Down & Dirty (Lightning 1)

“Fuck, baby, I need you to come with me. I’m coming. Fuck, I’m—” Hunter groans, his fingers tightening in my hair as he tries to pull me off. But I’m teetering on the edge of my own orgasm and there’s no way I’m going to deny myself the feel and taste of him on my tongue.

So I suck him hard, suck him deep, one more time. And then he slams over the edge, his release shooting onto my tongue and down my throat in a series of powerful pulses that have my own climax rising up like a wave to swamp me. To pull me under.

My last coherent thought is that I want to see and I blink my eyes open just in time to watch Hunter’s skin flush and his sharp eyes turn blurry as he gives himself over to a pleasure so intense that for a moment I fear it will tear us both to shreds.

Chapter 14

When it’s over, when the last, shaky tremors of orgasm finally slip away, my ability to do more than feel finally returns. And all I can think is, What have I done? Well, that and, When can I do it again?

The latter is exactly the wrong question to ask, but as Hunter reaches down and helps me to my feet, it’s almost all that I can think about.

Kissing him again.

Feeling him inside me for the first time.

Taking him over the edge one more time.

Letting him make me come again and again and again. God knows, he managed to do it twice in this garden with little more than his thumb and the sexiest set of instructions ever directed at me. Who knows what he can do if he actually gets his cock inside me?

My knees go weak at the thought and suddenly I want nothing more than for him to back me up against the nearest tree and pound into me until we both explode all over again.

But he obviously doesn’t feel the same way, as he’s pulling down my skirt now, his hands gentle as he smooths the soft material over my hips and down my thighs.

“You okay?” he murmurs, lips pressed against my temple as he straightens my blouse next.

I nod, then stand frozen as he carefully fastens the buttons he undid earlier. He starts at the bottom, his fingers gliding softly—so softly—over the skin of my abdomen, my midriff, my chest, until the last button is done. And then he leans forward and presses one more tender kiss to the hollow of my throat.

My knees actually buckle as his lips skim across my collarbone and I cry out, reaching for him. He grabs me—of course he does—then pulls me against him as he strokes soothing hands down my arms, my back, my ass. He murmurs sweet things into my ear as he does it, a jumble of words that don’t make much sense but somehow soothe my overwrought body like nothing else could have.

I know we need to go, just like I know that I’ll have to face the consequences of my totally unprofessional behavior soon enough. But not yet. Not just yet.

So instead of worrying about throwing off our appointment schedule, I bury my face in the hollow of his throat.

Feel the fast staccato beat of his heart beneath my lips.

Breathe in the warm, sexy scent of him.

He smells delicious, like everything I never understood I wanted, and somehow I know that whatever happens here—whatever happens with Hunter in general—orange and bergamot mingled with the soft scent of jasmine flowers on the wind will be an aphrodisiac to me for the rest of my life.

He holds me for as long as I need him to, hands soft, voice low, face more tender than I’ve ever seen it. In these moments he’s as different from the man I met yesterday morning as night is from day and I’ve never felt safer or more secure.

I know it’s stupid to feel this way—after all, his reputation with women is legendary. But right now, none of that seems to matter. Nothing does but the way his touch warms me from the inside out.

I pull away first, not because I want to but because something tells me that he won’t be the first one to let go. Not the man who re-dressed me so tenderly, who held me up when I couldn’t do it for myself.

Our eyes meet and his are shaded, a dark, verdant green that I feel all the way to my toes. “I’m good,” I tell him before he can ask.

“Yeah?”

I nod. “Yeah.”

“Good.” He smiles then, so bright it nearly blinds me. Then again, that could just be the feels bouncing around inside of me like laser beams.

I watch, more fascinated than I should be, as he tucks himself back into his jeans. Then he bends down and picks my ripped panties off the ground. I start to take them from him but he just shoots me a wicked look before stuffing them in the front pocket of his jeans.

Trophy? I wonder. Or souvenir. The only difference is intention. If you’d asked me yesterday, I would have said trophy. But now, as he wraps an arm around my waist and propels me gently toward the back door of this ridiculous, ridiculous house, I can’t help wondering if it’s the latter. And if it is, what that means. For him. For me. For us—if there even is an us beyond this one nebulous afternoon.

Hunter’s arm stays around me all the way to the car, even when I stop to lock up the house and deposit the key back in the lockbox. He opens the car door for me, gently helps me inside, then pauses to drop a kiss on my lips before closing the door and jogging around to the driver’s side.