Page 24 of Service Included

She wanted to believe that asking for pleasure was not more shameful than wanting a sandwich or a cool drink, not at this moment, at this place, with this man. One part of her brain told her the silence wasn’t long, but another part weighed each word before she spoke. “I think you’ve been hinting that you’re interested in…” The agony of leaping into potential embarrassment momentarily stopped her, but nine rainy Seattle months had floated past since she’d pressed hard to a body that reciprocated desire. Nine months since the wonder of skin to skin had washed through her system. She wanted contact, wanted it with him. It was as simple as that. “Interested inme.”

Saying the words felt like plunging off a swim raft into Lake Washington, her emotions diving from the heat in her cheeks to the cold depths of her stomach. In the silence, she struggled up. “Or did I completely misinterpret?”

“No.” The low-voiced word crushed her guts into a ball of acid before the rest of his sentence penetrated. “You didn’t misinterpret. I—” He, too, paused. “I am. Interested, I mean.”

Maybe her lips parted. Maybe she breathed. Maybe she could smell the fruity essence that clung to his breath, underpinned by what might be almonds, as if he were the most delicious pastry in the case. Damn, she was hungry, hungry to her soul, so hungry and filled with so many maybes that she couldn’t be sure of anything other than how amazing his mouth looked and how ready she was to feel his lips touch hers.

“I’ve been interested since the front door opened.” He’d come so close that the flutters of air from his speech crossed her lips, matching the flutters in her stomach. “The woman standing there looked like she was straight out of a shampoo ad, ponytailand all, except for one thing.” His finger hovered near her elbow. “This. Assassin cult?”

She glanced down at the reminder she’d jotted inside her forearm hours ago. The skin underneath was so pale that she could see the veins pulsing inches from his touch.

Her move.

She kissed him.

She wanted to know the angles and planes that made him, and she began with his mouth. His lips were infinitely more yielding than the marble masterpieces of her imagination. He let her take his upper lip between both of hers to explore the dip in the center, the softness where the edges curved upward, the stubble on his chin where it rubbed hers. He tasted like chocolate, hinting that he’d already had one of the square candies he’d brought her. How could kissing, merely kissing, activate the nerves in her breasts, the flutter in her stomach, the tiny muscles tightening in the arches of her feet? How could she have all these sensations from one simple kiss?

Then he eased back to look into her eyes while his hands settled above her hips. “Nice.”

“Yes.” She sensed his thumbs brush the waistband of her shorts, back and forth between her skin and the denim. She wasn’t going another nine months without this feeling, not even another nine seconds. She reached for his shoulders. “Try again?”

His chest inflated with an indrawn breath, and she had an unexpected premonition that he would say no, but then he nodded. “Absolutely.”

This time, neither of them held back. Her hands grabbed fistfuls of his shirt while their bodies angled to find the tightest alignment. His chest crushed her breasts, her bare legs entwined with his denim-covered ones, and even her toes tangled with his shoelaces as she scrambled over the tops of his shoes, untilshe didn’t think they could squeeze any more snugly together, not unless they stripped. She dug her fingertips into his dense shoulder muscles, the cotton of his shirt a barrier she wanted to disappear, while his lips found the juncture where her neck met her collarbone. Sensation radiated so many waves through her chest, through veins and nerves, through her thighs down to her wobbly knees, that she feared collapsing before they reached the stage of skin to skin. Her hands snaked under his sleeves, and she tried to wrap her hands around his biceps.

“Here.” Taking charge, he turned them until the wooden doors of a cabinet pressed against the back of her thighs. He lifted her to her tiptoes before he suddenly bent low enough to put his shoulders even with her waist, wrapping his hands behind her thighs while she gripped his shoulders. “Okay to lift you?”

He meant to set her on the top of the built-in cupboard. Desire flashed through her so hard, she gasped. To be sitting raised in front of him, high enough to have his face pressed to her breasts, became what she wanted more than anything. To own all his attention. To be his focus, his feast, his goddess. She gasped,“Yes,”and then she was up, her head higher than his even when he straightened.

His touch fell to the bare skin below the edge of her shorts. He urged her to part her thighs, letting him step between while he ran his palms upward, crossing the denim, passing her waist, rubbing the slick fabric of her shirt across her stomach until he circled her breasts.

If only their shirts would disappear and leave their skin for each other. She thrust her breasts high while she bent back her head until it stopped at the wall behind her.

Look at me. Touch me. Bare me.

He understood what she didn’t have to say. “Can I take this off?”

The redundancy, when she’d arched her body like an invitation, made her moan even as the question fired her need. “Yes.”

Somehow, putting her shirt back on this morning had led to this moment where she could watch him wrap his fingers in the blue fabric and lift it, his knuckles rubbing hard over her breasts as he raised the hem. She urged him on by lifting her arms. In the instant when her shirt veiled her face, she understood that she wanted to do nothing but be worshipped. She wanted to feel, but not have to think or plan, justfeel.

Then he freed her and dropped her shirt to the floor. His hands spread across her bare stomach. She’d missed having a man handle her body, having big hands span her waist, feeling adored and delicate when a man touched her.

He found the bottom edge of her sports bra and stopped. By doing nothing but hovering over her with his breath brushing her neck and his hands motionless across her ribs, he was toying with her.

She pressed her hands hard against the desk and locked her elbows, pushing her body higher and closer to the heat of his mouth, the roughness of his cheeks and chin.

“Not yet,” he muttered. He trailed his fingers across the writing on her inner arm.

Where he touched, she shivered.

“You didn’t tell me what it means.” The pad of his thumb felt rough as he traced the words she’d jotted hours ago.

“Work.” She wanted that thumb on her nipples or her stomach or between her legs, but all she got from him was a touch on her arm.Damn him.

“Hmm.” As he lowered his face to her shoulder, the hair on the back of her neck stood as erect as her nipples, wanting. Everything in her was defined with that one word:wanting.

“Tell me about it.” His mouth was so close to her skin, she felt the moist heat of his breath, felt the brush of his loose hair along her jawline, but still, he didn’t kiss her. She wanted him to touch her breasts, but he didn’t. She imagined this moment, frozen in a never-completed chase like Bernini’sApollo and Daphnefor infinity.

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