by Jill Shalvis
He slid his hands up her arms and back into her hair. “Right here.” And he kissed her again, a slow, melting nuzzle of lips; warm, comforting.
Tempting.
Her body moved of its own volition, shifting closer, seeking his heat. With a groan, he pulled her in, those wide shoulders blocking out the light, everything but him. One of his big, warm hands settled at the nape of her neck, holding her steady as he continued to kiss the ever-loving daylights out of her.
She cupped his strong jaw, stroking the two-day stubble that she wanted to feel scrape over her body. When her jacket fell from her, she startled. He’d unzipped and nudged it off her shoulders and she hadn’t even noticed.
“Shh,” he whispered, his mouth on her throat. “I’ve got you.”
And he did. Supported between the wall and his big, delicious body, it was okay that her legs felt wobbly.
Because he had her.
They had to break the kiss for a single beat when he lifted her shirt over her head and then his warm hands were on her bare breasts.
He’d unhooked her bra, letting that fall away as well.
Lifting his head, he looked down at her and let out a long, slow exhale, like he was struggling with control. He watched as she arched into his touch, begging without words for his mouth, for him to find her irresistible, pretty.
“I can’t take my eyes off you,” he murmured, lips at her ear. “You’re so beautiful, Willa.”
“Mew!”
“Quiet,” they both said at the same time, holding each other’s laughing gaze.
“I thought it was kids that were supposed to act like birth control,” he said.
Petunia actually sighed and stalked off, legs stiff, tail twitching.
“Don’t go away mad,” Keane told her. “Just go away.”
“Keane.”
“Only for a few minutes,” he called after the cat. And then he lifted Willa into his arms, the muscles of his shoulders and back rippling smoothly under his shirt. Mmm. Pressing her mouth to his jaw, she wrapped her legs around his waist as he carried her down the hall to her bed.
Where he tossed her.
A surprised squeak escaped her but before she’d bounced more than once he was on her, pressing her down into the mattress, covering her body with his.
“What did I say about dominating me?” she asked with a laugh.
He raised his head, his eyes as dark as the night. “I was hoping that didn’t apply to sex.” His mouth left her lips, heading toward her ear, taking little love bites as he went. “Cuz I’m feeling a little dominant here, Willa.”
Each nibble, each scrape of his teeth seemed to melt her bones away. “That’s okay,” she panted. “Maybe we could take turns.”
“Maybe.” His movements over her were sensual, slow, and dreamlike, and so erotic she writhed for more. He worked his way south from her neck to her collarbone—who knew that was an erogenous zone?—making her gasp when he got to her breast. His tongue worked her nipple over, teasing and tormenting along with his talented, knowing hands, and the sensations drove her right to the edge of a cliff and left her hanging there. “Keane.”
“I know.” He slid further down her body, divesting her of the sweats as he went. Then he made himself at home between her legs, spread wide by his broad-as-a-mountain shoulders.
“Um,” she said. “I—”
He scraped her panties to the side, pressed a kiss to the hot, wet flesh he exposed, and she promptly forgot what she’d been about to say. She heard a shuddery moan and was shocked to realize it was her. “Off,” she demanded, pushing his shirt up his ridged abs, not wanting to be the only half-naked one, but also wanting to see his gorgeous bod.
Without skipping a beat or taking his mouth off of her, he reached one hand up and tugged his shirt over his head. This did momentarily rip his mouth from her heated skin, but the moment he was free of the shirt, he went back to loving her with his mouth.
She could feel him now, all of him. “When did you lose the rest of your clothes—Oh my God,” she cried out, eyes crossing with lust when he did something in combination with his teeth, his tongue, and his fingers. “Don’t stop doing that.”
“Never,” he promised as he played with her, teasing her to the very edge. But just as she felt her toes start to curl, he stopped and she cried out.
He only flashed a wicked smile, not at all concerned that he was a fraction of an inch from certain death for leaving her hanging like that. Leaning up over her, he gave her one hard kiss and then hooked his long fingers in the sides of her panties, tugging them down her legs, sending them sailing over his shoulder without taking his eyes off of her.
And what he’d exposed.
“Oh, Willa. Christ.” His big hands held her thighs open. “You’re so gorgeous.” Surging up, he kissed her mouth, his hands still tormenting her, the sensations skittering down her every nerve ending with a little zing, driving her back to the edge she’d never really left. She dug her fingers into his biceps.
