Jill Shalvis - Slow Heat

“Tell the truth, Sam. This feels good.”

She paused. “It’s okay.”

“You are such a liar. A gorgeous one though, I’ll give you that.” His hand skimmed down again, just beneath the hem of her short, fitted jacket, low on her back, against the silk of her blouse. He slid a finger just beneath the waistband of her skirt and got bare skin.

In his arms, she shivered.

God, he wanted to be alone with her. He wanted that more than anything. “Maybe the elevator will get stuck again-”

“Wade.” She shook her head. “I…”

“I know.” Beneath her jacket, low on her spine, his fingers continued to play with her warm, and getting warmer, skin. “Bad idea, right?”

“The worst.”

“The paps are watching.”

“I think we’ve given them plenty,” she said, and when the song ended, she pulled free, met his gaze, her own hooded. “I’m sorry, Wade. I’m maxed out on the pretending. Excuse me a minute, okay?” And with a shaky smile, she walked off the floor. She passed by their table, grabbed her purse, then headed toward the building.

Don’t do it, he told himself. Don’t follow her. The food is coming…

Shit.

He followed Sam through the back door, into the huge, upscale kitchen area where the servers were quickly and efficiently-and frantically-working to get the food out to the guests. Wade looked at all the delicious steak, then to Sam’s quickly retreating back. Dammit. “Sam-”

She didn’t slow, leaving him with a life-altering decision. Steak or the woman?

With a grim sigh, he went after her, through a maze of kitchen areas and stopped, momentarily stymied by a restroom door clearly labeled Women as it swung shut in his face. Well, hell. He shoved his hands in his pockets, thought forlornly of the steak probably heading to his table right this second and sighed. “Sam.”

He got the big nothing, and put a hand on the door. “Is there anyone in there with you?”

A server ducked past him, then skidded to a stop, clearly recognizing him. “Wow,” she said breathless. She wiped her hands on her apron and grinned. “Wade O’Riley.”

“Hey,” he said. “How’s it going?”

She watched him take his hand off the door. “It’s a single stall,” she told him. “You don’t have to knock to go in, if it’s unlocked, it’s unoccupied. Help yourself, though the men’s restroom is just around the corner. Hey, did you know you’re even cuter in person?”

He was never quite sure what to say to stuff like that, but she didn’t seem to need a response.

“I got to see game two of the playoffs last year,” she said. “You guys were robbed, but my boyfriend says you’ll take it this year. I think so, too. Your position is my favorite. Catchers are tough, real badass.” She grinned. “You fit that bill, don’t you?”

Again, no idea what to say to that.

“Will you sign an autograph for me?”

Finally, something he had an answer for. “Sure.” He patted down his pockets but he didn’t have a pen.

“Here.” She pulled a ballpoint from her apron, and then turned her back, exposing the clean white cotton back of her server uniform. “Be sure to write ‘Love, Wade’ real big cuz it’ll drive my boyfriend bonkers.”

He’d had far odder requests, so he dutifully signed the back of her shirt, and with a happy wave at him, she was off.

Alone, he eyed the restroom door. Fuck it, he thought, and let himself in.

The server had been right, it was indeed a single stall, which was open and empty because Sam stood in front of the sink staring at herself in the mirror.

The restroom was as luxurious and elegant as the rest of the hotel, the walls painted in muted beachy colors, the tile floors and counter as sparkling and clean as the kitchens he’d just walked through to get here. “You owe me a steak,” he said, and came up behind her to meet her eyes in the mirror’s reflection. “Medium rare. Actually, make it two, with a baked potato, loaded. No veggies required.”

“This is the women’s restroom.”

“I know.” He looked around. “Not nearly as mysterious as I’d have thought. Where’s the lesbian party?”

She choked out a laugh that had him taking a second, longer look at her. She was seriously unnerved, and he had an idea that he was a fairly big part of that unnerving. He knew she had a lot going on: the high-powered job, a demanding family that, given the phone call he’d taken for her earlier, was about to become a lot more demanding.

But his tough-on-the-outside Sam was holding on to a surprisingly soft, tender, bruised heart on the inside, and it did something odd to his own heart. Setting his hands on her hips, he stepped close so that her back brushed his chest. He pressed his mouth to her neck, a motion that tugged a surprised breath out of her, just a little hum of helpless arousal that turned him upside down.

