Her Little Secret, His Hidden Heir(23)

“I’ve been wanting to do that all evening,” Marc murmured, his thumb slowly stroking just beneath her lower lip.

She wished she could deny feeling the same way, but had to admit that the thought of kissing him again had crossed her mind a few times since their unexpected reunion    , as well. Especially during dinner, while they’d stared at one another across the candlelit table.

But kissing him wasn’t a good idea. Being alone with him in his hotel room for much longer wasn’t a good idea.

She should leave. Put a hand to his chest, push him away and get out while she could still make her legs move.

His other hand came up to frame her face, his fingers running through the hair at her temple.

Move, legs, move.

But her legs didn’t move. It was as though her entire body had turned to stone, every muscle statue-still.

“This is a bad idea,” she told him, putting her thoughts into words and forcing them past stiff, dry lips. “I should go.”

A hint of a grin played at the corners of his lips. “Or you could stay,” he whispered, “and we can see about turning a bad idea into a good one.”

Inside, she was shaking her head. No, no, no. Sticking around was only going to turn the bad that had already happened into much, much worse.

No, she needed to leave. And she would, just as soon as she could get her body to obey the commands of her brain.

But the connection between the two had obviously been blocked or severed or scrambled in some way. Because she didn’t move. She didn’t step back, or push him away, or voice further arguments against making any more monumental mistakes.

She simply stood there and watched his mouth descend once again. Stood there and let his lips cover hers, let his fingers dig into her hair and cradle her scalp. Let his tongue tease and taunt until she had no choice but to open her mouth and invite him inside.

Oh, this is a bad idea, she thought, as her own arms came up to wind around his neck, her fingers toying with the hair at his nape. A very, very bad…

His tongue twined with hers and she groaned, any semblance of rational thought flying right out the window. Good or bad, she was in it now, with very little might left to fight. She wasn’t even sure she wanted to anymore.

Though they were already touching, he tugged her even closer, so that her brea**sts flattened against his chest and the evidence of his arousal pressed between her legs.

Being a woman kept her arousal from being as obvious, but it was there, without a doubt. Besides the fact that her heart was pounding and her temperature was slowly reaching the boiling point, inside the cups of her bra her nipp**les were turning into tight, sensitive pearls. Lower, her knees were weak and her panties were growing damp.

It wouldn’t take much more of Marc’s intense ministrations for him to know just how aroused she was, too. Already, his hands were wandering down her sides and over her hips, his fingers slowly rucking up the skirt of her dress until he could touch her stockinged thighs.

Her own fingers went to the buttons at the front of his shirt, slipping one after another through their holes. When she reached the bottom, she switched to unbuckling his belt and loosening the top button of his dress slacks, then tugging the shirt’s tail free. Once both sides fell open, she slipped her hands under the expensive material and put her palms flat against the warm, smooth skin of his chest and stomach.

He groaned. She moaned. The sounds met and mingled, sending shivers from their locked lips all the way down her spine.

As though he felt them, too, Marc’s hand went to the small of her back and followed the line of her vertebrae up, up, up. He kneaded her neck a short second before catching the clasp of her dress’s zipper and tugging it down in one long ziiiiiiiiiip of sensation.

Curling her nails into his chest, she slumped into him as wave after wave of longing rolled through her. It was almost too much to bear, melting her bones and stealing the breath from her lungs. If he hadn’t been holding her, she was sure she would have collapsed to the ground in a pile of skin and rumpled red fabric.

He released her mouth, allowing her to suck in some much-needed oxygen while he tugged at her dress, letting the flowy fabric pool at her feet. Hooking his thumbs into the waist of her pantyhose, he started to skim them down her legs, following them until he knelt in front of her on one knee.

With a hand at her ankle, he said, “Lift.”

She did, and he slipped both her matching red heel and the stockings off her foot.

“Lift,” he said again, repeating the motion on her other ankle, leaving her standing in the middle of the room in nothing but her bra and panties.

Thank goodness she’d taken as much care choosing those as she had her dress and shoes. She’d had absolutely no notion and no intention of letting him get so much of a glimpse of her underthings, but now she was infinitely relieved that she’d made a point of wearing a brand-new matching set. A strapless red demi-bra with scalloped lace edging and lacey, boy-cut panties that covered more than enough in the front, but left half moons of bare flesh visible from the back.

From his position on the floor, Marc must have noticed the peekaboo style of the underwear, because he lifted his head and shot her a grin that could only be described as wolfish.

“Lovely,” he murmured, his hands cupping the backs of her calves, then her knees, then her thighs until her thighs quivered and she wasn’t sure she could remain upright much longer.