Dark and intense, his gaze caught hers, and it felt as though time had frozen. She couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. The air around them crackled with energy. Wild thoughts flashed through her mind, filling her head with bad ideas that sounded better and better by the second.
He moved closer, his face an inch from hers, his masculine scent invading her senses and chipping away at her resolve.
“What are you doing?” Her words came out on the heels of a breathy exhale.
“What does it look like?”
She swallowed hard against the lump in her throat. “This isn’t part of our arrangement.”
“I’m open to altering the deal,” he said, his voice loaded with sensual promise. “Does that work for you?”
Oh yeah, that worked a lot better than she’d expected. But she couldn’t seem to get the words out, so she simply nodded in agreement.
A wolfish smile spread over Joe’s face as his fingers slid into her hair.
Heat radiated between their bodies. Anticipation raced through her veins. At last, he brushed his lips over hers, a perfect mix of soft and firm that she felt all the way to her toes. Head spinning, she reached up to grab fistfuls of his shirt and hung on for dear life.
A low, rough rumble rose from deep in Joe’s chest. His mouth moved slowly, thoroughly, deliberately, as though he savored every last second, and heat sizzled through her veins. Tilting his head, he deepened the kiss, and her lips parted beneath the insistent pressure of his. He tasted like sin, seductive and decadent, with a lingering hint of sweetness from the cookies he’d just eaten. The more she tasted, the more she wanted to taste, until the need hummed in her blood as though it were a living thing.
Joe wrapped one arm around her, pressing her against the muscular frame of his body, and he felt beyond incredible. He was warm and strong and damn, he smelled great, and for reasons she couldn’t begin to understand, he found her attractive.
Put it all together, and it was one hell of a turn-on.
He moved from her mouth to the curve of her neck, and a soft moan slipped past her lips when his teeth grazed a spot she hadn’t even realized was that sensitive. As he did it again, his hand cupped her breast, and it was a wonder she didn’t combust on the spot.
A loud chime from Joe’s phone nearly had her jumping out of her skin.
Contact broken, he glanced at the screen, muttered a curse, and let out a frustrated sigh. “I’m sorry, but I need to answer that. It’s my sister. I’ve been waiting to hear from her so we can finalize plans for tomorrow. Do you mind if I put her on speaker?”
Hell yeah, she minded. If she had her way, they’d ignore the call and pick up right where they’d left off. But she understood what his family meant to him, so she sucked it up and said, “Not at all.”
Hands braced on the counter, he paused a moment to pull himself together. Then he swiped at the screen to accept the call, and his expression completely transformed. “Hey sis, how are things going at the mouse house?”
“I saw a lion!” His niece Sadie’s high-pitched voice carried over the speaker.
Joe smiled.
It was adorable, how much he loved his little niece.
“Wow, that must have been really cool. I’m jealous. What else did you see today?”
The question launched Sadie into a rapid-fire recap of all the animals she’d seen at Animal Kingdom, followed by a list of every ride she’d ridden with her mother and grandmother.
“I hope your mother took tons of pictures,” Joe said, still smiling, when she finally finished.
“I’ll send you a few later tonight.” Stephanie’s voice came over the phone. She sounded tired, which wasn’t surprising, considering she’d spent the day traipsing around Disney’s largest theme park. “Right now, we’re in line for the Kali River Rapids. If there’s any time left after that, we’re going on the safari again.”
“The rapids are so much fun,” Fiona said, thinking back to the last time she visited Animal Kingdom a few years ago. “Get ready for a good drenching.”
Lucky for them, temperatures were fairly mild today, with a high in the mid-seventies and not a cloud in the sky. After a long day at the park, getting splashed would feel downright refreshing.
“Oh hey, Fiona.” Stephanie’s voice perked up. “How’s it going? I hope we didn’t interrupt anything fun.”
The memory of what they’d just been doing flashed through Fiona’s mind and cranked up her internal thermostat by a good ten degrees. Even now, she wanted him. Badly. It terrified and thrilled her.
Averting her gaze, Fiona blurted, “I made cookies this afternoon. If your brother doesn’t eat them all, I’ll bring you some.”
Sadie let out a squeal that either voiced her excitement over the prospect of cookies or was an attempt to make dolphins beach themselves along the coast.
