Page 58 of Heart Like a Cowboy

“Ah, that,” she muttered. “I wondered if you were trying to work out a way to let me down easy.”

His mouth tightened just a little, and he set his Coke aside on the coffee table. In the same motion, he hooked his arm around her and pulled her to him. He kissed her before the little squeak of surprise, and relief, could make its way out of her throat.

Yes!Her body shouted that several times, and her mouth would have, too, had she been able to speak. But Alana didn’t want to speak. She wanted exactly this. Egan kissing her as if there were no tomorrow. No old baggage, either. Just his mouth on hers while the need and lust coiled and coiled around them.

So, this was his answer to the fling suggestion. Good. It was the only answer she’d wanted, and it spurred Alana to throw herself into the kiss. Not that she wasn’t already there, but while Egan was staking a claim to her and firing her up with pleasure, she helped herself to his damp chest by sliding her hands over all those muscles.

Egan made a sound, a sort of growl that she thought was of approval so she kept touching and moved closer and closer to him until they were pressed against each other in some very interesting places.

More heat came. Mercy, did it. A frenzied need that caused her body to start begging for more and to give it to her now. Egan must have picked up on the urgency and unspoken request because he gave her more.

He moved, walking her to the sofa, and he anchored her against the back of it. Good thing, too, because her legs suddenly felt wobbly, thanks in part to the kisses he started on her neck. He did some touching as well. His hands on her breasts, he pushed his leg between hers so that his thigh was right against her center. Delicious pressure that was so intense Alana had to fight to stop the climax from rippling through her.

Needing to gain some control so she could hold off ending this way too soon, she turned the tables on him. Or rather she turned so it was Egan’s butt against the back of the sofa. The new position gave her exactly the access she wanted, and Alana ran her tongue over his mouth.

To his neck.

To his chest. Where she lingered a while because, hey, amazing chest.

Then, she went even lower to the equally amazing abs and made some circles with her tongue on his damp skin. She figured she was hitting some of his hot zones when he cursed her.

Alana smiled at the cursing, but Egan, too, went on the offensive by shifting their positions again. He caught onto the bottom of her dress, shoving it up and off. He didn’t waste a second going after her bra next, pushing down the cups and doing the tongue-circling number on her nipples that she’d done on his stomach.

Her legs buckled, but Egan was right there with a steadying arm around her waist. The steadying duties didn’t stop him, either, from notching up the heat even more. He turned her body into a furnace, one of those super-hot industrial deals, by taking his mouth and hot breath to the front of her panties.

Alana knew the panties were made of a cotton blend, but the fabric seemed to just melt away. And then it actually did. Or rather the underwear just went away when Egan shimmied them off her butt and down her legs.

He kissed her again.

Right there. Right in the center of all that heat and need. Right there where the heat and need just kept rising and rising. Too fast. Too soon.

Somehow, Alana managed to get hold of a handful of his hair. No easy feat, considering he had a fairly short military cut and her fingers weren’t exactly steady. Still, she managed it and dragged him back up until they were face-to-face.

“I’m naked,” she said. “And you’re not.”

She did something about that, and once again was supremely thankful for his unbuttoned shirt. Alana shoved it off him and kissed her way back down his stomach while she got to work on his jeans. She made a loud sound of protest when he put his hand over her, to stop her progress.

No way could he say he didn’t want this. She could feel him huge and hard behind the zipper of his jeans, but she thought that look in his eyes had “we’re stopping” written all over it. Alana hoped a thousand hopes that she was wrong.

“If you get me out of these jeans, we’ll have sex. Unprotected sex,” he spelled out. “Since I don’t have a condom.”

Her body was burning for him, and that heat was trying to assure her that it’d be fine, that it was the wrong time of the month. But it might not be. And while she desperately, desperately, desperately wanted to have sex with Egan, an unplanned pregnancy wasn’t what either of them needed.

She groaned, then cursed. Then grabbed handfuls of her own hair and pulled hard, hoping the pain would tamp down some of the heat. It didn’t.

Egan groaned, too. And cursed. But his had a much quieter edge to it. Almost soothing. Alana was about to tell him that soothing couldn’t happen, but he gently took her hand, unthreading it from her hair, and eased her back to him. He gave her another of those “there’s no tomorrow” kisses, and for a moment she thought he would toss caution to the wind and go for it.

He went for it.

But not in the way she’d believed he would.

Keeping the kisses ever so gentle, he took his mouth on a slow thorough journey from her mouth down her body. Until his clever mouth landed in just the right spot. In the center of all that heat and need.

Alana had never really been into finishing things this way. She was more of a traditionalist when it came to getting an orgasm. Especially since Egan wouldn’t be on the receiving end of this particular “finishing.” But any and all protest dissolved when Egan’s mouth took the cleverness up a couple of notches. He flicked his tongue, rendering her speechless. Sending her soaring. And leaving her with a single thought.

Exactly what that thought was, Alana couldn’t say because all she could feel was wave after wave of pleasure.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

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