Susan Andersen - Coming Undone

Her head lolled against his chest and her eyes grew sleepy-lazy as they stared in the mirror at the hands on her breasts. He watched her watching.

Then his brain belatedly kicked in.What the hell are you doing?

He jerked his big paws to her upper arms and stepped back, holding her steady when she staggered at the removal of the support that had been propping her up.

He cleared his throat. "So, we just about done here? It's getting late." He raised his voice. "How about you, Nell? You almost ready to go?" A couple of women had come and gone while they'd been back in this corner, but had he even checked to see if anyone was around before he'd manhandled her? Hell, no.

Stupid! Stupid, stupid, stupid!God, he was a moron.

He did his best to make up for it, however, acting cool and businesslike as he encouraged the women to speed up the remainder of their try-ons, pay for their purchases and climb in the cab he'd called to take them back to the arena. But he had his doubts that his sudden professionalism fooled anyone. He couldn't really say about Peej, he supposed, since she was avoiding eye contact with him as assiduously as he was avoiding it with her. But Nell, whom he'd learned over the course of the day might be quiet but was far from meek and sure as hell didn't lack for intelligence, had a speculative gleam in her eyes whenever she looked at either of them.

Traffic was a nightmare and no one said a word to alleviate the tension inside the taxi as it crawled down the freeway. When they finally pulled up to the tour bus P.J. turned to him and coolly addressed a point beyond his left shoulder. "I'd like you to help take this stuff inside, then come with me to my dressing room."

He did as she asked but walking by her side toward the arena a short while later, he didn't hold out much hope for a pleasant conversation once they reached their destination. They were both silent at the moment, but he had no doubt that P.J. would have plenty to say once they hit her dressing room. And he was pretty sure what he was going to hear.

Hit the road, Jack-or whatever the country equivalent was.

Her posture was stiff as she stopped before the door to her room. Opening it, she waved him in like a grande dame. Gut roiling, he complied with her gesture and she closed the door behind them. Certain that this was the end, he abruptly realized that he wasn't even remotely ready to call this assignment-or whatever was happening between them-quits.

He was even less prepared for her to leap on him, wrap her legs around his waist and rock her mouth over his.

P.J. PLUNGED HER HANDS into Jared's hair, held him fast and kissed him as if her life depended on it. And maybe it did, because she'd never felt quite this way-all hot blood, pounding pulses and nerve endings that arced and snapped like a downed power line. Ever since that ended-way-too-soon smooch in the salon she'd been primed. Beyond primed, really. And that business in front of the mirror had merely been gasoline on the fire.

In public.Dear God, she'd been ready and willing to get naked and do the hump-de-hump with Jared Hamilton, the star of her girlhood dreams, in the middle of an upscale department store. His sexual experience was clearly lightyears beyond her own.

But, man, oh, man, was she ever prepared to play catch-up!

He ripped his mouth free. "Wait:no:wait," he panted. "We can't do this." But his hands gripping her bottom flexed and kneaded and pulled her in, undulating her against a hard-as-hickory baton that pushed beneath her rucked-up skirt and settled between her legs to tell a different story.

A story that had her body singing the give-it-to-me song. She licked her lips and nodded earnestly. "Uh-huh. We can."

"God, yes, maybe." He drew in a deep breath. Blew it out. Then his heavy-lidded eyes, which burned with green fire between dense, tangled lashes, cooled the tiniest bit. "But we do it my way."

Her own eyes narrowed. "Your way doesn't include things like whips or chains, does it?"

"Nope."

"Anything painful?"

A rusty-sounding laugh escaped him. "No pain, baby-only pleasure."

"Well, alrighty then. But I want more kisses."

"Oh, I'll give you kisses."

Why did that sound almost like a threat?

She didn't have time to pursue the question because Jared, true to his word, lowered his head and kissed her again. He kissed her with such adroitness, with such skill, that she was barely even cognizant of being carried across the room. All she knew or cared about was that his mouth was hot and his lips exerted an exciting suction and his tongue set a languid, carnal rhythm that drove her to the edge of sanity.

That caused her breath to hitch and her lips to cling helplessly.

