“I’d best be going,” she ventured, not breaking eye contact with him but taking a step back.
His eyes twinkled. “In a rush?”
“It’s been a long day. I look forward to going to sleep.” Yes, she had put emphasis on the word “sleep”. “I’m sure you feel the same.”
One side of his mouth crooked upward. “Then I guess I have no choice but to say good night.”
Sarah barely held back her sigh of relief. Which was just as well, because Jude did the unthinkable.
He kissed her.
Just a short peck on her mouth with his warm lips, but one she felt ricochet all the way to her toes and bring every nerve cell to life along the way. The power of Zeus, she thought again, knowing she’d been struck by lightning.
“Goodnight, Sarah,” he said, his lips still so close she could feel his warm breath caress her sensitized mouth. He looked straight into her eyes, his full of what she could only describe as desire.
Desire. For her.
No doubt hers shone the same way.
Because she felt desire. For him.
His lips touched hers again, this time slower, exploring her mouth with his soft, tender touch. He stared into her eyes, searching them as surely as his mouth explored her lips.
She shouldn’t be kissing him. He was a scoundrel, a good-for-nothing womanizer who used women.
Only, deep down, he wasn’t.
She shouldn’t be kissing him. He wasn’t her type.
Only, deep down, he was.
She shouldn’t be kissing him. She wasn’t his type.
Only he was looking at her, kissing her, as if she was.
His kiss was so sweet, so addictive, so electrifying, that she didn’t want him to stop.
So she kissed him back.
Kissed him with the same exploration of his lips, his mouth, that he had kissed her with. At some point her hands found their way to his shoulders, to his neck, to his soft dark hair that she now threaded her fingers through, toying with the silky strands.
Never had she experienced a kiss like this.
Never had she felt a man’s body like his.
Strong, hard, capable of amazing things, focused completely on her every movement, her every response, her every breath.
She didn’t stop him when he cupped her face to kiss her more fully, when his hands worked their way down her shoulders, to her back to settle low and pull her against him.
Oh.
He was long and lean and hard. All man, the kind who rushed into burning buildings to save little girls. The kind who could sweep a woman off her feet without having to catch his breath. The kind whose eyes seduced with just a glimpse.
The kind whose body made a woman want to explore every inch, feel every inch, claim every inch as her own.
That’s how she kissed him, not bothering to hold anything back. What was the point? The moment was some anomaly in time that would never happen again. She’d worry about regrets and recriminations later. Much later.
Jude kissed with a passion she found addictive and she gave in to how she craved him.