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“Since you’re so free with your kisses, let me have one.”
To tease—and wasn’t it wonderful she’d discovered she could tease a man—she placed a chaste kiss on his cheek. Then placed another, just as soft, on his other cheek. When he smiled, when he circled her, she slid her hand from his shoulder into his hair, and keeping her eyes on his, rose to her toes to press her lips warmly to his.
This time it was his body that jerked. She ruled the kiss, taking him unawares, moving it from warm to hot, from soft to deep, sighing so that his mouth, his blood, his brain were filled with the taste of her.
Staggered, he fisted his hand at the back of her blouse and let her strip his mind clean.
“Looks as if it’s past time for me to leave.”
Aidan lifted his head. “Lock up as you go, Shawn,” he said without taking his eyes off Jude’s face.
“I will. Good night to you, Jude.”
“Good night, Shawn.”
Whistling now, he clicked locks and discreetly closed the door behind him while Aidan and Jude stood in the middle of the freshly mopped floor.
“I have a terrible need for you.” He drew the hand he still held to his mouth, kissed it.
“I’m so glad.”
“It makes it hard, now and again, to be gentle.”
“Then don’t be.” Excitement spurted through her in one hot gush. Thrilled with her own boldness, she stepped back and began unbuttoning her blouse. “You can be whatever you want. Have whatever you want.”
She’d never undressed in front of a man, not in a way designed to arouse. But the nerves that jumped in her belly were tangled with excitement, then swallowed by pure female delight as she saw his eyes go dark.
The black lace bra was cut low, an erotic contrast against the milky skin it was designed to showcase.
“Jesus.” He let out an unsteady breath. “You’re trying to kill me.”
“Just seduce you.” She toed off her shoes. “It’s a first for me.” More from inexperience than design, she slowly unhooked her trousers. “So . . . I hope you’ll excuse any missteps.”
His mouth went dry with anticipation of what was next. “I see nothing missing at all. Seems to me you’re a natural at it.”
Her fingers were a little stiff, but she pried them away and let the trousers fall. More black lace, an excuse for a triangle that veed down over the belly and rose high on the hips.
She hadn’t had the nerve to try the matching garter and sheer black hose Darcy had talked her into, but seeing the expression on Aidan’s face, she thought she would next time.
“I did a lot of shopping today.”
He wasn’t sure he could speak. She stood in the pub lights, her hair tidied back, her sea goddess eyes dreamy, wearing nothing but black lace that screamed sex.
Which part of her was a man supposed to listen to?
“I’m afraid to touch you.”
Jude braced herself, then stepped out of the trousers and toward him. “Then I’ll touch you.” Heart hammering, she slid her arms around his neck and lifted her mouth to his.
It was so arousing to press up against him when she was all but naked and he still fully dressed. It was so powerful to feel his body quiver against hers as if he were fighting some fierce and violent urge.
It was so freeing to realize she wanted him to set that fierceness, that violence, loose.
“Take me, Aidan.” She nipped his bottom lip and all but slithered against him. “Take whatever you want.”
He heard his own control snap like a cannon boom inside his head. He knew he was rough and could do nothing about it as his hands bruised and his mouth feasted. Her gasp of shock was only more fuel as he dragged her to the floor.
He rolled with her, wild to have his hands on her, everywhere. Mad for more, he closed lips and teeth over the lace at her breast.
She arched up, bowed with pleasure, tingling from the nip of pain. It was power that flooded into her, the punch of the knowledge that she had pushed him beyond the civilized.
Just by being. Just by offering.
As crazed as he to touch, she tugged and tore at his shirt until she had her hands on flesh.
Then her lips, then her teeth.
Hot and frantic, with greedy hands they drove each other, pleased and pleasured. This wasn’t the patient man and the shy woman, but two who had stripped down to the primitive. She gloried in it, absorbing each sharp sensation and fighting to give it back.
The first orgasm burst through her like a sun.
More was all he could think. More and still more. He wanted to eat her alive, to devour so that the suddenly wild taste of her would always be inside him. Each time her body shuddered, each time she cried out, he thought again. And again and again.
The need to mate was a fever in his blood. He plunged into her, his pace all the more frenzied when she came and called out his name. Then she was rising and falling with him, driving even as she was driven. His vision hazed so that her face, her eyes, her tumbled hair were behind a soft mist.
Then even that vanished as the animal inside him leaped out and swallowed them both.
She lay sprawled over him, exhausted, aching, smiling. He lay beneath, stunned and speechless.
Their opposing reactions had the same root.
He’d taken her on the pub floor. He hadn’t been able to help himself; he’d had no control whatsoever. No finesse, no patience. It hadn’t been making love but mating, just as recklessly primitive as that.
His own behavior shocked him.
Jude’s thoughts ran along the s
ame lines. But his behavior, and her own, thrilled her.
When he heard her long, windy sigh, he winced and decided he had to do whatever he could to make her comfortable.
“I’ll take you upstairs.”
“Mmmm.” She certainly hoped so, so they could do it all over again.
“Maybe you’d like a hot bath and a cup before I see you home.”
“Hmmm.” She sighed again, then pursed her lips. “You want to take a bath?” The idea was intriguing.
“I thought it might make you feel a bit better.”
“I don’t think it’s possible to feel any better, not on this plane of existence.”
He shifted, and since she was limp as a noodle, found it fairly easy to turn her around so she was cradled in his arms. When she only smiled and dropped her head on his shoulder, he shook his head.
“What’s come over you, Jude Frances Murray? Wearing underwear designed to drive me crazy, then letting me have my way with you on the floor?”
“I have more.”
“More what?”
“More underwear,” she replied. “I bought bags of it.”
It was his turn to drop his head weakly on her shoulder. “Sweet Jesus. I’ll be waked in a week.”
“I started with the black because Darcy said it was foolproof.”
He only choked at that.
Pleased with his reaction, she snuggled closer. “You were putty in my hands. I liked it.”
“She’s gone shameless on me.”
“I have, so I’ll tell you I want you to carry me upstairs. I love when you do that because it makes me feel all female and fluttery. Then take me to your bed.”
“If I must, I must.” He glanced around, noting the scatter of clothes. He would come back for them, he told himself. Later.
And when he did, quite some time later, he fingered the bits of lace as he carried them back upstairs. She was full of surprises, was Jude Frances, he thought. Just as much surprising to herself, if he was any judge.
The shy rose was blooming.
Now she was sleeping, cozy as you please, in his bed. She looked right there, he decided as he sat down on the edge to watch her sleep. Just as she’d looked right serving drinks in his pub, or working in her garden, or walking the hills with the O’Tooles’ dog beside her.
She had, indeed, clicked neatly into his life. And why, he wondered, shouldn’t she stay a part of it? Why should she go back to Chicago when she was happy here, and he was happy with her?
It was time he had a wife, wasn’t it? And started a family. He’d found no one who made the prospect of that a sunny one until Jude.
He’d been waiting for something, hadn’t he? And here she had walked right into his pub one rainy night. Destiny took no more than that.
She might think otherwise, but he’d talk her around it.
It didn’t mean she had to give up her work, though he’d have to puzzle on exactly how she could do what most satisfied her. She was a practical woman, after all, and would want her options spelled out.