“If you stop again—”
“I won’t.” And true to his word, he continued the assault, the sexy bastard, slowly kissing his way south, stopping at her belly button to take a little nibble out of her, making her squirm.
Laughing softly against her, he tightened his grip on her hips, holding her still so he could drive her crazy. This involved his mouth taking the scenic route, where he alternately dragged his tongue along her heated skin and stopped once every other breath or so to take a little love bite.
“Keane!”
He lifted his head, his eyes dark, so dark she nearly drowned in them. “Last time we did this your way,” he said. “It’s my turn now. My way, Willa.”
She swallowed hard at the heat and fierce intensity of his low voice. “And your way is to torture me?”
He flashed another wicked grin. “To start.”
With a groan, she flopped back to the bed, arms over her head.
“Yeah, I like that,” Keane said and reached up, stroking his hands along her arms to her fingers, which he wrapped around the bottom rung of the headboard. “Don’t let go.” Then he held her open, groaned at the visual, and licked the length of her center.
Willa got a little fuzzy on the details after that but they involved her moaning his name nonstop and fisting her hands in his hair, and after a shockingly short time, coming apart for him.
Completely.
His body was hard and muscular and felt amazing against hers and she forced her eyes to open to take in as much as possible because this was absolutely going to have to be it. She couldn’t do this again with him and not hopelessly fall. In fact, she was only half convinced that she could resist doing so this time.
Braced on his forearms on either side of her head, he looked down at her. A lock of hair fell over his forehead, his eyes dark with heat and sexy concentration, his mouth still wet. The sight of him took her breath.
God, he was the beautiful one, she thought dazedly. Simply beautiful. Reaching up, she traced his bottom lip with a fingertip and then tugged him closer so she could suck that lower lip into her mouth.
He gave a half groan, half growl as she slid her tongue into his mouth, sliding it along his.
“Love the taste of you,” he said and thrust inside of her.
She cried out and arched up to meet him, unable to figure out when he’d put on a condom, but grateful one of them was thinking with something other than their pleasure buttons.
Above her, Keane’s eyes drifted shut, his expression uninhibited pleasure.
He took her breath.
He had one arm beneath her shoulders to anchor her, the other gripping her ass as if he needed to be as close as possible. When he began to move, it was in a slow, lazy grind, like he had all the time in the world to love her.
But he didn’t. Given the lump in her throat, they were on a time crunch now, before panic hit. So she shoved him, rolling him to his back. To his credit, he went easily, flashing a wolf smile.
“Your turn?” he asked huskily, his voice pure sex.
Not wasting her breath with words, she rocked her hips, fast and hard.
“Yeah,” he murmured, filling his hands with her breasts. “Your turn.”
Then he became the backseat driver, reaching between them, touching her intimately, knowingly, causing her to explode all over him.
While she was still dazed, she felt his hands shift her, snugging her inner thighs tighter to the outsides of his, causing him to fill her even more, taking her on an out-of-body experience. And this time when she began to convulse around him, he followed her over the edge.
Early the next morning, Willa came awake all warm and toasty, her face smooshed into the crook of Keane’s neck. He was flat on his back, out cold, and she . . . well, she was all over him.
Petunia was no better, having made herself at home on his feet.
Willa put a finger to her lips and very carefully eased away and dashed into her bathroom. She caught a look at herself in the mirror and blinked at the flushed, dazed expression on her face. Was she . . . smiling? Damn, she was. She tried to turn it into a frown but couldn’t. She literally couldn’t.
That’s when she noticed the duffel bag on the floor. Keane must’ve brought it in last night when he’d run out to his truck to get his phone charger somewhere around midnight.
The bag was unzipped and she accidentally-on-purpose took a peek inside. Extra clothes. A toothbrush. Deodorant.
In her hand, her phone beeped and scared her half into an early grave. “Hello?” she whispered.
“Hey,” Elle said. “I—”
“He’s got a one-night-stand kit!” she whispered.
Elle paused. “Who has a what?”
Willa shut the bathroom door, leaned back against it, and let her weak legs collapse, sliding down the door until she was sitting on the floor. “Keane,” she said. “He showed up here last night to pick up Petunia and now I’m in the bathroom looking at a duffel bag full of his stuff that—”
“Whoa. You can’t just go from last night to this morning without more details than that! What’s the matter with you? I want the good stuff. You slept with him again?”
