Page 32 of Jack of Hearts
He brushed her hands away when she tried to buckle it under her chin. “Let me.” He held her gaze while he adjusted the strap, and it was as if the heat shimmering in his eyes had a direct connection to her girl parts, sending a shiver through her. “There. All buckled up.” Slipping off his leather jacket, he held it out. “Let’s put this on you. Can’t have you getting chilly.”
The jacket held the woodsy scent of him and was warm from his body heat. Between that and the way he was looking at her, she wanted to climb right up him and wrap her legs around his waist. One side of his mouth quirked, as if he could read her thoughts—God forbid.
“I brought the bike tonight because I want to feel you wrapped around me like my favorite blanket. Hold on tight, okay?”
It was definitely okay. Not trusting her voice to be steady, she nodded, the full-faced helmet bouncing on her head. After he swung a leg over the bike and lifted it from the kickstand, she got on behind him, circling her arms around his waist. He put his hands on her knees and pulled her legs tight against his thighs. Her dad’s bike had been a luxury cruiser, with back and arm rests for the passenger. Alex’s didn’t have anything for her to lean against, forcing her to wrap herself around his back. The muscles on his back rippled against her chest when he leaned forward to put his hands on the handlebar. She sighed as the pleasure of being this close to him streamed through every nerve ending on her body.
The ride through the streets of South Beach was a slow one; traffic, as usual, heavy. The sidewalks were crowded with couples and groups headed out to dinner. She caught the envious looks of other women as she and Alex passed.Oh yeah, bitches looking at me with my arms wrapped around the hottest guy on the planet, eat your heart out.
She pressed her face against Alex’s back to hide her grin. As they rode north on A1A, she lifted her face to the wind. She could ride the night away, here on the back of Alex’s bike, holding on to him, smiling back at the people eyeing them from their cars. The men probably wished they were Alex, and the women her.
“You doing okay?” he asked, glancing back when they stopped at a light.
“Are you kidding? This is great.”
He grinned, gave her knee a squeeze, and took off when the light turned green. All too soon, he turned into a condo complex in Surfside, stopped at a security gate leading to an underground parking area, and punched in a code. After he parked and put their helmets in a locker in front of the space, he took her hand and led her to an elevator. A few minutes later, he unlocked his door and stepped back for her to enter.
Curious to see his home, she paused in the foyer. Before she could take anything in, Alex grabbed the waist of her jeans, spinning her around. He backed her up to the wall and stared into her eyes for a moment before covering her mouth with his. She put her hands on his waist, pulling him to her. He groaned, rocking his hips against her while pulling the band from her hair. The leather jacket slipped off her shoulders and dropped to the floor. All the while, he hadn’t stopped kissing her, his tongue hot and wet as he explored her mouth. The only thing holding her up was the wall behind her and Alex’s body pressed against the front of her.
Alex forced himself to pull away when all he wanted to do was lower her to the floor and cover her body with his. From the moment she’d planted thoughts of dirty monkey sex into his brain, he’d not been able to think of anything else.
But not tonight, no matter how much his dick screamed otherwise. He wanted them to spend time together, to get to know each other before they took that step. It was the first time he’d felt this way about a woman, and he didn’t want to screw things up with her. He wanted to romance her, and that was a damn first.
He rested his forehead against hers. “I thought about kissing you all day.” And more. Still pressed chest to chest, he could feel the rapid beat of her heart, and he called on every bit of his control to keep from scooping her up and carrying her straight to his bed.
“You didn’t have to stop.”
“Yeah, I did.” He stepped back. Luminous green eyes peered up at him, eyes he could happily drown in. “Come on. Let me impress you with my view.” He wrapped his hand around hers, liking how her tiny hand fit snuggly in his. As they walked through his living room, he noted her glancing around. What did she think of his place?
Having grown up with nothing, as soon as he had enough money to buy his condo, he’d started furnishing it a piece at a time, whenever he could afford to buy something that caught his eye.
The first purchase had been a king-sized four-poster bed. His taste leaned toward contemporary in bright colors—a red leather couch, a coffee table that was a piece of art in itself, and he particularly liked the large painting an artist friend had done after seeing Alex’s granite countertops. It was an abstract, slashes of varying shades of dark reds, yellows, blues, and purples that filled half the wall. A low console sat under it, housing a TV that rose at the push of a button. Sliding glass doors set in the back wall opened up to a balcony with a beautiful view of the ocean.
Alex loved the two-bedroom, two-bath condo, and he’d never thought to own such a place. He and his brothers had taken advantage of the housing market bust a few years earlier. If asked, he’d have to admit that surrounding himself with color stemmed from his childhood, when everything was a grungy gray or dirty brown.
“Oh my God, your coffee table is awesome,” Madison said, letting go of his hand.
He stood back, watching as she circled the table, sliding her fingers across the wood. When he’d seen the piece in a local artist’s gallery, he’d known he had to have it. It was a large piece of a door that had been salvaged from a shipwreck. One end was squared off, but the other was jagged where the top of the door had broken off.
The wood had been stained mustard yellow, and carved around the edges were different animals about two inches in size, each painted a different color. It made him feel happy whenever he looked at it.
She moved to the middle of the room and made a slow circle, and he followed her gaze, trying to see everything from her eyes. Cathedral ceilings rose to an impressive height in the large great room. Opposite the sliding glass doors to the balcony was a dining area, for which he’d yet to find the perfect table and chairs. Stainless steel appliances gleamed in the kitchen, and the granite countertops the store had called Stormy Night were the same colors as in the painting.
“Wow,” she said after completing her circle. “This isn’t at all what I expected your place to look like.”
“No?” He got that a lot the first time someone saw his home. More than with any of the others, though, he was pleased that he’d surprised her.
“This is amazing.” She moved toward him until there was only an inch separating their bodies. “I’d pegged you for all black and chrome. Dark and dangerous like you.”
“You think I’m dangerous?”
“To me, yeah.”
He let his gaze roam over her body, down to the swell of her breasts peeking over the green top, across her flat stomach to the white jeans covering her long legs, and when he reached her perfect little toes, he made his way back up. She wasn’t model beautiful, but she took his breath away.
“Maybe you should run from me, little girl.” And for reasons she couldn’t begin to guess at.
A sly smile formed on her face. “Will you chase me if I do?”
