Butterface (The Hartigans #1)(38)
Her fingertips brushed over the third button of his shirt, but his hand covered hers, stopping her. Her breath caught.
“No, I’m not on the clock.” His words came out with the rough edge of a growl, hard and wanting, that thrilled something inside her.
He brought her hands down to her sides, his strong fingers encircling her wrists, but he didn’t let go and he didn’t walk away. Instead, he stood there looking down at her, desire and need making his green eyes turn even darker.
Heart hammering against her ribs, she gave into the pheromones and the sugar and the wine and the lust that kept her up at night. “So why shouldn’t we finish what we started? Afterward, we go back to our normal lives. No commitment. No tomorrow. Just one night to do what we didn’t in the hotel, then you leave at dawn and that’s that.”
“Because this can’t ever be more than that,” he said.
Didn’t she know that all too well. “Exactly.”
He looked for a second like he was going to argue with her, but in the next breath his hands were on her hips, pulling her close, and his mouth was on hers in a kiss that should have set every flammable can of paint lined up against the kitchen wall ablaze. It was hot and demanding and so achingly desperate. It was as if they couldn’t get enough of each other and they both knew tonight was it.
He tasted of bourbon and cannoli, need and satisfaction—and she couldn’t get enough as she reached back for his shirt and yanked it out of his pants, desperate to feel him and not the cotton covering his skin. He broke the kiss with a groan when she slid her hands under his shirt.
“I need to see you,” he said, reaching behind her for the light switch.
“No.” That couldn’t happen. She didn’t want to break the moment with brightly lit reality. She grabbed his arm before he could reach the switch and lowered it so his palm was on her leg right at the spot where her dress stopped. Excitement sizzled across her skin, and desire swirled through her, hot and demanding. She wanted this—wanted him—so bad. Watching his face in the soft light spilling into the kitchen from the foyer, she slowly slid his hand higher, under her dress and to the inside of her thigh. “You need to feel me.”
“You have no clue just how bad,” he said, gliding his fingers up her inner thigh. “Open your legs for me.”
“Like this?” She widened her stance so her feet were shoulder-width apart.
“Not quite.” In a flash, his hand was gone and she wanted to scream her frustration, but then he had his hands on her waist. “Hold on.”
She did, her hands on his shoulders as he picked her up and whirled her around before sitting her down on the counter, so close to the edge that she had to hold onto him to keep her balance. Then his hands were on her thighs again, pushing her pink dress higher and higher up her legs. An impatient man would have just shoved it up and out of the way, but not Ford. He inched the hem up slowly, his gaze locked in on each millimeter of skin as it appeared. He was going to make her nuts. All she wanted was for him to just touch her already, and he was ogling the freckle above her kneecap.
“You’re killing me,” she groaned, her grip on his shoulders tightening as he did this circle thing with the pad of his thumb over that freckle that made her legs shake.
“You don’t like this?” He nudged the fabric up a little higher. “It sure seems like you do.”
It wasn’t that she didn’t, it was that she wasn’t used to it. With most guys, it was lights off, clothes shoved aside, and then it was prime time, not all of this teasing slowness that was making her core ache and her nipples harden to stiff points without even being touched. Like it? What Ford was doing was fucking addictive. “I guess I’m used to a fast rush.”
That made him stop completely. His gaze rose from her exposed legs to her face. The lust in his eyes was so intense she had to look away.
He cupped her chin and angled her face upward so she had no choice but to look at him. If she thought he’d been intense before, it was nothing compared to now. “I’m not other guys.”
She shook her head no in agreement, the ability to actually form words having left her.
“I need you to say it.” He ground out the words. “Say my name.”
“Ford.” It came out like a breathy plea, which it was, because she was about to combust here.
“That’s right, and I’m gonna make you come so hard, Gina Luca, that you’re going to remember my name when you’re a hundred years old and can barely remember your own.” He dropped his hand back down to her legs and spread them wide, the move dragging the bottom of her dress up to the top of her thighs. “Now you gotta lift that sweet ass of yours up for me.”
The idea to question him didn’t even occur to her. All she knew was that her entire body tingled with anticipation and the ache between her legs got stronger each time he touched her. She dropped her hands from his shoulders to the counter behind her, lifted her butt off the counter, and balanced her weight on her palms as he glided his hands under her dress—there was just something thrillingly dirty about seeing his big hands disappear under what was now her very small skirt.
Her heart was racing as his hands moved higher to her hips and he hooked two fingers around the waistband of her panties and yanked them down. She nearly closed her eyes at the feel of the cool air against her slick folds, but she was so glad she didn’t, because then she would have missed Ford’s nearly comical expression of exasperation when he pulled her black lace panties down her legs.