Baiting the Maid of Honor (Wedding Dare #2)(21)

“How about I make it up to you?” Before she could stop herself she slid his erection onto her damp chest. Then she pressed her breasts tight around him, trapping him in between the supple flesh.

Reed’s breath grew choppy, scraping over her heightened senses. One hand gripped her head and tilted it back roughly so their gazes could meet. “I ought to put you over my knee.” His eyes were nearly hidden by the darkness, but she somehow sensed they were burning into hers. “You want me to despoil you? I hope you’re ready, because I don’t f*ck politely.”

“I’m counting on it,” she answered breathily.

He slid himself upward between her breasts, in one long, slow push. Julie moaned quietly at the illicitness of it, but Reed drowned out the sound with his own wild groan. Their position, the new experience, the delicious feeling of his smooth flesh slipping through her breasts, intoxicated her. Her usual self didn’t seem present any longer. Had been replaced by someone else entirely. Someone whose every thought was driven by feeling. Taking and giving.

As his movements became faster, impatient, Julie reveled in the harsh sounds emanating from his throat, the way he swelled larger with each measured drive. She pushed her breasts tighter around him and whispered his name.

His movements stuttered and he looked down at her hard. “Open your mouth. You want my name on your tongue, you’ll get the rest of me, too.”

Julie suddenly couldn’t think past taking Reed into her mouth. Closing her lips around him, feeling his weight. She dragged her nails down his belly and grasped him at the base of his erection, then led him to her mouth. No teasing, or licking, she took him as deep as she could and swirled her tongue over his hardness on the way back up. Fingers sank into her hair and she heard him shouting harshly in the distance, but she’d lost herself in the need to please. Her hand worked him in time with her mouth and when she felt him coat her tongue, shaking against her in his climax, she continued milking him until he gently tugged her head away and fell back a step in the water.

“Jesus. Jesus, baby.” Reed’s chest rose and fell rapidly as he tried to catch his breath. Julie didn’t stop to question herself. She went to him, arms cinching around his waist to bring them closer. He seemed unsure of how to proceed, his muscles tensing beneath her, making her throat close. She was the sole participant in the hug, his arms never coming up to encircle her like she craved. Her brain commanded her to pull back but she didn’t want the embarrassment on her face to show. Not over what they’d done, but over her spontaneous embracing of a man who had all the sweetness of a cobra.

And then he laughed uncomfortably. “I guess we know that mouth is good at more than just talking.”

Julie released him and was out of the hot spring in seconds, pulling on her clothes as the words continued to hang in the air. That’s all he could think to say to her? Anger had a stranglehold on her throat so tight she couldn’t speak past it. What had she been thinking? This man couldn’t even muster a decent hug for the woman he’d just been intimate with. She didn’t want to spend one more second in his presence. Julie was also honest enough to admit that maybe, just a little, she was shaken up by the way she’d lost herself in him so completely.

His dripping hand closed around her arm as she buckled her sandals. “You hold on one damn minute. I was making a joke and you know it.” His voice boomed in the still, quiet forest. “What is this really about? You want me to hold you and tell you you’re pretty? That’s not me, Julie, and I think you already knew that.”

“The only thing I know is this won’t be happening again.”

“Now, that’d be a damn shame, pixie.” He tipped her chin up with his fingers. “You just f*cking burned me alive.”

The air left Julie’s lungs. She struggled to come up with a reply as her brain projected explicit images of them together. God, why did she still want him?

He must have sensed her resolve slipping, because his fingers left her chin to slip into her hair, gripping the strands firmly. “You already want more, don’t you? You know that what I give you is better than the warm, fuzzy bullshit you’re used to.”

His bluntness slapped her across the face, as did her resurgence of need to get away from him. “Well, I suppose we’ll have to savor this one memory. We’re not making any more.” She double-checked that her hotel key was still tucked securely into her dress pocket before snatching the flashlight off the ground and striding toward the path.

“You’re not walking back alone.”

“Watch me.”

Julie heard him growl behind her as he pulled on his own clothes. She increased her pace, practically running by the time she reached the hotel. As she yanked the door open, she turned and saw him coming down the path, shirt untucked, hair a mess. Barefoot. Why that made her want to smile, especially after his cold treatment of her, she had no idea. Ignoring the object of her irritation, she let the door slam behind her and speed-walked to her room. How her body could feel so satisfied when her mind felt like it had been pulled through a knothole backwards, she couldn’t fathom.

One thing she knew for certain? It was Reed Lawson’s fault and she needed to remember this hinky feeling the next time his big shadow darkened her path. The man was flat-out dangerous for her sanity. No more. This ill-advised association was over.