He brushed her hair back with his other hand, an excuse to touch the satiny skin of her throat; her heart was pounding.
“We have about thirty minutes,” she whispered against his lips. “They think I went to pick up milk and orange juice.”
“That’s the hottest thing anyone has ever said to me.”
“Is there anyone else left in the building, do you think?”
“Just Carl.”
“Do you think he can hear us?”
“Why, do you plan to be loud?” he said with great interest.
“Maybe, if you do your job right.”
In truth, that was more bravado than she actually felt. She was nervous as hell, and so turned on she could hardly bear it.
“We’re good. Carl’s way across the school cleaning the boys’ locker room bathrooms right...now. And his hearing isn’t what it used to be.”
“You know such sexy things. You’re like an omniscient James Bond.”
To reward her for her banter, he slipped his hand up under her shirt and snicked open the latch on her bra so easily it was like he’d previously sent in a practice reconnaissance team.
Maybe he’d gotten that deft by defusing bombs.
Wow, this was happening fast.
For one thing—it had to happen fast, if it happened at all.
And she supposed they’d essentially engaged in foreplay for weeks now.
His thumb slid across her bare, already bead-hard nipple. A current of pleasure ricocheted between all of her erogenous zones like lightning in Tesla’s lab. She gasped.
Dear God. How had she forgotten how good this was?
Gabe had the ergonomic advantage—hands free and within touching distance of all of the parts of her that were throbbing with anticipation—and he wasted no time exploiting it. He slid a hand, followed her thighs—no delicious dallying on the tender, wildly sensitive inner part, time was of the essence—and slipped a finger beneath the elastic of her underwear and commenced the sort of deliberate rhythmic stroking a flamenco guitarist would envy.
And each stroke sent pleasure rippling and shimmering over her nerves. Again and again.
“Oh God... Oh Jesus... God...” She wasn’t certain why she’d launched into a roll call of deities. The pure surprise in her own voice was nearly comical.
Gabe embarked on a wildly effective three-step campaign: kisses that made her senses spiral, one hand stroking and teasing her breasts, the other at work farther south. She wanted to pitch in, but she was at a disadvantage when it came to reaching or stroking the parts of him that would make him call upon various deities, but she discovered that skillfully applied breath and a tongue tracing the whorls of his ear could make him shudder, then duck his head against her throat for more.
She shifted in his lap deliberately to hear his sucked-in breath, and to feel the hard poke of his erection. He hissed in a breath.
And then gave a short, wondering laugh.
“Eden...” His voice was low and prayerful. It cracked on that last syllable.
Her heart tipped over hard in her chest in supplication, the way Peace and Love did when he wanted a belly scratch.
She was grateful her expression was cloaked by the dark. She wasn’t certain what Gabe would see in it.
“Gabe... Gabe, I think I’m going to... Oh God, any second now.”
He heard her. He scraped his heels on the floor to get the chair in motion and they sailed over to his settee. If this had been one of the rides at the carnival, they would have made a mint.
The teeny red number of the digital clock on the shelf behind his desk read nine thirty-six.