Jill Shalvis - Animal Attraction

She stared at him. “Wait-” What? That was it? Dammit! He couldn’t leave now, not when she was all hot and bothered! To cover that, she sat up and pulled on her donkey slippers. She needed the armor. “No good-bye?”

Dell was looking hot and bothered, too. And… yum. He checked the lock on her door and came back, standing over her. “There’s not going to be a good-bye,” he said. He pulled off his shirt and dropped it to the floor. Then he covered her body with his, pressing a muscled thigh between hers to spread them, making room for himself. “Not until dawn. Hell, maybe not even then because my first appointment tomorrow isn’t until nine.”

Oh. Oh. She was surrounded by him, a bicep on either side of her face. She could turn her head and press her lips to his flesh and at just the thought she experienced a wave of desire that swamped her. “I have to be at work at seven thirty,” she said. “My boss is a real hard-ass.”

He smiled. “I could make you forget him.”

She nearly climaxed at just the sound of his voice rumbling in her ear. He could make her forget everything, including how he never kept the women he slept with. “Kiss me.”

He gave her one last long look before lust completely consumed him and his mouth came down on hers. He devoured her. There was no other word for it. He stripped her out of her sweatshirt and pulled off her donkey slippers one at a time, and she would have sworn he was laughing as he tossed them over her shoulder. But then she slid her hands down his chest, over hard abs and then lower, cupping him.

He stopped laughing.

She outlined him with her fingers, impressed and also a little worried. It’d been a long time, a really long time, and he seemed…

Big.

She must have let some of her worry show because he cupped her face and kissed her deep, angling his head to get more of her until she was clutching at him in desperation. Shifting lower, he kissed her jaw, her throat, her shoulder, moving to the swell of her breast.

A slow, warm heat began to fill her, building as he sucked her nipple into his mouth, rolling it between his tongue and the roof of his mouth. Gasping, she arched her back, lifting herself to him.

He smiled as if he’d won a prize and then went back to his diabolical torture, leaving trails of fire on her skin everywhere he touched or kissed.

Which was everywhere.

Her breath was catching with each new caress as she lay writhing beneath him. She needed… God, she wasn’t even sure, she couldn’t think, she couldn’t form words, she certainly couldn’t stop herself from making sounds she’d never heard herself make before.

But Dell didn’t appear to need words or direction. After all, the man made his living reading the body language of animals, and he was reading hers with shocking ease. His hands were on the move southward, caressing her stomach, her thighs, until her pj bottoms got in his way and he tugged them off. Now she was beneath him in just her panties, which he seemed to like because with a hand on each inner thigh, he took a good long look and growled deep in his throat. His fingers played with her through the silk and came away wet, making him groan. The sexiest sound she’d ever heard. The desire she was feeling was bordering on untenable, stronger than anything she’d ever experienced. “Dell-”

“I know.” His hands slid down her hips, catching the tiger silk along the way and pulling them down her legs. “Christ, Jade. You’re beautiful.” He stroked a finger over her, then inside her, and it was all she could do not to levitate off the couch. At that moment she was so far gone he could have done anything, asked anything of her.

But he didn’t.

He wasn’t taking, he was giving, shifting down her body to do so, pressing his mouth to her hot center, teasing, reducing her to nothing more than a quivering, panting, begging boneless mass. Yes, begging. He had her begging, adrift in the sensations of the rough demands of his tongue, teeth, and hands, which were sending shock waves down her body until she felt her toes curl, until she burst.

Shattered, actually. Breathing like a lunatic, hot, sweaty, desperate, she surged up and undid his jeans and shoved them down to his thighs and found him as impressive as she’d imagined.

They put on the condom together. Or rather, he worked at rolling on the condom while she attempted to help but really was just using the opportunity to stroke and caress him.

He didn’t seem to mind, but she wasn’t nearly done teasing him the way he’d teased her so mercilessly when he apparently decided the hell with playing and slid into her in one smooth, hard thrust.

The air left her body as she rose to meet him, pulling him closer, digging her fingers into his flesh as he began to move. Mindless, she rocked up into him, the pleasure was so intense, she cried out with it.

How had she not missed this?

But she knew. It was him making her feel like this. No one else but Dell could do it, the way he moved inside her, his muscles hot and tense beneath her fingers, his eyes dark and fiercely intense on hers.

Just looking at him, something in her chest cracked and opened.

Her heart.

It shattered right along with her body as she pulsed and throbbed, tightening around him. He was filling more than just her body and she knew it. God, she knew.

He sped up his pace and she met every thrust with her own startling level of passion. She could hear his ragged breathing in her ear, feel his heart pounding against her chest.

Or was that her breathing, her heart… she didn’t know. “Dell.”

His hands tangled in her hair, pulling her head to meet his mouth. This kiss was rough, demanding everything of her and she willing gave it. Her hands traveled everywhere on his body that she could reach and it still wasn’t enough. She planted her feet on the couch and lifted her hips, pushing into him, doing some demanding of her own.

His control snapped and he thrust into her one last time, taking her right off the edge with him.

When she came back to herself, her heart felt as full and achy as her body. She didn’t know what she expected to happen next. She never knew with him. But he stayed deep inside her, holding her tight, his breath warm against her temple. Snuggling in, she let her eyes drift shut as her heart pounded against his.

After a few minutes, he stirred. “You okay?”

“Mmm.” It was all she had.

But it was apparently all he needed, because he grabbed the throw blanket from the back of the couch and covered them, then settled them more comfortably and kissed her. “I’ve wanted to do that for a long time.”

“How long?”

“Long.”

All the yearning and wanting in the world wasn’t going to change anything between them but in that moment, with him holding her close, obviously content to stay here, right here, it was enough.

It had to be enough.

She woke up the next morning from a really great dream and stared into Bean’s green eyes.

“Mew,” she said. The cat was sharing Jade’s pillow.

It was the same story every morning. But unlike every other morning, Jade was wrapped up in another body. A big, warm, mocha-colored hunk of tough muscle that was still deeply asleep.

He’d expelled a lot of energy last night. All night…

There was stubble on his square jaw, and his lashes were jet black and sinfully thick.

Definitely not a dream, she thought, and though she had to get up, she took a long moment to just look at him, knowing if she didn’t move fast, get out of his arms instead of remaining snuggled in all perfect like she was made for him, it was going to be hard to ignore what had happened here last night.

Real hard.

One minute Dell was deep in the land of the living dead, the kind of sleep that comes after great sex, and then in the next, he was blinking at the sudden light.