Page 13 of Duke's Daring Bookworm
I gestured to the book he dropped.
“Things from your books?” He bent down and picked it up. I had a page bookmarked, and he raised his eyebrow as he read it. “Kinky things from your books.”
“You don’t have to do any of it, but… this may be the only chance I have in my life and if it’s all I’m going to get…” I pulled my legs up under me, curling myself into as small a space as possible at the thought that I may never have an opportunity like this again.
“You want to try everything,” he finished for me like he knew as soon as I started talking exactly what I was going to say.
I shrugged.
He paced again, turning every seventh step, shaking his head occasionally, and finally slumped into his seat on my couch.
He looked at my ceiling.
“God help me. Ok” —I nearly jumped from excitement— “but I reserve the right to stop if it turns out kissing you is like kissing my sister.”
“You don’t have a sister.” He just stared at me silently, waiting for my answer. “Fine. Deal.”
I waited for him to move, but he just sat there, his legs spread wide, taking up most of the couch, and studied me for a minute.
“Come here,” he finally said.
“What?”
“If I’m going to kiss you, I’m going to do it right. Now. Come. Here.” He patted one of his legs and I just stared at it. Sitting on his lap seemed… intimate, almost too close. Which is absurd, because I asked for this, begged for kisses and sex and everything from him. I’d even bookmarked a page in a book, but sitting on his lap, now, here, it was almost too much. Almost.
I swallowed hard and walked over to him.
“Um, like straddling you or across your lap or—I’ve never sat on a lap before.” I tucked some hair that had come out of my loose pony behind my ear and waited for instructions. Embarrassment flooded me at being thirty and so unsure of what to do.
“You choose.” His arms were across the back of the couch, and he sat unmoving while I thought. He lookedpowerful, dangerous, and sexy. I couldn’t look away.
I sat across his lap, as close to his knee as I could. He brought his hands down, one to my hip, and the other slid up my back to tangle in my hair. It felt so much like I imagined in the shower earlier that the breath stuttered out of me.
He angled me toward him until my breasts brushed against him and I had no choice but to put my hands on his chest to balance against him.
Duke used his grip on my head to tilt it, so I looked at him. I’d been so focused on where my chest brushed his that I forgot why I even sat on his lap in the first place.
He brought his hand around and brushed his thumb along my bottom lip, the rough callouses from his regular sparing pulling at it until my mouth opened slightly.
He focused on my mouth, like he was studying and memorizing it. His familiar face had been etched permanently into my mind from a lifetime of friendship, but I’d never noticed the little flecks of gold in his hazel eyes or the way his nose was not quite straight. He must have broken it at some point, but he never said when. There was still so much I didn’t know about him.
Slowly, so slowly that I almost didn’t notice at first, he leaned toward me, eyes still on my mouth. All I could do was stare as his lips met mine, brief at first, just a brush, and then another.
Excited flutters raced across my skin from the feel of him, warm and soft. His thumb, which had been tracing my bottom lip, moved to my chin, and he used his grip there to angle my head and deepen the kiss. He pulled me in closer while he traced my jaw to tangle in my hair.
His grip stung, just a little, but he slipped his tongue out and lightly traced my bottom lip and I forgot all about thesting. I forgot everything but the feel of his tongue tracing my lips.
He gently scraped his teeth along my bottom lip, pulling it into his mouth to nibble on it.
I gasped, and he used the opening to dip his tongue in to brush along mine and coax it into joining him in a delicate dance. I didn’t hesitate or think. I followed his lead.
I traced his broad shoulders before wrapping my arms around his neck, needing to be closer to him, to melt into him and meld our bodies into one.
He used his grip on my hair to pull my head back, just far enough to break our kiss.
Our chest rose and fell together in a rough, primal rhythm. His forehead came down to rest on mine, like he didn’t have the strength left to even hold his head up.
His pupils swallowed the hazel in his green eyes. He looked at me like he’d never seen me before.
