Night Heat (Forged of Steele 2)

And with a low growl, he did. He took her hand in his and led her off the dance floor and out of the nightclub to a place where they could finish what they had started.

“You’re beautiful.”

Bas whispered the words the moment he stepped into Jocelyn’s hotel room and swept her into his arms. The heat that had been simmering within her all day had escalated during the ride in the elevator and what seemed like a long, endless walk down the hall to her room.

“If I’m beautiful, then you are, too,” she said truthfully. There was just something about him that stirred her blood, awakened desires within her and sent rushes of heat thrumming all through her.

Jocelyn had stopped fighting the feeling and was willing to surrender to the inevitable. Since that day in Jason’s office the attraction had been great, bigger, it seemed, than both of them. She hadn’t planned for anything to happen between them this weekend; it was to be fun on her terms. She had gone through life without intimacy with a man, and she assumed she could certainly go on in the same way a while longer. But hadn’t Bas warned her about assuming anything?

“Let’s dispense with all the compliments,” he said, moving toward the sofa instead of the bed. He saw her confused look and gave her a sexy smile that touched her all the way to her toes. After he’d sat down with her cuddled in his arms he said, “I won’t go that far until I’m certain our definitions are the same, Jocelyn.”

She frowned. “They are,” she said, her voice raw and thick.

“I’ve got to be sure it’s not just the night.”

Her frown deepened. It was the night but that wasn’t all it was. “I don’t understand.”

“When you wake up in the morning I don’t want you to have any regrets.”

“And you think I will?”

“Not sure. All I know is that when you left Newton Grove this morning you had no intentions of sleeping with me.”

“Can’t a girl change her mind?”

“Yes, but I have to know it’s for the right reason. I won’t assume anything.”

He saw the flicker of disappointment in her eyes and his lips curved into a seductive smile. “If only you knew how much I want you, how much I want to be inside you, take you with every breath in my body, while replaying every dream I’ve had of you since the first day I laid eyes on you, you’d know how much not making love to you is killing me.”

“It doesn’t look like you’re dying to me,” she said with a bit of sting in her voice as she broke eye contact with him. She just couldn’t figure men out. They wanted you when you weren’t willing and didn’t want you when you were.

As if he read her thoughts he reached out and placed a finger at her chin to lift her gaze back to his. “This is not a game I’m playing, Jocelyn. I want you so much I hurt, and to show you just how much, I’m going to leave you with something to remember me by tonight.”

And then he kissed her with a demand that had her body shuddering all at once. He entered her mouth with a force that claimed it as his, totally, irrevocably. She felt him shift her body in his lap and ease the jacket from her shoulders while not breaking contact with her lips. And then his hands were on her, caressing her through her blouse, and then slipping his fingers beneath it to cup her breasts. He slowly stroked his thumb in the center, across her bra-clad nipple and captured in his mouth the ragged sigh that escaped from deep within her throat.

He eased his mouth from hers. “I want to taste you all over,” he murmured. “I’ve been fantasizing about doing it since the first time I kissed you. You have a unique taste that drives me wild. It makes me want to savor every single inch of you.”

Before Jocelyn could pull in her next breath Bas brought her to her feet to face him and in seconds he was pulling her blouse over her head, then tossing it aside to join her jacket. He released her long enough to slide the jacket off his shoulders and throw it aside, as well.

He took one look at her, standing in front of him in her black lace bra, before leaning over and covering his mouth with hers once again. Sexual sparks crackled, tore into her when she felt his fingers release the clasp of her bra, and then he broke the kiss long enough to strip it off her.