“Have you ever thought about getting a tattoo?” She lifted her hand that was still in his and touched the tipof a finger to her bare shoulder. His knuckles brushed against her flesh, making her shiver. “I thought maybe I would. Right here. You know, like a rose or something, but actually, that would look awful on me now that I think about it. I’m too pale and well, sort of like milk. I guess a rose would look like a splash of blood on me.”
Jesus, she’d just compared herself to milk.
Houston didn’t say a word, not a single blipping word to save her from herself, and he led her up the path to a condo with a coral colored door. His hand didn’t leave hers as he deftly put the key in and turned the lock. She wondered if he sensed she might bound off like a quivering rabbit if he let her go.
“Um...” Her mind blanked. She wanted to say something intelligent, seductive, fascinating. But since she was none of those things at the moment, she said nothing.
The door drifted open. Houston turned to her. His head bent, his mouth dropped over her shoulder, and he pulled her skin between his lips and sucked. She gave a startled sigh. The hot tip of his tongue rolled over her, outlining the bone and muscle, and she shivered again, desire spiraling through her body.
She was ragged, ready, tense, and nervous for him to touch her, but desperate for it at the same time. She had been waiting since that afternoon when he had first kissed her, really since the minute she’d first met him, and now she just wanted to get on with it. Appease her body and get back on an even footing.
Houston murmured against her skin, “Not milk. You’re like cream, pale and sweet and I want to lick you up.”
She had no idea what to say. Fine time for speech to desert her. It seemed around Houston she either talked too much or stood mute and wide-eyed like a Precious Moments figurine.
She just nodded.Yes, please. Lick me up.
His fingers played with the bottom of her tank top, brushing across her belly, while his tongue trailed along her shoulder and up to her neck, leaving her skin wet and tingling.
“Shouldn’t we go inside?” They were still hovering in the opendoorway, and though Houston’s front door was private, surrounded by some shrubbery and facing only one other condo, Josie still felt conspicuous.
“Why?” He lifted her tank top up over her breasts and roughly yanked it past her head before she could even react. “Are you shy?”
She gasped, feeling shocked to the tips of her toes that she was left standing on his doorstep in her bra. It didn’t matter that it wasn’t particularly revealing and that bikinis showed more skin. The point was it was herbra.
Houston covered her mouth with his before she could squawk at him, his tongue teasing across her bottom lip the way he had just tasted her shoulder. She wanted to pull away, to deny him, to demand they go inside, but really, no one could see and what did it matter when he was making her feel so damn good?
A large skilled surgeon’s hand had snaked across her breast, covered only by the lacy white bra she’d thought to drag out of her drawer at the last minute, forsaking her usual industrial-strength cotton underwire. Josie had seen his fingers at work, saw how they could manipulate and control and heal with intricate precision, and he was doing that to her now, stroking the pad of his thumb across her distended nipple while his mouth took hers over and over.
When his lips dropped down Josie didn’t think to protest, just let her head go slack and felt the wet anticipation as he sucked lightly on the swell of her breast.
“I love your body,” he said, switching to the other breast. “You’re so gorgeous and tempting, with so many places to hold and suck.”
His arms had wrapped around her, drawing her closer into him. While enjoying the attention, Josie also felt self-conscious over his compliments. “Gorgeous might be overstating it.”
Ice-blue eyes locked with hers. “Says who?”
“The world, I guess.” When he just frowned at her, she wondered why she was spoiling what was proving to be the mosterotic experience of her life by protesting a compliment. “I mean, I know I’m fine, but I’m too whatever to be considered really pretty,” she finished lamely, feeling a blush dart across her face.
She hadn’t meant to do that. Dr. Houston Hayes wanting her was a fantasy come to life, and she was questioning it like a twenty-million-dollar lottery winning.
Houston stepped back, into the entry of his condo, but still only a foot or two in front of her. He studied her, assessing her with a bold, unapologetic stare.
“I want you so bad. I’ve been making an ass out of myself over you all day. I’m having dreams about your body and what I can do to it, and how many ways I can fuck you.”
Josie blinked, unsure how to respond.
“What would you want to have less of?” he demanded.
He reached behind her and unhooked her bra, dragging it down her arms roughly so that her breasts tumbled forward like melons in the grocery bin. Yes, she wanted less of them. They were useless and in the way and anytime she could compare something on her body to produce, it wasn’t sexy.
Houston threw her bra on the front stoop where her tank top was, behind her. Oh, great, she was naked and the door was still open, her clothes out of reach. But amazingly, she didn’t really give a damn, so fascinating was the look on his face, and so wet were her inner thighs.
“Would you want to have less of these?” He cupped her bare breasts as Josie gasped and her heaviness filled his questing, kneading hands.
“Because then I couldn’t do this.” He took her in his mouth, rolling his tongue over her nipple, wetting her and making little sounds of enjoyment like he was licking a particularly good ice cream cone.
Josie grabbed the door frame and clung. So okay, maybe he had a different perspective on the whole thing. “That’s true.”