Down & Dirty (Lightning 1)

“Okay. I think I’m going to just plead the Fifth on this whole position.”

“Oh my God. You have done it! Oh my God! How did you keep from breaking her in half?”

“It’s not as difficult as it looks.”

“I’m glad to hear that. Because it looks freaking impossible.” She tilts her head, studies the lines of the woman’s body. “No way do I want to work that hard for an orgasm.”

“With the right partner, you don’t have to work very hard at all. Most of it’s on him.”

She shoots me a disbelieving look. “Really? Because she’s the one balanced on her shoulders with her ankles bent over her ears—”

“Yeah, but look at where his hands are. If you’re with a guy who’s strong enough, he can bear most of the weight, which frees you up to just feel.”

She raises a brow. “A guy like you, you mean?”

She means it to be just another joke, but there’s something in her voice that has my senses going on high alert. Something that has my dick stirring in my jeans despite the fact that we’re in the middle of the most bizarre Greco-Roman-influenced sculpture garden I’ve ever seen.

I turn to her then, searching her face for I don’t know what. There must be something in my own face, though, because her breath hitches in her throat. And just that easily, humor turns to a powerful, overwhelming sense of sexual tension. So overwhelming, in fact, that Emerson takes a step back, her hand to her throat just as I take a step forward.

We both freeze, eyes locked as we each wait to see what the other one is going to do. I tell myself that if she backs up I’m going to let her be. I’m not going to pursue her, no matter how much I want to taste her again.

No matter how much I want to feel her ass in my hands, feel her breasts against my chest.

Feel her pussy clench around my dick.

But she doesn’t take another step. She doesn’t move at all except for the sudden, rapid rise and fall of her chest. And the tip of her tongue that keeps darting out to lick her crimson lips.

That’s what does it. That’s what shatters the last of my self-control and has me reaching for her, my hands locking around her upper arms as I pull her flush against me.

“If you don’t want me to kiss you,” I manage to grind out even though I can’t take my eyes off those lips of hers. “Tell me now.”

For long seconds she doesn’t say anything. And then slowly, so slowly, she cups my face in her hands and very deliberately pulls my mouth down to hers.

Just that easily, the tension between us explodes like a five-alarm fire, roaring through me and into her.

She gasps, her body swaying into mine, and I take instant advantage, licking inside her mouth to stroke my tongue around and along her own.

She feels so good, tastes so good, that a part of me wants to stay right here, like this, forever. I’ve been wanting to get my hands—and my mouth—on her again ever since I let her go yesterday.

I used her as a distraction when we were in my truck yesterday, used her as a way to get out of the mess in my head. To forget, for a little while, what waits for me when I go back to Heather’s place. More, what waits for my sister.

But the moment she opened to me yesterday, everything changed. And now, as I kiss her, as I hold her, all I’m thinking about—all I’m feeling—is her. She turns me on like nothing has in a long time, her sassiness and sense of humor going a long way to soothe the demons inside of me.

I don’t know what it is about her that silences all the pain deep inside of me, that beats back the fear and the rage that have been a part of me for so many months, that gives me the chance to just be. To just breathe. I don’t know, and to be honest, I don’t care. All I care about is making her feel as good as she makes me feel.

With that thought in mind, I deepen the kiss, exploring her mouth the way I so desperately want to explore her body and mind.

She tastes like strawberries and sweet cream and I can’t get enough of the taste. Can’t get enough of her.

Especially when she makes those little noises deep in her throat, noises that are half-moan, half–desperate plea. They go straight to my cock—straight to my head and I have to have more of her. Have to have all of her. All I can think about is getting her off.

Keeping one hand on her ass, I slide my other hand up her back to the nape of her neck and tangle my fingers in her hair. Then I twist gently, until the pins holding it up start to loosen.

It doesn’t take long. There’s so much of the stuff and the curls are so wild that it only takes a few tugs before her hair is slipping its restraints and tumbling down over my fingers and her shoulders like a cascade of wild red velvet.

I pull away then, just a little so I can get a good look at her. She’s breathtaking, her lips swollen with my kisses, her skin flushed, her eyes glazed. And her hair is a wild, glorious mess of corkscrew curls falling halfway to her ass. Her very round, very inviting ass.

“You’re so beautiful,” I tell her, sliding her skirt up her thighs. I want to feel that ass in my hands, want to cup it and mold it and hold her tight against me with no fabric to get in the way.