Worth the Risk (Worth It 2)

So was he, but that wasn’t a valid excuse for what happened between them and they both knew it. “I think it would’ve been just as spectacular if we’d both been sober,” he confessed.

She remained quiet and he continued his massage. Her muscles went pliant beneath his fingertips, her entire body softening, as did her attitude. She gave a little gasp when he hit an extremely tight spot and he went to work on it, earning a sexy little whimper of pleasure for his efforts.

He stifled the groan that wanted to escape. He was torturing himself and they hadn’t even really done anything yet.

“The traffic still looks awful.” She studied the maze of clogged streets below them.

“Yeah.” Saturday night was always pretty bad, but something must’ve been going on to make it this extreme. “You can stay here for as long as you like. I’ll have Donny take you home.”

She turned to face him, her eyes wide as she stared up at him. “You won’t come with us?”

“Do you want me to come with you?” Ah, innuendo. One of his favorite flirtation tactics.

“I—there are a lot of things I want.” She bent her head and stared at the floor. “Things that I shouldn’t want, that I can’t really have.”

Unable to resist, he reached out, tipped her chin up with two fingers. “Who says you can’t have what you want?”

“But those—things are bad for me,” she whispered.

He trailed his thumb across her chin, the tip of it just brushing the edge of her bottom lip. She believed him bad for her. She was probably right. “You won’t know unless you try.”

“I did try. Once. Briefly.” She caught her lower lip with her teeth, and the last remnants of his defenses came crumbling down. There was no reason whatsoever that should stop him from making this woman his—at least for tonight.

Unless the woman herself told him he should stop. Above all else, he respected women. Particularly this one.

“Too brief,” he murmured just before he closed in on her and pressed his mouth to hers.

The kiss was simple, downright chaste, and he didn’t push. Kept it sweet, kept his hands off her with the exception of his fingers beneath her chin. Once he settled his hands on her sexy body, he was done for.

Hell, he was barely hanging on to his control with a brief kiss.

Their mouths parted, reconnected, her lips opening more with every little kiss. He stepped closer, moving his fingers so he could stroke her petal-soft cheek. Carefully, with the restraint of a saint, he touched his tongue to the center of her bottom lip, then slipped it inside her mouth…brushed his tongue against hers.

A whisper of a sigh escaped her, and she stepped fully into him, her arms sliding around his neck, her hands clutching the back of his head. The feel of her body close to his, the way she touched him, kissed him, moaned for him…

That did it. The restraint slipped from him like iron shackles being wrenched from his arms and legs after being locked up for an eternity. He was free. Free to touch her, free to do all the things he’d wanted to do to her for months.

He wound his arm around her waist and hauled her against him, his other hand slipping ‘round so he could cradle the back of her head. He held her there, completely in his embrace, thoroughly searching her mouth with his tongue. Pressing his groin against her so she could feel exactly what she did to him.

Breaking the kiss first, he stared down at her flushed face, her swollen, damp lips. She breathed heavily and blinked open her eyes, confusion swirling in their green depths. “Why did you stop?”

Hunter smiled. He loved hearing her say that. “Was that bad for you?”

She blinked, a slow sweep of thick, dark eyelashes and she tightened her hold on him. “Was what bad for me?”

“The kiss. Our kiss.” He bent and took her mouth again for good measure. “Was that a terrible idea? Do you want me to stop?”

“Will you still respect me in the morning if I say no, I don’t want you to stop?” she asked in a hoarse whisper.

Triumph filled him to overflowing. “Of course I would, Gracie. If you told me to stop right now, five minutes from now, hell, ten minutes from now, I’d do it. I’d never push you into something you don’t want to do.”

A smile curved her lips. It was genuine; it lit her eyes and made them sparkle. Her entire face glowed, and a secret thrill pulsed through him.

He’d made her feel that way. He was the reason she was smiling and looking so pleased with it all.

She leaned in close, her lips at his ear, her breath hot when she spoke. “Then take me to your bedroom, Hunter. Do it now before I chicken out.”

He couldn’t resist that sultry whispered command.