Page 81 of Threat of Danger
“I wanted to.”
“Why?”
“I’m not sure if I’ve ever stopped wanting you, Jess.”
She abruptly turned from him, as if turning from accepting his words. “You’ve seen me ...” She sucked in a harsh breath. “You’ve seen me at my worst.”
“I’ve seen you survive.”
She remained silent. She wouldn’t even look at him.
“Are you ...” He had no idea how to ask whether the attack had lingering effects. “Do you not like it when I touch you?”
Slowly, she turned back. “Are you asking if I’m afraid of men? No. I’m not scared of physical intimacy. I worked with an excellent therapist in LA on that for years. Aunt Linda made me go. She was pretty easygoing in every other way, but she made it clear on day one that the therapist wasn’t optional.”
He filled his lungs with the cold air of winter. He didn’t want to think about her life in LA. But he couldn’t ignore it either.
“When you go back, are you planning on ... Are you and Eliot going to get together?” The idea bothered Derek to a shocking degree.
She stiffened. “None of your business.”
“I want you to be mine.” He hadn’t known just how much, until he’d said the words. But now, anything else seemed unacceptable, unbearable.
For a couple of seconds, they both held their breaths.
Then Jess stepped back to him, andshekissed him.
He didn’t give her a chance to change her mind. He took her face in his hands and angled her head for better access.
No smashing of lips or bumping of teeth, no awkwardness—as if they’d never stopped kissing but had been together for the past decade.Shewas the one who licked the seam of his lips! He groaned, instantly filled with blinding need, instantly hard.
When she sucked his bottom lip into her mouth, then gently nibbled on him, he almost went up in flames.“Jesus, Jess.”
He slowly backed her against the wide trunk of a birch tree behind her. Then he unbuttoned her coat. He needed to touch her. His need for her raced out of control.Take it easy. Don’t scare her. Don’t lose it, man.
Her hands were on the zipper of his jacket. She finished first. Her palms smoothed over his chest, then his abdomen, as she discovered him.
If only it was summer—images of him stripping her naked flashed through his brain.
He deepened the kiss, wanting to take what he could, everything he could, while he could. But even after several seconds, she didn’t push him away. She moaned, a soft little moan, so unlike tough, kick-ass Jess.
That heady sound of capitulation slayed him.
His fingers burrowed under her sweater, under her shirt, until they touched hot skin. Her stomach was flat under his palm. His fingers glided over her rib cage on their way to her breasts.
He tunneled under the sports bra until firm globes of flesh filled his hands. He shaped them, massaged, and caressed. He ran his thumbs over her hardening nipples. He drank in the feel of her, that she was his once again, if only for a moment. Any second now, she would pull away. He wanted to have as much as he could until then.
Except, she didn’t tell him to stop. She tugged his shirt out of his pants instead. If any cold air got in, he sure didn’t feel the chill. He felt nothing but the heat of her hands on his skin.
“Jess.” No man had ever sounded more desperate.
He rubbed his hardness against her center. When she opened her legs so he could get closer, he slipped his hands from her perfect breasts and ran them down her sides, her incredible ass, to her thighs, so he could hook under them.
He lifted her, and she responded immediately by wrapping her long legs around his waist. As he rocked into her, she moaned.
He kissed a fevered path down her neck. He wanted her nipples in his mouth, one after the other, but the damn sweater was in the way.
“Take it off,” he rasped.
