She lowered her eyelids and tilted her chin upward further. “Then by all means. Just try not to half-ass it, Deneau.”
He braced the nape of her neck with one hand. “No ma’am.”
The first kiss settled gently on her eyelid, the second on the corner of her mouth, the third, fourth, and fifth tracing a line along her jaw and he briefly paused at the intersection of her neck and chin. Just as Liza thought she might melt into a puddle in the middle of her kitchen floor, Connor’s lips landed on her mouth in a slow, firm, calculated kiss.
The simmering desire deep in her tummy ignited, and she uttered a tiny whimper against his lips. He kissed her languidly, yet methodically. Stroking his hand around to her cheek, his tongue urged her lips to part wider, taking his sweet time to revisit and rediscover her mouth with deep, unhurried strokes. She gripped his wrists, bracing herself as her head spun; as if she’d drunk the wine way too fast; as if she were back on that roller coaster, barreling through loops and spiraling through turns and loving every second of it no matter how stupid that made her.
Dormant longing came to life within her core, and Liza suddenly needed him. She was an idiot, and it was a terrible idea, but she’d lived through the infinitely worse version of it, and right now she had a need that refused to be sated without him.
Liza gripped the back of his arms, fingertips buried in the crevices of his stone-cut triceps, tugging him closer as his mouth found the corner of her jaw once again, and she murmured,“Please.”
Connor paused for a microsecond before the tip of his tongue danced around the base of her ear. “Please what?”
“Please.” Did she really have to spell it out? “Just this once. We’re adults. It doesn’t have to be a big deal. It won’t make things weird. I just need…I just need…Please, Connor.”
He nipped her earlobe and drew his hand from her cheek down to her waist. “Why do you think you have to beg me for that?”
She gripped his arms tighter, finding little relief from his hard muscles or anything else. “You stopped wanting me a long time ago.”
Connor grabbed her hands, holding them in place on the counter at her sides, and then firmly and deliberately pressed his hips against hers, and she feltall of him. Hard. Hot. Thick. Pure, carnal sex, and more substantial than she remembered.
“Is there any question in your mind about how much I want you right now?” He pressed harder as if to underscore his point.
Stupidly delicious longing snaked through her veins, straight to her core and down to the aching spot between her thighs. “No.”
“Don’t ever question it.” His mouth was still on her ear. His fingers found the straps of her dress, tugging them down, exposing her breasts to him for the first time in so many years that it felt like the first time all over again. The rugged pad of his thumb drew back and forth over the peak of her straining nipple, and jolts of electricity shot through her, so forceful that she was convinced her knees would give out.
“I never stopped wanting you,” Connor said on a low, quiet breath. His palm enveloped her breast, and he closed his mouth around her clavicle. “It was never about that.” He placed a small kiss on her neck as he gently squeezed with his hand. Raising his head to the level of her eyes, he slid his opposite hand up the back of her thigh, lifting her leg and wrapping her calf around his hip so he could press his heat against hers. “You deserve an explanation, and I’ll explain all of it. Just not right now.”
Good, because the last thing in the world she wanted right now was an explanation. All she wanted was hot and straining to be released from his jeans. She suddenly didn’t give a single, flying fuck what had happened ten years ago, because all she needed was right there between her thighs, separated from her by only a thin barrier of denim and lace.
With his lips still pressed to her neck, kissing and nipping and licking, Connor brushed a strand of hair away from her face with so much tenderness that her soul felt like it was reaching out of her body, attempting to reattach itself to his. The words that whispered in her heart should’ve startled her, but they didn’t.
I still love you, her heart murmured,I never stopped. It’s still you. It was always you. It’ll always be you.
Liza had to ignore that. If she didn’t, this wouldn’t end well. Maybe not as tragically as it had ended the first time, but there would be no shortage of heartache.
“Connor,” she whimpered, dropping her head backward to give him unobstructed access to any part of her he wanted.
Connor wrapped his hands around her waist and hoisted her up to sit on the edge of the counter. His palm braced the center of her arched back, and he poured long, slow kisses down her neck, across her collarbone, and over her breasts. He wedged himself between her spread thighs, and she locked her ankles around his waist, holding him hard against her. He graveled a deep groan against her breast as he locked his lips around the straining peak, and she braced her palms on the cold granite.
Connor’s rough, calloused hands slid under her skirt and ran up the sides of her legs. Every touch was familiar; gentle, yet firm when he squeezed the flesh at the top of her thighs. He kissed her, his lips claiming her mouth with a rhythm that caused Liza to arch against him. Nobody before him or since him had kissed her with such expertise, had ever been able make her come to life as thoroughly, and Liza was a goner.
Connor’s thumbs stroked the skin between her thighs, brushing the lace edge of her panties, and the sensation electrified every part of her body.
“More,” she murmured against his lips. “I need you.”
Before she had time to overthink her words, he hoisted her up and lifted her off the counter. Liza wrapped her legs tighter around his waist, and Connor carried her to the large sofa.
The sofa was deep and soft and way more perfect for couch sex than she’d realized when she’d bought it. Not that Liza was thinking about couch sex when she’d picked it out, but now she’d never be able to associate it with anything other than sex with Connor ever again. That might entail throwing it out later, but that was at the farthest corner of her mind right then.
After Connor laid her down, his hands slid up her skirt again, and he tugged down her panties as he nipped his way around her inner thigh. Her lady parts ached so hard that she thought she might explode, but he continued to tease her with his evasive tongue.
Liza threw her head backward, gripping his hair, and uttered a frustrated moan. “I need more. Please.”
Connor answered with the flat of his tongue on her most intimate place, and his fingers slid inside, stroking and toying, and immediately finding her hot spot as he played her body like a world-class musician. It didn’t take much to throw her right over the edge, and she cried out his name, calling himbabyandhoneyand begging for more. For all of it. For all ofhim.
She reached for his jeans, blindly unbuttoning and unzipping as she shoved her hand inside his jeans and took firm hold of him, andGod. He’d ruined her. There would never be anyone else this perfect for her, and she knew it, and she couldn’t have him, and that was simply the sad fact of her life. But right then, ifonlyfor right then, her hand wrapped around the hard length of him, and he was hers.