That made her arms drop limply to her sides even as her heels dug into his muscular rear to hold him in place.

The dressing room's acoustical-tile ceiling took a sudden twirling spin when he lowered her onto the day bed in the corner. He came down on top of her and, linking their fingers, pressed the backs of her hands into the thin coverlet on either side of her shoulders. Pushing up onto his forearms, he flung his hair out of his face. Several strands promptly fell forward again and his dark eyebrows snapped together, patently displeased with the insurrection.

P.J. wanted to laugh out loud. Given the slant of his lower lip, the streaky disheveled hair refusing to conform to his command and those broad shoulders in their richly textured heavy-cream-colored cotton, she thought he looked like a sulky fallen angel. She half expected monstrous feathery wings to unfold and rustle with disgruntlement.

Lifting their connected hands, he hunched a shoulder and bent his head to swipe the fallen locks out of his way with his raised forearm. They fell right back out of alignment. His mouth still retaining its sullen cast, he shrugged and resettled their twined hands back onto the spread, staring down at her.

"Frigging hair," he growled. Then his gaze sharpened on her and it was as if every bit of his concentration suddenly refocused. "God, you're sweet."

She grinned up at him. "Aren't I a peach?" she agreed, wiggling pleasurably beneath him. "And you're-oh God, Jared, you're so hot."

His mouth finally crooking up, he settled a little deeper atop her. "Yeah?"

"Oh, yeah." It gave her palpitations just thinking about it. "All that's missing is Josh Turner crooning from the stereo." At his baffled look, she sang in the lowest register she could manage:

"Baby, lock the door and turn the lights down low. Put some music on that's soft and slow."

In her conversational voice she admitted, "'Course, it's not quite the same when I sing it. He's got that wonderful deep voice going for him. And okay, it's a couple of years old. But ever since the first time I heard it playing on the radio I've thought of it as the ultimate makeout song."

"Well then, baby, lock the door and turn the lights down low."

Laughing, she disentangled her fingers from his grasp to cup the back of his head and pull him back down for another kiss. One touch of his lips, however, and her laughter faded as jangled nerve endings that had temporarily settled down jitter-danced back to life. He'd lowered his head to comply with her unspoken demand for his mouth, but a space of several inches still separated their upper torsos. Finding the distance unacceptable, she moaned and lifted to press her breasts against his chest.

As if someone had kicked the slats out from under him, he collapsed on her, thrusting the hands he'd been using to prop himself up into her hair. His sudden weight drove the breath from her lungs, but she didn't care. Breathing was overrated. His mouth was savage, passionate, and, loving it, P.J. dove headfirst into the madness.

For several long minutes she burned out of control. Her skin felt hot and tight, her pulse pounded in her throat, her wrists, her nipples and deep between her legs, and her only thought was that she wanted to tear Jared's clothes off and rub her body all over his. She'd been turned on a few times in her life. Never, however, had she experienced anything close to this level of unrestrained need. She felt as if she'd literally die if she didn't get naked with the man soon.

Jared seemed every bit as crazed. His fierce kiss pushed her head into the mattress, his hands gripped rather than seduced and he breathed like a bull maddened by a matador's cape.

Then he suddenly raised his head and pushed up on his palms. Breath sawing in and out of his lungs, he hung his head and stared down at her. After a moment he cleared his throat. "We've gotta slow down or in about four minutes there'll be nothing left but a pile of ashes."

Notslowing down seemed like a better plan to her. She'd never been the recipient of a burning-out-of-control-until-there's-nothing-left-but-the-ashes kind of passion. It sounded exciting. "And this would be bad because:?"

"Because our first time ought to last more than a couple of minutes."

She was marshalling an argument for a longer, slower second time when he lowered his head and kissed the side of her neck. "Because I wanna watch you come undone," he murmured into her ear, his voice a harsh growl that raised a fine wash of goose bumps down her entire left side. Moving a little lower, he used his lips, his tongue, to even more devastating effect. "But I can't do that if I'm racing to the finish line, can I?" he demanded. "And I'm dying to watch you come, P.J.-at least once, maybe two or three times-before I really cut loose."