LITMIR.BIZ

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      He was already breathing hard, his heart crashing against his ribs. His body was telling him to just tumble her back on the bed and get her naked and into her as fast as possible.

      “Change your mind?” she said, and there was an edge in her voice.

      “God, no.”

      “Then what?” The three feet away face was already in place.

      “I want to look at you,” he said.

      Something in her eyes flickered.

      He stepped forward again. His shirt was open, thanks to her quick fingers, but she was completely dressed. Her sea-glass eyes slid away from his, then back, and he cupped her face in his hands, smoothing his thumbs across her high cheekbones. Her lashes were soft and feathery. He touched her lips with one finger, then bent to kiss her, softly, softly, then the corner of her mouth, her cheeks, her nose, and back to her soft, pink mouth.

      When Connor was a kid, he’d seen a coyote take a rabbit from the woods near their house. He ran after it, even knowing the rabbit was already dead, only to find a baby rabbit there in the leaves, its sides heaving with terror. Connor picked it up and felt its heart flying under his fingers, the animal terrified, but safe. He took it home and fed it from an eyedropper. It had taken a week before the animal trusted him.

      It was kind of the same feeling now.

      Jessica, for all her bravado and impenetrability, seemed to be a little...scared.

      He kissed her neck, gently, slowly, and slid his hands under her sweater. Unhooked her bra and skimmed her skin, then slowly pulled the sweater over her head. Looked at her.

      She was perfect. The pulse in her throat was visible, and fast.

      “You’re so beautiful,” he said, and then he sat on the bed and tugged her down with him. He held her hands over her head, and kissed her for a long, long time, tasting her, learning her mouth. Then he let her hands go, smiling as they buried into his hair. Bit by bit, he undressed the rest of her, taking his time, tracing every bit of skin he saw, tasting it.

      “You’re killing me here,” she whispered, her breath ragged, and he lifted his head and smiled, and after a second, she smiled back. It wrapped around his heart, that smile, hot and tugging. “Hurry up, Connor O’Rourke.”

      This was one of those moments of honest-to-God perfection, and he wasn’t going to rush through it. No.

      He took his time instead.

      There were no complaints.

      * * *

      JESS WOKE UP on her stomach, her head under a pillow. The sun was bright behind the curtains, which they’d thought to draw around 2:00 a.m. after the third round of sex—against the wall, good God.

      Very slowly, she turned to see if Connor was still there.

      He was.

      So that was a first.

      In fact, it had been a night of firsts. First night in a hotel, for one. But it was hard to think about the hotel with a rather large, beautiful male in her bed.

      He was lying on his back, one arm over his head, looking ridiculously perfect, like an ad for Alpha Male Cologne. His lashes were long and curly, and his jaw was dark with razor stubble. Full lips, and a slight dimple in his chin. Just under his jaw was a divot from where Chico had bitten him, with a faint, corresponding scar curving from his eye to the top of his cheekbone. For a guy who spent all his time eating and cooking, he was pretty damn chiseled, with long muscled arms and a broad, lightly furred chest. Beautiful flat stomach thick with muscle. Those magical V-lines above his hip bones that led to Happy Land.

      She knew he was gorgeous. She’d known that all her life, in fact.

      It was his smile that was his secret weapon.

      And his words.

      I want to look at you, he’d said last night, and Jessica had gone from feeling rather lusty and a little irritable when he stopped kissing her to something completely different.

      Exposed.

      Because when Connor O’Rourke looked at her, she felt...different. She wasn’t the type to stop and feel the feelings all the time, because that was dangerous. In that moment she’d felt something she wasn’t used to feeling.

      Scared. Just a little bit.

      A lot, really.

      And then he’d kissed her as if she’d never been kissed before. As if he’d been waiting his whole life to kiss her, as if she was the most precious thing in the world.

      Another first.

      There was no screwing, as she used to call it back in high school when she was a slut. It wasn’t just a guy looking to get laid and making use of her reputation, a guy she’d be using just as much as he’d be using her. It was something else entirely with Connor O’Rourke, giving and hot and sweet and just dirty enough and then sweet again, and he’d smile at her, and that smile slid like a hot knife right through to her unprotected heart.

      This was not screwing as Jessica knew it. The feelings were not feelings she’d had before. Oh, sure, she’d...well, she’d done plenty back in the day. But it had always been hard to turn off her brain. Sex was never just sex, of course. She’d always had an agenda before, with the possible exception of Levi Cooper, who had always been a friend with benefits and nothing more—or less.

      So this was another first. Inviting Connor up...just because... She’d never done anything like that before.

      Even last night, it hadn’t been easy. There was no reason to sleep with Connor other than the fact that, as he’d walked away from her last night, she hadn’t wanted him to go.

      I want to look at you.

      Just the memory of those words made her chest feel tight. Because when he looked at her, she didn’t feel like Jessica Does at all.

      She felt new.

      It was scary, and it was exhilarating, and Connor knew what he was doing, and he could kiss, and he knew where to touch, and he wouldn’t hurry, but when he was finally on top of her, and they were finally together, she came to the edge...and stopped, hanging there, stuck.

      And then he used his words again. “Trust me,” he’d whispered against her mouth, and she was gone, lifted on a wave of purple and red with flashes of white, a feeling of her body not being her own, and being held safe at the same time.

      Another first. The trust part. The safe feeling.

      What to do now was a complete and utter mystery. Should she get up? Should she move closer to him? This bed was enormous. Brush her teeth? Call for coffee? Hide?

      Connor took a deep breath and opened his eyes. Turned his head to look at her.

      “Hey,” she said.

      He didn’t speak. Just gave her a sleepy smile that made her girl parts tighten and thrum. He reached out and took a piece of her hair between his fingers. “Hey, Jessica Does,” he said.

      Her heart stopped. She felt it crack the second before it was abruptly encased in ice.

      “Oh, shit,” he said, bolting upright. “I did not mean that.”

      “Time for you to go,” she said, and her voice was calm.

      “Jess, I’m sorry. I didn’t— I’m just— I really shouldn’t be allowed to speak without coffee—”

      She got out of bed, consciously not taking the comforter with her. So she was naked. So what. He’d seen everything last night. Walking into the bathroom, she kept her breathing calm. No big deal. No big deal. She pulled on the hotel bathrobe and cinched it too tightly around her waist.

      No big deal.

      “Jessica,” Connor said, standing in the

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