The Best Of The Year - Medical Romance. Carol Marinelli
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the shadow of stubble on his jaw, so dark and so sexy I wanted to trail my fingertips across it to see if they would catch like silk does on something rough.
He put his glass down after only taking a sip. I saw his eyes move between each of mine, back and forth, and then his gaze dipped to my mouth. I stopped breathing as his head came down as if in slow motion.
I know I should have stepped away. All it would have taken was half a step. But my feet were glued in place. Bolted to the floor. I lowered my lashes as his warm breath danced over my lips. I’m not sure how long we stood there like that, with our breaths mingling so intimately. It felt like no time at all and yet it felt like forever. I ached for him to close the distance. Every cell in my body was throbbing in eagerness. I could feel the entire surface of my lips tingling for his final touchdown.
And then it happened.
I’m not sure which one of us moved first but suddenly his mouth brushed mine, a feather-light touch that triggered a seismic reaction in every nerve in my lips. I felt them tingle and fizz as his mouth came back for more, harder this time, an increase in pressure that made my heart bang against my breastbone like a church bell pulled by a madman. His lips were warm and dry and firm and commanding. They were hard and then they were soft, tempting and then teasing. I stepped up on tiptoe, my breasts pushing against the hard wall of his chest; at the same time one of his hands settled in the small of my back and brought me closer.
I felt the outline of his body from chest to thigh. It was imprinted on my flesh, setting off spot fires everywhere we touched. My breasts swelled and ached and my nipples tightened. My belly quivered against the ridged plane of his. My pelvis throbbed as I felt the length and potency of his growing erection.
I hummed with pleasure against his lips, and then he deepened the kiss with a bold sweep and thrust of his tongue into my mouth. The sensation of our tongues meeting was like an eruption. I leaned into him, into his kiss as if it was my only source of sustenance. I tasted the hint of champagne he had sipped, but it was the mint and maleness of him that was even more addictive.
I took succour at his mouth, letting my tongue wrangle with his in a catch-me-if-you-can game that made my spine shiver in reaction. Fireworks went off in my head. My brain was so jazzed by the sensations I was feeling it was like being short-circuited. Thoughts and rationality were pushed aside as lust and need took over. I had never had a kiss so exciting, so utterly captivating I forgot all sense of time and place. I was swept up in the moment of rapture, of feeling desired and desirable, of feeling feminine and powerful in a way I had never experienced before.
His hands were suddenly cupping my face, his fingers splayed across my cheeks as he savoured my mouth as if it were his last meal. The desire that arced and burned between us took me by surprise. I had a feeling it took him by surprise too. I felt it in the way he groaned as his tongue tangled with mine, the way his body ground against mine in that primal search for satisfaction. I could feel the potency of him against my belly, the blood surging in him, extending him. Hardening him.
My own body was in raptures of excitement. I could feel lust blasting through me like dynamite blasts through shale. My inner core quivered, moistened, swelled and ached. My breasts felt fuller and more sensitive where the wall of his chest was abrading them. My lips were swelling under the mounting pressure of his mouth, my tongue fizzy with delight as it danced with his. He took my lower lip in his teeth in a soft little play-bite that made every hair on my scalp shiver at the roots. Then he swept his tongue over the spot he’d nipped, salving it, teasing it into wanting more.
I nipped at his lip, taking the flesh between my teeth and gently tugging, my insides shuddering with pleasure as he made a guttural sound of approval. I went at him again, not just his lip this time but his neck as well. I practically turned into a vampire. I sank my teeth into his skin and sucked and sucked. I probably would have drawn blood but for the fact he took me by the hair at the back of my head to control me.
But I didn’t want to be controlled. Something inside me had got out of its cage. It was on a rampage. It was hurtling through every boundary or barrier I had put up in the past. My wild woman was on the loose. She was wanton and shameless and hot for action.
I went for his mouth again, crushing my lips to his, searching for his tongue with a brazen stroke of mine. He was ready and waiting for me. It was hard to tell who was more in control or if we both were on some crazy out-of-character roller-coaster ride of wild animal-driven lust.
His hands were at my breasts, shaping them through my clothes as his mouth kept up its passionate assault on mine. The feel of his hands cupping me was so wickedly delightful. It didn’t matter that three layers separated his flesh from mine. I felt his touch as if he had stripped me stark naked.
I wasn’t letting him cop a feel unless I got one too. I put my hands on him through his trousers, shaping him, teasing him with the bold stroke of my fingers. He was so hard I could feel the blood pounding through him. And he was getting harder. That thrilled me more than anything. There’s nothing more of a turn-on than feeling a man’s ardent desire for you. It made my desire flare like fuel exposed to a naked flame. I practically exploded with a fireball of lust that shook me to the centre of my being.
Every part of my body quaked with need, with longing so primal and so intense I felt like a stranger to myself. I realised then how lacklustre Andy had been. He had never touched me through my clothes as if he was too impatient to take them off before he had me. He had never growled and groaned against my mouth as if he was imbibing a potent drug and it was the only thing keeping him alive. He had never made me feel as if I was the only woman who could bring him undone with just a kiss.
I should not have thought of Andy. Talk about taking a cold shower. It was like a bucket of ice water had been dumped down the back of my dress.
What was I doing?
I pulled back from Matt as if he had suddenly turned to fire. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ I said, acting like an outraged virgin in a Regency novel. I know it was a little late for such histrionics but I had to make up some lost ground. What sort of woman did he think I was? Or was he the type who got off on dallying with married women? I had met plenty of men like that. They disgusted me. They had no sense of loyalty. No sense of the damage they were causing.
His expression was unmistakably mocking. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘What’s wrong?’ I all but spluttered the words at him. ‘You know exactly what’s wrong! This is wrong. Us kissing like this. It’s tacky. It’s gross. It shouldn’t have happened.’
He arched a brow. ‘Because I’m your boss?’
I swallowed so tightly I could hear it. Gurhdt. ‘Not just that. I’m not … available.’ For some reason I couldn’t say the word ‘married’. I was thoroughly fed up with the word. I wished I never had to hear it again. Married. Yukkety-yuk. Every time I said it I felt sick with shame at how everyone had looked at me back at home when I’d told them the wedding was off. Of course Andy had left that awful task to me. All those exchanged glances that spoke volumes. The I-told-you-something-wasn’t-right-about-those-two looks that made my stomach lining corrode with nausea. The pitying looks were the worst. I would do anything to avoid seeing someone look at me that way again.
And I mean anything. Including carrying on a charade that was causing me more angst than anything else in my life so far. And that was saying something because my life has not been a tartan-blanket-and-wicker-basket picnic, let me tell you.
Matt’s eyes held mine in a lock that made me feel raw and exposed. ‘That wasn’t the message I’ve been getting from the moment I met you.’
I was frowning so hard I reckoned even if I’d had Botox in my forehead it would have run off scared. ‘I’ve met men like you before. You get off on the challenge of scoring with someone who’s off limits. It’s all a game to you. Once you achieve your goal you move on to the next target.’ I stepped up close again and poked him in the chest with my index finger. It hurt like hell because his chest was like a wall of marble but I wanted to drive home my point. But on a subconscious level I think I just