Follow My Lead (Stepping Up 2)
He drew back, slightly surprised. His gorgeous, heavy-lidded eyes probed hers. “No,” he said, shrugging his half-removed jacket off and letting it fall to the floor. His fingers framed her neck. “No. That’s not the case, Darla. We are so much more than that. You do things to me that I can’t even try to understand. I just want to keep feeling them. I want…I need to know I make you feel them, too.”
Emotion swelled in her chest. Her hand went to one of his. “You do, Blake. I’ve just been freaked out because of our jobs and because I… My…” She stopped herself before she confessed her family struggles, her gaze dropping to his chest. There was a difference between being honest and revealing your most personal private secrets. She didn’t want him to feel obligated to help or support her because she was struggling. No. Honest was what honest was, but he didn’t deserve to carry her family’s burden. Still, he just felt so big and strong, such an easily created hero, and it would be equally easy to just let him take care of her. And wrong and weak and…
He drew her fingers to his lips. “Tell me, Darla.”
She blinked him back into view. She was tempted by the gentle prod he’d spoken once before back in the hotel, as well, and comforted by the fact that she was certain he wouldn’t push her to reply, as she hadn’t pushed him earlier on the street. She liked that. She liked that he’d wait on her to be ready, just as he was willing to wait before making love. Not that she wanted to wait. But he would wait—for her.
She touched his jaw, letting the light stubble rasp against her fingertips. “I’m just glad you’re here, Blake. Right here, where you can be all mine.” Her hand traveled the wall of his chest, then she pulled his shirt from his pants. She smoothed her hands underneath, over taut skin and flexing muscle. “Thank you for what you tried to do, but no thank you. Stay. I want you to stay.” She nibbled his bottom lip, felt her core clench with anticipation. “I promise to make you as sleep-deprived as I’ll be tomorrow.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” he said, molding her closer with a spray of longer fingers at the base of her back. “Not unless you make me.” He leaned in and brushed his lips over hers, a soft caress and a flicker of tongue just past her teeth, a delicious tease as he murmured, “You taste too good.” He pushed her jacket over her shoulders as she had his. Darla shrugged out of it and Blake was already pulling her to him again, claiming her mouth with his, making love to her with his tongue, his hands bringing her closer and driving her wild. Need charged every nerve ending in her body.
Darla fumbled with his shirt buttons, eager to touch him, to explore every last inch of his hard, hot body. He seemed to feel the same. He fumbled with her blouse, his anxious touch sent buttons flying. She didn’t care. She just wanted skin against skin. He shoved down her bra on one side and palmed her breast, squeezed her nipple, rough but right. Oh, so right. Darla moaned with pleasure, covering his hand with hers.
He slipped a hand beneath her skirt, over her lacy thigh-high stockings and then over her bare backside. He moaned at the same time she did, nipping her bottom lip with his teeth. “Darla, do you have any idea how badly I wanted to do this when you were sitting on that desk during the photo shoot today?” His fingers dipped lower, teasing her with how close he was to the wet heat of her core. He lowered his head and she felt warm breath on her neck before his lips brushed her sensitive skin. “All I could think about was how easily I could have just pulled you close and tasted you again. How much I wanted to lick you and tease you until you called my name.” He squeezed her nipple, flicked it. “Did you think of me touching you, Darla? Of me tasting you?”
“Yes,” she whispered, shocked that she was admitting such a thing, that she had indeed thought those things in the middle of a public place. But she had. Yes, she had. She’d thought of everything, from him tasting her with his mouth on her in the most intimate of ways, to Blake, in all his naked glory, riding her, buried inside her. It had driven her wild. He was driving her wild now. He made her feel free and uninhibited.
“I’ve waited hours for this,” Blake growled huskily. “Hours that I told myself I couldn’t have you. Not tonight.”