Well, technically, there’d been very little actual sleep involved both on the roof or last night, which had been one round after another of torrid, erotic, sensual sex such as she’d never known.
“You’re holding out on me,” Elle said.
“Forget that!” Willa whispered. “He has a one-night-stand kit!” Okay, technically last night made night two, so it was really a two-night-stand kit.
“Honey, that just makes him a smart man.”
Willa rolled her eyes so hard they nearly fell out of her head and she disconnected. Things were fine. She was fine. She could do this. One-night stands turned into two-night stands all the time. In fact, she stared at Keane’s stuff and could admit that maybe Elle was right. Not that she was about to admit it because Elle already knew she was right.
Elle was always right.
Willa slipped into the only clothes she had in the bathroom—yesterday’s work clothes. She did this because she could think better when she wasn’t naked. A quick peek in the mirror confirmed she was still smiling like an idiot. She took a deep breath and opened the door.
Keane stood there propping up the doorjamb with a beefy shoulder, expression slightly wary. “Hey.”
“Hey.”
He gave her a half smile. “Gotta be honest. I figured you’d be long gone when I woke up.”
“It’s my place.”
“You know what I mean,” he said. He wasn’t playing this morning.
So she wouldn’t either. “I’m working hard at being a grown-up,” she said. “And that would have been rude anyway.”
His smile spread and sent warmth skittering through her. “God forbid you be rude.” He tugged her into him and nuzzled at her neck. “Mornin’.”
Since her knees wobbled, she clutched at him. “Mornin’. Um, Keane?”
“Mmm?” His mouth was busy at her throat and he was big and warm and shirtless, and her eyes nearly rolled back in her head.
“I really do have to get to work,” she managed. “It’s later than I usually get started. You can stay, of course, use my shower, whatever. Just lock up when you go.”
He lifted his head and met her gaze. Searched it. And then apparently decided she was indeed to be trusted being a grown-up because he nodded.
Relief that they were handling this without hurt or hard feelings, and even better yet, a discussion that she wasn’t ready to have, she leaned in and kissed him, going for short and sweet.
But he tightened his grip, changed the angle of her kiss and took over in Keane fashion. By the time he let her go, she had to search her brain for what her game plan had been.
“Work,” he said with a smile. “We both have to get to work.”
“Right.” She blinked. “Um . . .”
With a low laugh, he put his hands on her hips and turned her toward the living room, adding a light smack on her ass to get her moving. “Have a good one.”
She’d had so many orgasms the night before that she couldn’t count them. She was wearing a perma-smile. What could go wrong?
Chapter 22
#ThrowingShade
When Willa was gone, Keane looked down at Pita, sitting calmly near his bare feet.
She regarded him from down the length of her nose and gave a little sniff.
“Yeah, yeah,” he said. “You’re stuck with me again.”
His phone was having a seizure on the nightstand, full of texts and emails from Sass and Mason. He scrubbed a hand down over his face and swore when the phone went off again, this time a call from Sass. He hit ignore.
“Mew,” Pita said, going for pathetic.
“I know. Food. Pronto.” He pulled on his jeans and searched out his shirt, finding it hanging from a lampshade.
Normally this would’ve given him a smile because it meant the night had been suitably down and dirty and sexy hot.
And it had been those things.
It’d also been a helluva lot more. Which he figured was the real reason Willa had taken off so early for work. She was feeling it.
But she didn’t want to.
Not the best feeling in the world. Pulling the shirt over his head, he turned in a circle looking for his shoes.
Petunia was sitting in front of them looking very smug and happy with herself.
“Move, cat.”
For once in her life, she did as he asked. She moved—revealing that she’d once again used his shoes as her own personal kitty litter.
Willa sat on the counter of her own shop in yesterday’s clothes, stuffing her face with Tina’s out-of-this-world muffins.
The muffins didn’t fix anything that was wrong with her life, but they did make her feel better.
It was still early, way before opening time, a fact for which she was grateful. At some point she’d have to figure out how to eke an extra hour out of her day in order to get upstairs to her apartment and out of yesterday’s clothes. She’d also have to figure out how to lose the ridiculously sated, just-laid expression still all over her face, but so far it was refusing to go away.
