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Now he had the tattoo to bring it all into focus and suddenly everything was right in the world.
He pulled her tight against him, loving the feel of her silken tongue as it glided along his own. Her touches weren’t as bold as they had been that night, but tequila did that to a person. Yes, it made her wild and uninhibited, but with her in his arms again, he realized that wasn’t the part of her that he craved. Emma was wrong to think that he wouldn’t want her the way she was. Who she was, was the core of what he was after. The inner woman; the one who felt free to be herself for the first time in her life.
Jonah’s hands spanned her hips and he slid one up the soft fabric of her jumpsuit to caress her breast. He took advantage of the low neckline to slip his hand beneath the cups of her strapless bra and happily mold her flesh in his palm until the peaks of her nipples dug into him.
He’d never gotten to see what her breasts looked like. If he had one regret about the night they’d spent together, it was that he’d had to rush things. It wasn’t the time or the place for a leisurely exploration of a woman’s body. Most of their clothes stayed on in the process.
That was not going to be the case tonight.
Taking a step back, he drew in a lungful of cool air. He braced his hands on the washing machine, trapping her there while he took a moment to collect himself.
“What’s the matter?” she asked softly.
“Not a damn thing.” And it was true.
“Then why—”
Jonah shook his head, interrupting her question. When he looked in her eyes, he saw confusion and disappointment mixed into the emerald green. Did she honestly think he was pulling away because he didn’t want her? Nothing was further from the truth.
“Emma, I am not about to take you on this washing machine a second time. Tonight, I’m going to take my time and do it properly. I’m going to strip you naked from head to toe and press my mouth against every inch of your skin. I plan to make your body quiver and your throat go raw. So, nothing is the matter. I’m just taking a moment to keep myself from ruining my plans for tonight.”
“They’re good plans,” she replied, and let her pink tongue snake across her bottom lip. Easing up from the washing machine, she laced her fingers behind his neck and pulled him close to her again. “You should show me where your bed is so we can implement them immediately.”
* * *
Any anxiety Emma felt about this moment with Jonah vanished when he looked at her like that. He gazed at her so intently she couldn’t help but believe he would do everything he promised, and then some. That was the look of a man who kept his word, and she couldn’t wait.
He’d taken her hand and led her out of the laundry room and back into the main part of the loft. There, to her right, she saw the bed. Without all the party guests to block the view, it was easy to see the massive king-size bed along the far back wall of the loft.
It was placed in a niche between the bathroom and the closet to give it a little privacy despite it being out in the open. The plush, black velvet headboard rested against a wall of exposed, worn red brick. The comforter, like so much else in the loft, was a soft, steely gray that almost looked like liquid mercury pouring across the bed.
She couldn’t take her eyes off their final destination. This was the moment she’d fantasized about, feared and longed for. How could it ever live up to either of their memories of that night they shared? David had told her she was a wet noodle in bed. She didn’t want to be that for Jonah. She wanted to be the wild, passionate woman she’d been for him once. But how long could she maintain that facade? Was it better that she not try so hard and let him see the real Emma?
Jonah stopped in front of the bed and wrapped his arms around her waist. “Stop it,” he chastised.
That snapped Emma out of her worried fog. “Stop what?”
“Stop overthinking it. Maybe that’s all the tequila accomplished for you. It kept you out of your head, allowing you to just feel and go with the moment.”
That may have been true. Emma found herself almost too nervous to move the more she thought about being with Jonah. She wasn’t about to make love to a mysterious, heroic stranger. This was millionaire playboy Jonah Flynn. He was a man who’d romanced some of the most beautiful women in the world. She couldn’t wrap her head around why he would want her. How could he not be disappointed with plain, boring old Emma? The thought was paralyzing.
Jonah seemed to notice the hesitation in her and compensated for it. His hands sought out the zipper on the side of her jumpsuit and pulled the tab to the end at her hip. “I guess I’ll just have to overwhelm you with pleasure so you have no choice but to stop thinking.”
His words coincided with his fingertips brushing along the sensitive bare skin of her side, making Emma gasp. He gripped the fabric at her shoulders and pulled it down. The silky material slipped over her arms, exposing her satin strapless bra, and then the slightly rounding curve of her pregnant stomach.
Emma instantly felt self-conscious about it. She had always been relatively slim, but never had the hard abs of someone who worked out at the gym doing core exercises. Jonah had seen her stomach when he was spying on her at the gym, but this was different.
He seemed to realize it, too. When he pushed the fabric of the jumpsuit over the curve of her hips, his eyes seemed fixated on her midsection. Jonah dropped down onto one knee, helping her step out of the outfit and slip out of her heels. Even then his eyes never flicked away.
When she was wearing nothing more than the bra and matching satin thong that wouldn’t show through her jumpsuit, Jonah gripped her hips and pulled her to him. It reminded her of that first night where he’d done the same thing in his kitchen, looking up at her through his mask.
This time, as he leaned in to unfasten her bra and cast it to the floor, he pressed a kiss against the swell of her stomach. The gesture was simple and sweet, so unlike the man she envisioned from the newspapers. Emma closed her eyes to hide the glimmer of tears that started to gather there. Despite her worries and fears of Jonah rejecting his child along with her, it seemed as though she’d judged him too harshly. He would be a good father. That was all she dared ask of him for now.
She felt her panties slide down her legs and was too anxious to open her eyes again. There she was, completely naked in a well-lit room for his inspection. Jonah didn’t seem to mind what he saw. He continued with his work, letting his hands and lips roam from her inner ankles up to her thighs. He stopped when he reached the exposed skin where her panties had once been. With a gentle nudge, he knocked Emma off balance and she sprawled back onto the bed with a shout of surprise.
Emma’s eyes flew open in time to see the exposed beams and ductwork overhead. Before she could sit up and yell at Jonah, she realized he was kneeling between her spread thighs. She bit anxiously at her bottom lip as she felt his hot breath against her exposed center.
“I never got to taste you,” he said. “Do you know how much I’ve regretted that?”
