Trust Me (Paris Nights #3)(60)

“I am,” she agreed and smiled down at him as she bent and kissed him again. “You should never have messed with me.”

“I like that. You’re the one who started messing with me.”

She shrugged. “I couldn’t help myself.” She ran her hands over his torso. “You’re so f*cking gorgeous.”

“Lina.” He sank both his hands into her hair, holding her still for a moment. “I’m not made of sugar. So if you crack me like one of your sugar globes when you fill it too much, you can’t just make another one of me.”

“No. You’re human and resilient and no man ever died from having a woman tell him he was f*cking gorgeous.” She smiled down at him.

“I might be the first,” he said, in perfect seriousness.

She shook her head. “Tough it up,” she said gently and dipped her head to kiss the hollow of his throat. Faintly salty, entirely human, and her lips loved the shape of the bone under his skin, the vulnerable hollow and the stalwart line of his shoulder.

His arms wrapped around her, squeezing her in tight, tight and then loosening into stroking—her hair against her shoulders, the muscles of her back. He seemed to love to trace the delineations of muscle and shoulder blades and spine, all the things that worked together to keep her shoulders straight against all challenges.

It felt delicious. She freaking loved it. Sighing into his body, going limp, all while trying to muster enough strength to reward him with caresses he might like just as much. Nuzzling her face in his chest hair. Kissing his nipples.

“Sweetheart.” His hands slid down and flexed into her butt muscles. Also strong. Strength met strength.

She slid her face down to smile against his belly. “Oh, look. It’s much smoother here.” She blew across his belly button and the fine, flat line of hair V-ing into his jeans. Then she grinned, pulled the waist of his jeans to provide more space between it and his sucked-in belly, and blew down into the darkness.

“Merde,” she said. “I need a flashlight. I can’t tell if there are any freckles from here.”

His hands flexed into her hair now. “God damn, you are trouble.”

She sat up, pulling thoughtfully at her lower lip. “Hold on. I think I have one somewhere.” She reached into the drawer by her nightstand.

“Li-na.” The exasperation and delight in his tone made her feel giddy with pleasure.

“Oh, no, wait. That’s not a flashlight,” she said, holding up a foil packet and looking at it doubtfully. “I wonder what that’s for?”

“I could probably show you.”

“Crazy the kind of random, useless junk you accumulate in your drawers if you don’t clean them out.” She tossed the packet to the side.

Jake snagged it. “I’ll just keep track of this. In case it might come in handy.”

She laughed low in her throat and twisted her hips over his, settling down more firmly on him.

He gripped her hips, the packet pressed between his palm and her hip bone. “You’re giggling again.”

She sighed. “Still not low and sultry?”

He gave her that little smile. “Still sexy, though.”

Yeah? She grinned down at him, delighted to be sexy.

“Oh, yeah,” he said, heartfelt. “Sexy as hell.”

“Well, I can’t find the flashlight,” she said sadly, wiggling downward over his thighs so her pelvis no longer pressed into his. “I guess we’re going to have to do this the hard way.”

Jake made a little snorting sound. She paused with an eyebrow raised.

“Nothing,” he said hastily. “Nothing. I just…can guarantee you we’ll end up doing it the hard way.” And his own grin broke through that tight containment he kept on his expressions, hazel eyes flashing wicked and happy.

“Just think of me as a researcher.” She held up a soothing hand, the other on the button of his jeans. “I have some unanswered questions.”

“If they’re about where babies come from, it might be easier for me to clarify that with a little demonstration.”

Babies took nine months just to get them started, and last she’d checked, he was only here for five, but she bit back that dry remark, which would have spoiled their play. She couldn’t imagine a future long enough for a baby to grow, either. “Little?” she said instead, thoughtfully.

He narrowed his eyes at her.

She laughed and unbuttoned his jeans, easing down the zip.

“Oh, look,” she said in complete delight, a second later. “You actually do have freckles everywhere.”

“Lina—” He tried to grab for her hands and surged up into them at the same time, caught and helpless.

“Some of them are so tiny and faint, though, I have to look really close to see,” she said wickedly, bending her head until her hair was brushing against his cock in her hands. Her thumb rubbed over the faint freckles that he had even there.

“Oh, f*ck,” he said wildly.

“In a minute,” she said reprovingly. “Don’t be in such a rush.”

And she lowered her head a centimeter further and pressed a little kiss on one of those freckles.

His hands tightened in her hair and pulled it, trying to get her head back up his body, even while his hips surged against her lips.