"Feel better?" I emptied my pockets onto the dresser, throwing down my keys, wallet, and phone before she used any of them against me. "Now that you've stopped being so fucking polite?"
She raked her nails down my neck. It yanked a growl from deep in my chest. "There's nothing wrong with being polite." Her words were barely a purr as she broke my skin and twisted my soul around her fingers. "You should give it a try."
I scraped my teeth along her jaw. If she wanted to leave a mark, so would I. "You like me rude."
"Sometimes," she whispered, her hand dropping to my belt.God fuck more yes. "And sometimes you should shut the hell up and let me dance."
"Admit it." I kissed my way across her collarbone. "You wanted me to see you dancing with all those cowboys."
She blinked at me between hard, hungry kisses, her hands mapping my shoulders and raindrops still clinging to her lashes. "Why would I do that?"
I hooked my thumb inside her waistband, traced the warm skin at the small of her back. "To get me jealous."
I felt her laugh against my cheek. "And now that you are? What are you going to do about it?"
Her lips tilted in the same taunting curve she'd worn on the dance floor, the one that gutted me while cowboys spun her across the room. Only now, I wasn't watching from a distance—and that was worse, because after all this time I finally knew how it felt to get her back. It scared the hell out of me—and made me feral in wanting to prove she'd always been mine.
I grabbed her by the belt loops, yanking her all the way to the edge of the dresser. "I need to get you out of these wet clothes," I said, my hand flat over her zipper. My middle finger traced the seam running between her legs. Slow enough to catch my breath. Slow enough for her to change her mind. "Don't want you catching a chill."
A shiver moved through her shoulders. "Can't have that."
I thumbed the top button open and for a split second it wasn't dazed lust in her eyes but something older and far more delicate. Something like relief. Then it hit me too. Felt like I was a minute away from my chest bursting open or laughing until I couldn't breathe or holding her so tight that all the pieces of me she'd stolen slipped into place and I felt whole again.
I tipped her chin up and kissed her. A gasp squeaked out of her and I growled against her lips. If I wasn't climbing out of myskin to hold her and taste her andkeepher, I would've spent the next ten hours doing everything in my power to tease that sound out of her once more.
"Arms up, baby," I said, gripping her shirt. "That's it. Good. Let me get you warm."
When I tossed it aside, I buzzed my hands down her sides, up her back, across her belly. Her lips parted in the most delicious way and her body was a fever dream of memories.
I leaned in to press a kiss between her breasts. Goose bumps broke out along her arms and chest as I traced my knuckles over the cups of her bra. Instinct told me to hurry the hell up, to just fuckingget there, but something even older than instinct told me to go slow, to get it right. "You're different now."
"You too," she whispered, her hands scrabbling at my torso, my back. Gulping down everything she could reach.
"Looks good on you." I turned her around to face the dresser and mirror hanging above it. Dropping my attention to the spot where her neck and shoulder met, I kissed and nipped at her until she laughed, shrieked, squirmed in my arms. "I like it."
Though it was dark, I met her gaze in the mirror as I rocked my shaft against her ass. I brought a hand to the flat of her belly, countering the pressure from behind, and spread out my fingers until two slipped into her panties.
Her lips parted on a breath, and then, "You never answered my question."
I stared at her reflection as I tapped her clit. "Which one? You have me a little distracted with other matters here."
"What are you going to do about me making you jealous?" she asked, her hands fluttering at her sides like she didn't know where they belonged.
I solved that problem with a quick, hard pinch to her clit. It wasn't nice and wasn't meant to be, as her guttural cry confirmed. But it put a stop to the overthinking. "Let me showyou," I said, grinding into her once more. "Don't move unless you want me to stop."
I placed her hands on the dresser in front of us. Pressed a palm between her shoulder blades until she bent at the waist, her cheek on the faux wood surface. My blood whomped through my veins at the sight, loud and reckless. Goddamn, I didn't even know where to start. I just knew I didn't want it to end.
With her jeans out of the way, I dropped to my knees. I wasn't interested in fucking around with panties, as fuck-hot as they were, and peeled those off next. Her breath caught when I widened her stance and she yelped when I traced my knuckles down the inside of her thigh. Those long, lean dancer's muscles trembled under my touch.Perfect.
My imagination went to a dangerous place and it dug in there. Filthy, desperate thoughts unspooled before me, each one a little wilder, a little more devastating. I could pick her up and carry her to that bed and worship her until the sun burned out. Defile her in every way I knew, come up with a few others I didn't. Show her that it wasn't over, had never been over. Prove that I could give her everything she needed. Promise her anything, everything. Fuck her until she forgot the names of everyone who'd come since me.
I ran my fingertips between her legs, barely a touch at all but still enough to have her slapping a hand against the dresser. A shudder moved through her as I stroked, and while my hands trembled, I grinned at the perfect heart shape of her ass. Too cute. I rubbed my cheek against her, letting her feel the scrape and bristle of my beard against that smooth skin.
"Jude," she cried out.
I nipped at her backside. Couldn't see the welt but I knew it was there. "You want me to stop?" A breath passed, then another. No response. "That's what I thought."
I rubbed my thumbs along her seam, spreading all the wet I found waiting for me. I leaned in, speared my tongue through the same path I'd just teased. She jerked against me and I heard a yelped "Oh!" between the rumbling thunder.
