“But the most telling fact that you want me as much as I want you is the way your nipples are getting tight and hard right this second, and the way you’re trying to shift closer, for a more intimate contact, a more explicit touch.” The tips of his fingers skimmed upward, disappearing beneath her shirt to brush along the full undersides of her breasts, a teasing stroke that left her wanting so much more. “Every one of your responses is a dead giveaway.”
He was right. Her responses were uninhibited and wanton, and she couldn’t help herself. Arguing his claim was impossible and ridiculous, so she didn’t even try, especially when the evidence he’d compiled against her was irrefutable.
His gaze burned into hers, and it was obvious he was holding his own hunger for her in check. “You never answered my question, Jo, and a simple yes or no reply will suffice. Do you trust me to kiss you while you’re handcuffed to the bed, without you having any control over what happens?”
A frightening thought, if the circumstances were different, with a man she didn’t trust. He might be the one holding the reins of this seduction, but she also recognized that he was giving her the ultimate power right now—to say no, or take a huge leap of faith. With him.
The forbidden beckoned. So did the fantasy of playing hostage to a man who’d master her with his lips, his mouth, his hands. The thought thrilled her, enticed her, aro
used her.
“Yes, I trust you,” she breathed.
CHAPTER SEVEN
As soon as Dean gained the permission he sought, he tangled his fingers through the silky warmth of her hair at the nape of her neck and tipped her chin up with his thumb beneath her jaw. Lowering his head, he ended the wait, wanting more than his next breath to kiss Jo, to finally taste the desire she exuded. To see if all the sexual tension between them was merely a prelude to a deeper kind of ecstasy.
His mouth settled on hers, sliding slowly, insistently, hotly over hers. Her lips were plush and warm and pliant. Generous. Opening for him and allowing him inside with a soft moan of surrender. With a surge of heat coursing through his veins he exerted a deeper pressure and found her tongue with his. He teased her mercilessly, flirted playfully, and swept the velvet depths of her mouth with seductive forays that coaxed her to be just as bold and daring in return.
She matched his kiss with equal fervor, impetuously chasing his mouth with her own and giving as good as he gave, which heightened his own excitement and inflamed him beyond rational thought or reason. She wasn’t shy about indulging in the erotic pleasures of two people who were highly attracted to each other. Wasn’t modest about enjoying what felt good. Wasn’t at all hesitant in communicating with her lips and tongue and the sinuous movements of her body what she liked and what she wanted more of.
And what she craved was more of him.
She couldn’t use her hands, couldn’t utter a word with her busy, seeking mouth, but she spoke volumes with expressive feminine signals as old as time—a silent, ancient language spoken by a woman to a man, and one he instinctively recognized. The twisting to get closer. The subtle rocking of her hips. The restless shifting of her slender thighs against the one he’d wedged between her legs.
She wanted to be touched, caressed, stroked. Physically and intimately. Wasting no time in fulfilling her need, he glided the hand resting on her waist up her back and smoothed his palm along her spine. She groaned into his mouth and arched and shivered beneath him. Yielding to her body’s silent invitation, he flattened his hand on the small of her back and pulled her more fully against him, as close as her manacled arms would allow. He nearly came apart when her stiff nipples thrust enticingly against his chest and she entwined her legs tighter around his and squeezed.
His breath hitched as a fierce rush of carnal lust and excruciating need flooded his limbs, along with the desire to do things to and with Jo to extinguish the heat simmering in his belly, and lower. He was granite-hard and thicker than he could ever remember being, and more alive than he’d felt in years. All because of this vibrant, sensual woman who’d taken him completely by surprise…in so many ways.
Long minutes later she dragged her mouth from his, straining and pulling against her bonds, her breathing ragged. Unable to resist burying his face in the fragrant curve of her neck, he nuzzled her throat. The stubble along his jaw lightly abraded her skin, and he soothed the scrape with a long, slow lap of his tongue.
