue slid across her lower lip, and it took all of his control not to seal his mouth over hers. He laced his fingers with hers, moving both hands beside her head, and nibbled on her neck again, until she was panting, eyes closed, skin flushed. She was the sexiest woman he’d ever seen, and she’d had him wanting her since the very day they’d met, but as badly as he wanted her, he reminded himself this was a lesson in control.
He touched his forehead to hers, soaking in the rising and falling of her chest with every needful breath. He released her hands and bent to retrieve the plans. As his face neared the juncture of her thighs, he looked up at her, and the air rushed from her lungs. Plans in hand, he pressed the unlock button on his key fob and headed for the driver’s side, leaving her trembling, panting, and, he knew,beyondneedy, as he ground out, “Not so funny now, is it, doll?”
BY MIDAFTERNOON, EMERY had accepted that the idea of not getting hot and bothered every time Dean looked at her was hopeless, much less when he put his hand on her lower back as they ordered lunch at Mac’s Seafood by the Wellfleet Pier. Her body had become a ticking time bomb. She had no idea how she made it through lunch. She needed relief, but there was no relief in sight. Every glance, every joke, every brush of Dean’s hot skin against hers stoked the needy woman inside her.
After lunch, as they drove around town leaving flyers for her yoga classes at local businesses, her traitorous body remembered the weight of him pressed against her, the feel of his breath on her cheek, his tongue on her neck, hand,wrist, and the hungry look in his eyes as he shredded her walls, one touch, one word, onelookat a time. Who knew Dean was such a master seducer?
Holy cow. She had definitely met her match.
By late afternoon, when they stopped at Dean’s place so he could put on his swim trunks and pick up two of his surfboards, shefinallyfelt a modicum of control.
“We’ll get a wet suit for you at my buddy Jonny’s shop,” he said as he came out of the house carrying his wet suit and headed for a shed in the backyard.
