Down & Dirty (Lightning 1)

He’s Hunter freaking Browning, after all, and his body is perfect. Absolutely perfect. And mine…isn’t. My breasts are too big, my hips too curvy, my legs too short…and as I face his scrutiny, these flaws are all I can think of.

Until Hunter releases a breath I didn’t know he was holding and says, voice hoarse and aching, “You’re so beautiful. So goddamn beautiful you take my breath away.”

My knees buckle a little at the sincerity in his tone, and relief swamps me. Unfreezes me. And I move toward him, reach for him.

He takes my hand, lifts it palm first to his mouth. Then slowly, gently—eyes once again locked on mine—he bites down on the fleshy mound at the base of my palm. I gasp, pull back a little in surprise. But he doesn’t relinquish his hold. Instead, he holds me tight as he licks over the slight hurt.

Heat radiates through me, makes me weak in the way that only Hunter can. But then he’s holding my hand out, using the leverage he gains to spin me around so that my back is to his front. I’m still in the five inch heels I wore to the gala, so our height difference isn’t too terrible, and I relish the feel of his hard thighs against my ass, his erection against my lower back.

“Do you have any idea the things I want to do to you?” he growls against my ear.

I nod, slowly, because there are a million things I want to do to him.

“I want to wreck you,” he continues, voice low and raspy. “I want to give you more pleasure than you’ve ever had. So much that you cry for more, beg for it, and then I want to start all over again.”

His hand slips up my stomach to cup my breast to squeeze my nipple tightly between his thumb and index finger.

“How does that sound?” he asks.

I nod, because he’s robbed me of breath and I can’t force any words through my tight throat.

“But first, this.” He trails his lips over my jaw, down my neck to the curve of my shoulder. He stays

there for a moment, pressing hot kisses to the sensitive skin at the nape of my neck, the back of my shoulder. I sag against him, suddenly unsure if my legs can support my weight as pleasure sparks through me.

But Hunter is having none of it. Instead, he steadies me with hands on my hips and then—when all my leg muscles are working again—he steps back from me.

I make an instinctive sound of protest, but he uses two fingers to tap sharply at my hip and I quiet down immediately. Strange how I’ve never done anything like this before, never given a guy any kind of control over me in bed or out, but I know instinctively what he’s asking for. What he wants. Because with Hunter it’s different and I want—need—nothing more than to give myself over to him completely.

And so I wait for him, for whatever comes next.

But the last thing I expect is for him to drop to his knees behind me. For him to bend my knee and lift my foot so he can slip off first one shoe and then the other. Then he unfastens the top of first one stocking and then the other from my garter belt before slowly, carefully, rolling them down my legs. As he does, he skims his mouth along each inch of skin he reveals, paying careful attention to the sensitive skin at the back of my knees.

I tremble when he kisses there, cry out, and he laughs, a dark, wicked sound that has heat slamming through me. I start to turn, to press myself against him, but his hands clench at my hips, his fingers digging in just a little as he locks me in place.

I freeze at his unspoken command, then wait impatiently for whatever he’s going to do next. But when he pushes to his feet, walks away, I can’t help but whimper just a little. I need his hands on me, crave the pleasure he can give me like an addict craves a fix.

He hushes me from his spot across the room and I watch, confused, as he picks up my palette from where I left it on the top of my painting shelves. He peels off the cover I use to keep the paint moist, then slowly walks back toward me.

“What—” My voice breaks at the look in his eyes, the intensity on his face. I moisten my lips, try again. “What are you doing?”

“Showing you my painting style. It’s what you wanted to see, isn’t it?”

Right now, there’s a lot I want to see, starting with his chest, his abs, his mouthwatering V-cut. But I’m curious, too. I want to know what he’s planning. What he’s going to do—to my paints and to me.

And then he’s right here in front of me, so close that I can reach out and touch him, kiss him, press myself against him. But just as I start to reach for him, he holds out my palette and says, “Hold on to this for me, will you?”

I take it from him—of course I do—then watch, mouth watering, as he shrugs out of his tuxedo jacket and loosens his bow tie. Then he’s unfastening his cuffs, unbuttoning his shirt. “You don’t mind if I take this off, do you?” he asks as he slips it off. “I don’t want to get it dirty.”

I nearly swallow my own tongue as his beautiful body comes into view, and it takes every ounce of self-control I have not to drop to my knees in front of him. Not to run my hands over his powerful biceps and lean, strong back.

He smiles like he knows what I’m thinking—what I’m feeling—then steps close for just a moment and crushes his mouth down on mine. I gasp at the contact, my tongue tangling with his as he delves deep. But just as I start to melt, he pulls away again, slips the palette from my hands.

And then he’s dipping two fingers in the well of red paint and sliding them slowly, sensuously, down the center of my body.

I gasp at the wet chill of the paint, my body bowing backward in an instinctive effort to get away. But he just wraps his free hand around me, resting his hand on my lower back. “Stay with me,” he growls. “Don’t move.”

I’m helpless to resist the command in his voice, any more than I can resist the soft stroking of his fingers against my skin. “Okay,” I whisper.