She inhaled sharply. The handcuffs rattled, and a frustrated sound caught in her throat. “Release me, Dean,” she groaned.
Certain they’d carried things too far and much too quickly, he immediately obeyed her request. Disengaging himself from her, he reached up and fumbled with the keys until he found the small silver one that unlocked the cuffs and she was freed.
He rubbed his thumbs across the faint red marks that had chafed her wrists, and swore beneath his breath, feeling instantly contrite for keeping her restrained. “Are you okay?”
“I’m just fine,” she said in a low, throaty voice, and pounced at him with startling speed and an astonishing strength that took him completely off guard.
The next thing Dean knew he was flat on his back with Jo positioned on top of him, his own hands pinned securely on either side of his head by her vise-like grip and her knees clenching his thighs to keep him immobile beneath her. As if he was going anywhere, even if he could, he thought wryly.
While she was slender in stature, there was no doubt in his mind that she could take care of herself in a threatening situation. “Is this one of those moves they teach you in the police academy?”
A Cheshire cat smile curved her sweet mouth. “That, and martial arts training comes in handy too.” Her disheveled hair spilled around her flushed face, and she gazed down at him, sloe-eyed, relaxed, and mellow, despite the upper hand she’d managed to gain. “Turnabout being fair play and all, I do believe it’s my turn to have a little fun with the fantasy,” she murmured seductively.
Still sitting on his thighs, still banding his wrists with her fingers, she bent over him and let her mouth hover above his for a few heartbeats. Choppy, uneven breaths blended as she drew out the heady anticipation. Eyes met, intense and hypnotic, and he watched as her irises turned a sultry shade of blue.
Finally, she dipped her head and nibbled at his bottom lip, alternately rolling the soft flesh between her teeth and biting gently to stimulate and arouse. Her velvet soft tongue joined the sensual assault, but stopped short of entering his mouth. She dabbled, tasted, and explored without completely fusing their lips, deliberately driving him wild with her sweet but, oh, so erotic ministrations.
Her hands gradually relaxed their hold and released his wrists. As her mouth continued to seduce his, she skimmed her fingertips down his arms, over his straining biceps, then flattened her palms on his naked chest and brushed her thumbs over his taut nipples. Unable to take any more of her teasing, he cupped the back of her head in his palm and finally ended the exquisite torture she was inflicting with her lips and tongue and fused their mouths completely. With a low, primal growl, he poured all the hungry, pent-up passion of the past twelve hours into the deep, drugging kiss.
His body hummed with tension, along with an aching need to touch her, all of her. To feel more of her lush curves aligned against his harder planes. To find and devour all her most sensitive places with his hands, his mouth, his tongue. To let himself imagine what it would be like to sink deep, deep inside her, lose himself in the throes of mutual pleasure and fuck her until they were both spent and sated.
Seemingly as caught up in the moment as he, she shifted restlessly over him and dragged a hand down his torso and around to his hip in a slow, gliding caress that set his senses on fire. Following her lead, he did the same, skimming both of his palms down to the indentation of her waist, then brazenly slipping lower, until his fingers gripped the backs of her silky, bare thighs. He brushed his thumbs along that quivering flesh, felt her shudder in response, and without further hesitation he tunneled his hands beneath the opening of her shorts.
Her lips managed to cling to his, even as her breath came in shallow pants. Her flesh was warm, sleek, and perfectly toned. Lightly muscled in all the right places, and soft and giving everywhere else. Bolder still, he slipped his palms under the elastic band of her panties and over the smooth curve of her ass. He massaged her supple flesh with his fingers and resisted the urge to follow the crease of her buttocks to the warm and dewy softness he knew he’d find at the apex of her thighs.
She trembled, curled her fingers into a fist against his chest, and groaned long and low. Dean swallowed the earthy sound, feeling her need almost as strongly as he felt the pulse of his own blood throbbing along his dick. The urgency between them was so hot, it threatened to combust and burn them up in the process.