Chase Me (Paris Nights Book 2)(14)
“No,” she said. “Yes. No. Not enough.”
“Well.” He sat back on his heels and cocked his head up at her. “You have your hands free. You could help.”
She stared down at him—that wicked humor in his eyes, but all that hunger, too. More and more hunger. It made him look…dangerous. Like a man with well over twice her strength, who knew exactly how to use that strength against far bigger and more lethal enemies than a knife-throwing chef.
“I should have known you couldn’t handle me on your own,” she said.
His face just lit in this wicked, wanton way, like a hellion who’d finally broken out of a monastery. “Oh, honey, you like to live dangerously, don’t you?”
“Yes,” she admitted, on the giddy rush of that danger as he slid his grip of her thighs up to the uppermost possible point, his thumbs sliding deep between her legs to pinch folds of leather and her up to his mouth. His elbows came into play, forcing her legs to stay spread.
“I think I’m handling you…just…fine,” he purred, as his thumbs and teeth worked her.
She had an intense level of self-confidence, and she thrived on adrenaline, but she liked to be in control, too. Well, normally, she had to be in control. Even a male top chef had to maintain control at all times in his kitchens, but because she was a woman, running that starred kitchen full of arrogant and physically intense men did not allow her to falter in her control ever. Not for a millisecond.
I can falter here. I can give it all up and love it.
No consequences tomorrow, just the sex-filled adrenaline charge of playing with this hot and cocky guy who could…handle her just fine.
The arousal of what was happening to her kept pushing up her body in huge hot waves, flooding out all thought, leaving nothing but burning, frantic pressure in her breasts, in her brain, between her legs. This itchy longing heat that spread at the nape of her neck, at the base of her throat and down over her chest, at the insides of her elbows, behind her knees…everywhere.
“Well, let’s try this,” he said and worked his mouth around to the discreet black zip that ran over her hip. When she’d bought these pants, she’d originally thought that near-invisible side zip, with no button since the pants had no obvious waistband, was part of their sexy appeal. Now, as his tongue teased the zipper’s pull tab up so that his teeth could close around it, she arched her body back against the door and cursed the day she hadn’t bought pants with a normal center closure.
He laughed low in his throat as he worked the zipper down in his teeth, pressing her thighs back more firmly against the door when she writhed too hard. “Oh, honey, I’m kind of glad you threw that challenge at me, because I am having so much fun.” He nuzzled his face between the spread panels and bit her hipbone, a teasing little nip. Then he caught the bikini strap of her underwear between his teeth and pulled it a couple of centimeters from her body before releasing it so that it snapped against her skin, a playful sting. “Honey, this looks like black cotton to me. Were you lying to me about your underwear?”
“You actually thought I would wear pink peekaboo panties to work all day in a hot kitchen?” she managed.
“Sweetheart, I could probably imagine you in pink peekaboo panties in any situation whatsoever. Be a sweetie and pack some for our honeymoon, okay?”
Him and his wedding jokes. She tried to roll her eyes, but he just smiled and lifted her thighs onto his shoulders, pushing her back up against the door so that her feet no longer touched the ground. Oh, God. She sank her hands into his hair. He rolled down the waist of her pants, folding it over rather than pulling it down, so that it revealed just a couple more centimeters of her pelvis.
“I’m going to die,” she panted incredulously. Where had this man come from? Her entire experience of men had just been exploded out to the edges of the known universe. Maybe he was some kind of superhero come to Earth from the planet Sexton.
“Oh, yes, you are, honey,” he purred in that crazy drawl of his. “Le petit mort, right?”
She winced, even through that much adrenaline and arousal. “It’s la. La petite mort.”
He pulled his head back and frowned at her. “Did you just correct my French? At a time like this?”
“Never mind,” she said. “You can…keep going here.”
“Do you know how frustrating it is to have people dissing on my French all the time in this damn city?” He drew a finger very slowly down the center of her black panties, to where the folded band of leather stopped him. That damn leather. “Because I could maybe give you some idea. Of the frustration. Of what it’s like to work a long…long…long time on something and not…get…anywhere.” His finger twisted along the edge of that band.
“Oh, no,” she said, trying to climb the door again, clutching him too hard with her thighs. His shoulders and neck seemed perfectly able to withstand the pressure, though. “No, no, no, no, no. No lessons in frustration.”
He grinned, slow and wicked. “But it hurts my feelings,” he said woefully. His finger wormed its way down under that folded band, stroking in far too short and limited a motion. “And this makes them feel all better.”
“Oh, my God.” She fisted his hair, trying to drag his head closer.
He didn’t let her, for just long enough to let her know she couldn’t make him if he didn’t choose it, and then yielded, dipping his head in close to nuzzle his face against her panties and that damn band of leather. “God, I love this smell,” he said.