But though he was a lot of things, he wasn’t stupid, and he raised his head to meet her gaze in the mirror. “So. What are we doing in here?”

“I don’t know about you,” she said. “But I’m running a poll with my bad and good side.”

On whether to give into this attraction. “Do I get a vote?” he asked.

She didn’t so much as blink, and taking that as a yes, he reached out and hit the lock on the restroom, because his vote was for the bad side, every time.

Sam listened to the bolt on the bathroom slide home and resisted the urge to let out a half hysterical laugh. “Wade-”

“Do you remember what I said last night?” he asked. “What I need to hear from you?”

“Y-yes.” God, listen to her stutter. With a low laugh, she tossed up her hands and faced the truth. “I want you. Dammit. I don’t want to, but I do.” She blew out a breath. “There are a thousand reasons why this is stupid, a million, but-”

He whipped her around, cupped her face and kissed her-probably to shut her up.

It worked. Oh, good Lord, did it work. She’d been standing there staring in the mirror at a woman she didn’t recognize because she’d buried herself so deep behind the professional image that just a simple dance with a sexy guy, a guy who most definitely wanted to strip her out of her professional image, had terrified her.

So where was the ice princess now? Because she couldn’t find her, not when she’d been standing in here alone wondering where the hell the good parts of her life had gone, and sure as hell not now that she was hauled up against the very warm, very hard body of the man she’d been fantasizing about for months.

“God, Sam,” he murmured huskily against her mouth. “God. Kiss me back.”

In that very beat it all tumbled together, her fear, her restlessness, her loneliness, and it turned into something else entirely.

Sheer, unadulterated need.

So much that she shook with it, and she dropped her purse to wrap her arms around his neck, for the first time in her life, doing as he asked.

She kissed him back.

It wrenched a rough groan from deep in his throat and this time he whipped them both around, pinning her to the wall as he kissed her, kissed her like he’d never kissed her before, as if she was so much more than the woman he’d happened to get caught on an elevator with, or a woman he was merely pretending to care for.

He kissed her as if she meant something to him, and it wrenched her heart wide open as she gave him the same back, what she’d never given before, which was to say everything.

He pressed into her, using the wall as leverage to free up his hands, which made great use of their liberation as he slid his fingers into her hair, angling her head to better suit him while he continued to devour her. Then suddenly he lifted his head, looking deep into her eyes, his dark and slumberous and sexy as he stared at her.

“What?” she whispered.

“Nothing. I just wanted to see you, see if you’re half as gone as I am.” His gaze swept her face and softened. “You are.”

“I’m-” She closed her mouth on the lie, instead giving out a miserable nod. He let out a low sympathetic laugh before he came at her again, settling his mouth firmly over hers while she sank her fingers into his hair and clutched at him.

Yes. Yes, she was just as gone as he was, crazy as that seemed. She had no idea how long they went at each other, all she knew was that her toes were curling, her hips rocking to his, and she’d never, ever, felt as far “gone” as she did in that moment, like if he so much as touched her skin to skin she was going to burst into an instantaneous orgasm.

As if he read her mind, he slid his hands down her arms to her hips, and then up again, over her ribs, then higher, to her shoulders, where from the inside of her jacket, he nudged it off, down to her elbows. With her arms caught, his palms swept down again, covering her breasts, his thumbs rasping over her nipples, which wrenched a gasp from her and another heartfelt groan from him.

“Not enough,” he muttered. “Not. Even. Close.” He worked open the buttons of her blouse, murmured a wordless thanks when he found a front hook on her bra, and flicked it open. With an inarticulate sound of hunger, he bent his head, nibbling the full curve of a breast as he crushed the hem of her skirt in his fingers.

“Wade.”

He looked up, eyes bright and intense.

She took a deep breath and searched her mind for a single coherent sentence. She had nothing. Less than nothing. “I forgot what I was going to say.”

Face still serious, he pulled her skirt up. “Let me know when you remember.”

And up…

When her skirt was bunched to her waist, he tilted his head down to take in her boy-cut panties and let out a rough breath. “God, look at you.” He ran a finger over her hip, then beneath the silk, his other hand joining the fray, and then he was cupping her bare bottom in those big, warm, callused hands, hauling her up so that her legs could wrap around his hips.