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Fresh attraction arced between them, so bright and so electrifying that for a split second he was astounded that it didn’t shock him where he stood. But then he was moving, gathering Flávia to him as he bent his mouth and tasted those honeyed lips for only the second time ever.
Yet as her body moulded all too willingly against his, Jake felt as if she’d been handcrafted just to fit him, and she was winding her arms around his neck as if hanging on for her life. And those small, needy sounds she was making in the back of her throat were doing nothing to help him regain any last scrap of self-control.
He’d put his life on hold for Brady for the past ten months, and he hadn’t resented it even if he’d struggled to see how he was the best person for the task. And tomorrow he would go back to sacrificing for his nephew, because that was what Brady deserved.
But tonight?
Tonight was his. And Flávia’s. To indulge and to be free. And he’d be damned if he wasn’t going to enjoy every last second of it.
* * *
The instant before he claimed her mouth with his, Flávia had been telling herself that she was being silly. That practically stripping for the man was insane. That she needed to get back into her dress and get out of there and back home before she did anything else totally out of character.
But all of that had happened before Jake Cooper had lowered his head and taken her mouth, so purposefully and so expertly, with his own.
And suddenly she was on fire, and all she could do was try to match him, flame for flame.
She might not have taken Maria’s suggestion to have fun seriously this afternoon, but she had every intention of following it to the letter right now. After all, when would she ever come across another guy like Jake, who had made her feel fluttery in her chest—and, all right, a damned sight lower—just from a first look?
Even after that horrid Silvio Delgado’s jungle woman jibe. In fact, Jake had been the one to turn it around and make her feel as though the work she did was the only thing he was interested in, in a room full of top-flight medical colleagues.
No, she wasn’t about to give him reason to suddenly wonder what he was doing up here with her now, when he could be with someone a little more cultured. So she gave herself up to every last sensation. Dancing in the flames of the same scalding hot desire that had been licking at her ever since that first moment in the bar. But now they weren’t merely licking at her, they were consuming her.
And Flávia never wanted the fire to die down. She lifted her hands and flattened them against the solid wall of his chest, revelling in the hard ridges and contours which seemed so opposed and yet perfectly paired to her soft palms.
It wasn’t mere heat. It was scorching. Tearing right through her like a blaze through dry tinder. The slow drag of his mouth over hers, the decadent tease of his tongue, the gentle pull of his teeth on her plump lower lip.
She gave herself over to every second of it. Meeting him and matching him. When he was done, she felt almost bereft, but then he repeated it, a little faster this time, a little harder, a little naughtier.
And then again. Each time angling his head a different way, causing new sensations and leaving her begging for more. Over and over, as if he was every bit as lost in the moment, as incandescent, as she was.
It still wasn’t enough. It should have scared her how much she wanted Jake, yet it didn’t.
Instead, with every kiss she felt surer of herself, and of what she wanted, t
han ever before. He swept his hands up and down her spine, then to the sides, as though he was learning every contour. And taking his sweet time doing so. When she wasn’t sure she could take any more, Flávia rolled onto the balls of her feet, lifting herself a fraction higher and pressing her body to his, moving a fraction closer. Wanting more but not knowing how to ask for it.
It was inexplicable.
She was hardly some untried virgin, but never had any of her few relationships ever made her feel this urgent, this greedy, this wanton. Not even Enrico. When Jake lifted up her arms to skim his fingers down her sides, her eyes locked with his and she revelled in the way his pupils darkened and his breathing sounded that little more ragged. Then he slowly, deliberately, lowered his head and took one upturned nipple deep into the heat of his mouth. Not even moving the fabric of her bra aside to do so.
Sensations exploded through Flávia.
Her back arched and she let her head fall back, losing herself in the magic of it. The way he toyed with her, teased her, sucking on her nipple, then grazing his teeth over it—pain and pleasure rolled into one. At some point, she realised he had deftly removed her bra, because when he lifted his mouth, cool air swirled around her nipple moments before he drew tiny whorls with his tongue. And all Flávia could do was gasp and run her fingers though his hair in a silent plea for him never to stop.
When he did, it was only to turn his attentions to her other breast, and repeat the whole glorious process all over again, those sensations in her core winding more and more taut. Fraught with need.
She had no idea how long they stayed like that, lost as she was in the moment. But suddenly he was lifting her up to wrap her legs around his waist, to nestle her softness against the hardest part of him, and as she heard the soft moan escape her lips she wondered how much longer she could hold out.
If at all.
‘Bed,’ Jake commanded brusquely, as if reading her mind.
She nodded, even as he was already on the move. Lifting her up and carrying her across the room like some kind of infinitely romantic gesture, before depositing her on the bed. She realised then that she was wearing nothing more than a skimpy metallic black scrap of material, whilst he was still in his full tuxedo.
She ought to feel embarrassed. She wasn’t the kind of woman who had been especially comfortable parading around in front of her—albeit it two—serious boyfriends in such a scanty bit of lace. Yet with Jake she felt bold. Even naughty.
‘I feel you’re a little overdressed,’ she managed huskily.
