Her voice was husky and hot, and her bare foot—when had she slipped off her wedges?—stroked under the hem of his pants, and he nearly passed out from the surge of blood evacuating his brain to parts farther south.
He sucked in a breath of too-thin air. “Expect another encounter tonight. Soon.”
He nudged his own feet into the space between hers, hooking her ankles with his. Then he widened those ankles slowly. So slowly. And although he couldn’t watch her knees part and her thighs spread through the damn tablecloth, he could trace the flush moving down her neck and over the pale expanse of flesh exposed by the low, round neckline of the swing dress. He could see her lips part, and her tongue dart out to wet that wide mouth.
Which was, to be fair, also quite talented. He planned to tell her so. In detail. In private.
He really should have insisted on sitting right next to her, instead of across the table. That thick, opaque tablecloth could have been a boon, rather than a hindrance. A barrier between prying eyes and where exactly his hand had gone.
“Alex …” The word was a thread of sound, cautious and brave. “For our first time, I just want it to be us. You and me, without role-playing. But … I read some of your bookmarked fics, and maybe, for our second or third time, you could, uh …”
“I could what?”
A more patient man would have waited instead of prompting her, but a more patient man would have been alone in his L.A. mini-castle, waiting for Wren to contact him, rather than on a road trip and sharing a bed with her, so fuck patience, really.
Her mouth worked, and then she made herself say it. “Maybe … you could be a god? Or a demigod, like Cupid? And I’d be your helpless mortal? Until I turned the tables and took control?”
His eyebrows flew upward as his brain short-circuited once more.
As soon as he could string two synapses together, he raised his hand, gesturing to the nearest server for their check, because they were clearly done with dinner and onto the next part of their evening together, and thank fucking Christ for that.
As she watched his reaction, her caution turned to smugness and a wide, wicked grin.
It looked damn good on her.
“Wren,” he said, and he meant it with every atom in his reckless, needy heart, “you may be the worst, but you’re also the absolute best.”
LAUREN WASN’T A virgin, and as she’d told him the previous night, she wasn’t particularly shy. Just cautious.
But this meant something to her. He meant something to her.
To be honest, he meant everything to her, and she didn’t want to disappoint him. Even though she knew—she knew—if she spoke that concern aloud, he would look at her in absolute befuddlement, because he seemed to think she was …
Well, the worst, obviously. But perfect too.
Maybe that seemed like a contradiction, but it wasn’t. Alex liked friction. He adored arguing. Breaking through barriers amused him. So if she was a wall, as he’d once accused, he enjoyed bouncing against her and testing her strength.
And he’d definitely loved toppling her. His coyote sounds were proof enough of that.
The bathroom door opened, and he padded out on long, bare feet.
His suit jacket had disappeared at some point. He now wore only dark, slim-fitting pants and a crisp white button-down. His sleeves had been rolled up to his elbows, exposing those thick, strong forearms, and a vee of golden flesh peeked from his throat, where he’d undone two buttons.
He tossed a box of condoms onto the nightstand and stalked toward the bed.
That graceful, determined prowl was for her, to her. The high color glazing his perfect cheekbones and the incinerating heat in his gaze were because of her.
So was the erection pushing insistently against the front of those obscenely flattering pants, and the sight of it might as well have been a finger on her clit.
Her breath hitched, and then he was there. Directly in front of her.
“Need your mouth, Wren,” he rasped. “Need you.”
Bending low, he cupped her face and wound his fingers in her hair and yanked her mouth to his in open, unapologetic demand, and that naked want seduced her more thoroughly than restraint ever could.
His tongue didn’t tease this time. He forged inside her mouth and took possession.
She was moving somehow, they were moving, and she was too dizzy to understand how it happened, but he was sitting on the mattress now while she stood between his legs. The bed wasn’t overly high, and their faces were almost the same height. But his arms were much longer than hers, so he could easily reach the hem of her dress.