On the Loose. Shannon Hollis
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give you one guess.” Her smile told him he wouldn’t need more than that. But that smile, up close and personal, scrambled his brain.
Get a grip. Maybe you’re misreading her. “An interview?”
She giggled against his shoulder and he closed his eyes in sheer pleasure at the movement of her breasts against his chest. So much for getting a grip. Try again.
“I’m still working on my original list. I’ve got the dance. We can have a drink afterward. And then it’s up to you.”
He hoped that she opted for “full speed ahead.” His body, her body, the gypsy-blues music—all three combined in a heady mix that was going to set off fireworks any minute now.
Hell with it—maybe he should just think about getting Lauren out of here.
“About that interview,” she murmured in his ear. Her lips moved against his earlobe and made desire spike through him. “I’m trying to think how I might describe you.”
“Hardworking writer? Owns his own condo, paid off his car, definitely interested in the author of this piece. How’s that?”
“Mmm, I was thinking of something more descriptive. Like a dark chocolate truffle. Sinful and rich and everything I know I shouldn’t want, but that I crave.”
She craved him? Josh gave up on trying to talk his body out of doing what it wanted to do when hers obviously wanted to do it, too. He glanced over the heads of the crowd. Where the hell was the door?
“I’m not sure I want you to think of me as food,” he murmured. “Teeth are scary to a guy.”
Again, her breasts bumped his chest gently as she muffled a laugh in his shoulder. And again, sparks of heat flared to life in his blood.
“I never use teeth on a truffle. I like to lick them on the outside until they melt. Then explore their lovely rich centers with my tongue.”
Breathe, before your lungs collapse. “Suck them dry, do you?”
“Oh, yes,” she purred in his ear. “And they love every minute of it.”
Need sang through every vein and he forgot dance steps, propriety, everything but getting her alone. Then he remembered the private dining rooms, big enough for half a dozen—or two. With any luck, one of them would be empty. He slid his arm closer around her waist so that her hips ground against his and danced her over to the dark side of the room.
THE UNIVERSE WAS LAUGHING at her, Lauren thought, trying to talk sense to herself when her body and her runaway mouth definitely did not want to be sensible.
Yes, she was dancing to something very sexy and slow with a man who turned her knees to butter. Yes, her deprived libido had taken over and given him a shameless come-on.
She was behaving like the notorious Lorelei, the woman who chewed social commentary and pop culture for lunch, the woman the male sports writers loved to hate. Why, oh, why, did she have to be unlocked by a staff writer from Left Coast magazine, the very place she’d give her eye teeth to write for?
She’d laugh about this with Rory and Mikki tomorrow, over a latte and at least two of Rory’s blueberry-cheese croissants. But for now she was going to steal these lovely moments and enjoy the heck out of them for as long as they lasted.
Because of course they wouldn’t last. She couldn’t afford to keep him around, looking gorgeous and sounding sinful and jeopardizing her career with every breath he took.
The music merged into something just as slow and sexy, some Latin love song that picked up where the gypsy blues left off. Josh’s arm tightened around her and their haphazard direction took on purpose. Lauren brought her mind back from the hazy place where it was thinking about truffles and sex to the clear place where it thought about danger and realized that Josh had danced her into one of the club’s private dining rooms.
“Now, then,” he murmured, and pulled her flush against him. They might have had to be socially acceptable on the main dance floor, but in here, it appeared, all bets were off.
Yes, it was dangerous. But, oh, Lord, it felt so good. The two White Knights she’d consumed earlier had made her low opinions of key parties and her determination to work go all blurry and insubstantial. And who wanted opinions, anyway, when reality had eyes like this and a mouth to die for? What she wanted was Josh, and he was pressing against her at this moment as though he meant business. She slid her arms around him and let her body melt into the hardness of his.
Really hard.
Her knees, which had begun to get their strength back, weakened as her body welcomed the bulge behind the button fly of those black jeans. Desire spangled her blood with tiny little rockets, all going off at once.
“Josh,” she managed to get out, “what if someone comes in?”
“We’re slow dancing,” he murmured, his lips brushing her ear, his hips suggesting illicit things against hers. “Nothing wrong with that, is there?”
She shivered. If his mouth could make her body react like this when he spoke, what would happen if he actually kissed her? And those hips—they promised paradise. “Not as long as you stay between me and the door over there.”
“What is it about you that has this effect on me?” he whispered. His tongue touched her earlobe and she closed her eyes as the little rockets went off again, trailing fire from her ear to her belly.
“My razor-sharp intellect?”
His hands slid over her skirt. “Mmm. That’ll do for a start.”
She couldn’t stand it one more second. Leaning into him, she backed him against the wainscoting and took his mouth with hers.
He made a little sound of pure male pleasure in his throat and his lips opened. His mouth wooed, his tongue seduced and, before she knew it, it was she who was backed against the paneling, hanging on to him for dear life, because by God, if she let go she’d fall. She put everything she had into kissing him because he demanded no less.
Somehow he knew when to release her and let her breathe, dropping his lips to the neckline of her tank top and tracing kisses over her collarbone, working his way along her throat.
If it were possible for a man to seduce and worship at the same time, Josh was doing it.
When one hand slid up and cupped her breast, Lauren was sure she would come just from the fire of sensation in her nipple under his teasing thumb. She felt barely contained, ready to erupt. She was so ready, in fact, that if he even—
The other hand slid under the hem of her short, black chiffon skirt. Her thigh muscles, which under any other circumstances would have tightened in preparation for fending off the attack, relaxed and said, “Oh, yes.”
“No stockings,” he whispered in her ear, setting off a host of goose bumps. He touched her thigh, then cupped her bottom again, with no fabric between her skin and his bare hand this time. A brief exploration gave him his answer. “A thong.” His voice held pleased discovery. “What color?”
What color? The color of flushed skin, the color of ripe fruit…oh, that was it. The color of her tank top.
“Peach,” she managed to say.
“I love peaches.” He slid one finger under it in back.
“Josh,” she sighed, “someone’s going to come…”
“I certainly hope so,” he said, and slid the finger over her hip under the satiny cord, then down the front. His hand flattened against her pelvic bone while his finger found what it sought.
She moved her feet apart just enough to give him access and hung on as his finger slid into her folds, soft and swollen and wet, waiting for him. In three slow strokes he had her whimpering for release, and with one more it happened. An urgent orgasm exploded under that clever fingertip and spread through her