Edge of Midnight (McClouds & Friends #4)(80)

“I see your point.” A cautious smile dawned in her eyes.

He followed up on his advantage rapidly. “I’d rather dance with a beautiful woman than spar with her. And I want to dance with you.” He emphasized his point by leaning over the table with a forkful of night-dark chocolate ganache torte poised on the end of his fork.

She accepted it, and made a low, approving sound that he felt all the way down his back, like a warm tongue licking him. “I just want to fall on you,” he confessed. “Just grab you and lick you and nuzzle you. You’re so sweet and soft and luscious. I love grabbing that round, rosy ass. I love kissing your tits. And that tight, slick little—”

“Stop.” Her voice rang with royal command. “This is not dinner conversation. I want to concentrate on my meal, thank you very much.”

He subsided. They finished their dinner in charged silence.

They leaned back in their chairs afterwards, shy and silent. The lavish luxury was more inhibiting than the sleazy hotel room.

He couldn’t stop staring. Her eyes shied away, but he knew she was conscious of his eyes on her, as he stared at her profile.

She was more beautiful grown up, he concluded. Her features had come into perfect focus. So elegant and fine. He shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “You’re cute in that T-shirt,” he ventured.

Liv giggled again. “Tell me a better one.”

“OK,” he said easily. “You look better without it. Take it off.”

Her expression went wary, but he sensed the energy beginning to hum. She was tired, wiped out…but tempted.

“You have got to be kidding.” Her voice was crisp and austere. “I’ve had more sex in the last twenty-four hours than I’ve had in the last three years of my life combined. Don’t expect me to start working off that forty-eight-hundred-dollars-a-day bill tonight, buddy. I need sleep.”

He gave her his best, seductive bad boy smile. She made a huffing sound and got to her feet, tossing her hair back. She marched to the bathroom, disappeared inside. The oversexed gorilla inside him who never knew when to give it a rest got up and followed her.

He was helpless to stop himself. How could he? He had a massive crush on the princess. He’d been cooked since he laid eyes on her. Fuck the forty-eight hundred a day. He’d pay good money to be her bodyguard, lady’s maid, masseur, stylist, comedian, sex slave. Hell, he’d even iron. He liked his own shirts crisp and nice, so he wasn’t half bad at it. Though it was a skill he knew better than to brag about.

But he would iron Liv’s underwear for an excuse to stay close to her. Carry her bags, shine her shoes, suck her toes. Lick her *.

Just looking at her nipples pressing against the thin, cheap white cotton of the T-shirt made his palms sweat. It occurred to him that, what with one thing and another, in the past two days, he hadn’t seen her wearing any sort of restraining device on those tits yet. He’d only seen them swaying and bouncing, au naturel. Awesome.

If she were a different woman, he would think she was doing it on purpose to drive him mad with lust. Not that it mattered, on purpose or not. The mad lust result was exactly the same, either way.

He wanted to dig his fingers into that cloud of hair, lift it up and stare at the graceful line of her neck. He wanted her to turn those big, gray eyes on him. Let go and fall into them, sploosh, like falling into deep water from a great height. Plunging into a mysterious otherworld.

He wanted to see everything from her point of view. Find out what she thought about everything. Get inside her mind. It pulled at him, like a tractor beam. He leaned against the door, listening. Water running, toilet flushing. Was it kinky to listen through a door? He supposed it was. Too bad. He was too far gone to care.

The door opened, suddenly, and she squeaked when she found him standing there. She was still dabbing at her face with a towel, damp and soft, the hairs around her face and ears wet and clinging to her face. She smelled like honeysuckle and peppermint. Her jeans were draped over her arm, her underwear washed out and draped over the shower stall. So she was bare-assed, under that flapping T-shirt.

His boner went from hopeful half-mast to full, urgent salute.

“What are you doing, lurking out here?” she demanded.

He told her the blunt truth. “I can’t stay away from you.”

Her beautiful eyes narrowed to slits. She turned away, stomped towards the staircase. He followed like a hound, two paces behind.

She turned around at the foot of the stairs and gestured sharply for him to go up first. “I’m not letting you climb a flight of stairs behind me while you’ve got that look on your face,” she said.

“Sure, babe. Grab my ass all you want.” He started up the stairs, wagging his tush, and was rewarded by a smothered burst of laughter.

“I’m serious,” she said. “No sex tonight.”

He stripped off his shirt, stretching and flexing and showing off until he heard that giggling snort again. “I promise, I won’t jump you,” he said. “But I won’t promise that I won’t talk you into jumping me.”

“Don’t hold your breath.” She marched around the big, king-sized bed, yanked back the maroon chenille coverlet, and slid between the sheets, tucking the coverlet up under her chin. “I am resting.”

He undid his jeans, kicked them off, and lay down naked on the bed, his dick high and thick and throbbing purple against his belly.