A thrill whipped through her belly.
This time when he kissed her, his tongue swept into her mouth, exploring her, stroking her, tasting her. His hands went to her hair, but it was pinned under her back. “Hold on,” she said, chuckling as she tugged the long length of it out and twisted it so it lay in a soft rope to her side. Belatedly, she realized that she’d pulled it to the unmarred side of her throat, leaving him a clear, close view of both of her scars.
She thought he was going to ask what’d happened, but then his gaze lifted to hers. And there was something there, some emotion that she didn’t know him well enough to name. “Jesus, what if I’d never walked into Murphy’s?”
The soft exclamation reached inside her chest and played with things that hadn’t been played with in so, so long. “What if you’d thought I was crazy when I’d offered to share my nachos?”
He nodded. “What if you hadn’t agreed to take a walk with me?”
“It would’ve been a tragedy,” she said, injecting humor into the affection wrapping around her. Because affection for a man wasn’t something she was used to feeling. Not in a long time.
He tugged at the side of her sweater. “You covered up again is a tragedy.”
That had her grinning again. She arched her back and worked it over her head with his help. “There. That’s a problem I can solve.”
“Much better,” he said, dipping his head to kiss and lick one of her nipples. Against her thigh, his erection grew.
Tara arched into his mouth and surrendered to him exploring her. “Is this Option B?”
He lifted his gaze to look up her body, and if she’d thought him gorgeous before, it was nothing to seeing him with arousal darkening his gaze and highlighting the harsh angles of his face. “Option B?”
Her hand went to his face, her fingers tracing his high cheek bone. Jesse turned his mouth into her touch, surprising her by licking her fingers and sucking two into his mouth. She gasped. “Yeah, um, spreading me out and taking your time.”
The dark brown of his gaze absolutely blazed. “This is exactly fucking that.” He flicked at her nipple with his tongue. “Any objections?”
The way he kept checking in with he
r made it even easier to agree. Tara shook her head, silent this time because she really had no words for what he was doing to her, for how he was overwhelming her. In all the best ways.
“Good. Get comfortable. Because I’m going to be a while.”
Chapter 4
Jesse moved down Tara’s body, intent on finally being able to put his mouth on her everywhere he’d been wanting. So after he took off her jeans and panties for the second time tonight, he got himself good and comfortable between her legs, forcing her with his shoulders to open wider. Then he kissed her thigh. And again. Then higher. Until he was licking her clit and sucking it into his mouth.
Tara’s hands fisted in the comforter. The moan that spilled out of her went directly to his dick and had him licking her harder, sucking at her repeatedly, plunging his tongue deep. She tasted sweet and smelled like the two of them, and it was a heady fucking combination.
Peering up her body, he caught her staring down at him with hooded eyes, her teeth sinking into her bottom lip. “Fuck, you’re gorgeous,” he said.
Her eyes flared as if he’d caught her off guard. It made him wonder if he should back off of giving voice to the shit that popped into his head, except that she seemed to be all about cutting to the chase, too. And then she wiped his concern away. “You are, too.”
Jesse slid his hand between her legs, stroking her with his fingers as she thrust into his touch.
“Please,” she pleaded, the wet evidence of her need driving him wild.
But he wasn’t hurrying this. “Taking my time, Tara. Remember?”
“Oh, God,” she whimpered as he stroked through her arousal and sank one finger deep into her heat. And then he put his mouth back on her, because little had made him feel better in years than the way her body was shaking under his touch.
She’d said earlier that she feared she’d think this was all a dream come tomorrow, and Jesse was determined to make sure that didn’t happen. He wanted to leave her muscles weak, her skin marked, her body absolutely spent from the pleasure she received at his hands. With his mouth. From his cock.
After this night, he wanted Tara to want to come back for more. Because he already knew, as fantastic as all this was, one taste, one time wasn’t going to be enough. Not for him. Not when she looked at him with eyes so full of possibility, with none of the usual disappointment he was used to reading when people looked his way. Not when her moans and her screams and, hell, even her laughter told him that tonight at least, he was good enough.
For once in his damn life.
At thirty-seven, he’d had his share of women. But nothing serious. Never anything serious. For twenty years—from the second he’d graduated high school, left small-town Montana, and never looked back—he’d prioritized the military. After all, the career had cost him his family, so it sure as hell seemed like he should make it his priority. And then there was his work as a navy diver and EOD tech. Nothing had ever demanded Jesse’s 24/7 focus like keeping his people safe in a job in which they were all one hand tremor away from dying in an explosion of pink mist. Which so many of them had.
So damn many.