Honey Pie (Cupcake Club) - By Donna Kauffman Page 0,99
time. But I didn’t want you to think I was taking you home to show you my etchings, either.”
“You have etchings?” she teased.
“Oh, darlin’, you have no idea.”
She giggled at that, low and throaty. Her eyes were all but drenched with want. Want of him. It was enough to drive a man to his knees.
“I set up dinner aboard.”
Her face lit up. “The sailboat?”
He nodded, privately pleased beyond words with her instant reaction. “It’s not seaworthy, still a work in progress, but I thought maybe a picnic with a little candlelight—”
He was cut off by a very exuberant kiss, which had him chuckling when she finally broke off. “I take it you like candlelight?”
“I like that you thought of candlelight. Take me aboard, Cap’n.”
Just like that, his body jerked so hard he winced. “Careful how you word such things, sugar,” he said, his voice somewhat strained.
She batted her eyelashes and grinned. “I was.”
He didn’t know whether to be afraid or shout hallelujah. “I think I may have underestimated . . . oh hell”—he laughed—“pretty much everything.”
“I know the feeling.” Still smiling, she leaned in and kissed him again, taking his face in her hands.
It stilled something inside him, bringing peace and serenity to the center of the turmoil he didn’t even know he still had locked inside of him.
Her kiss was tender, almost unbearably sweet. He wouldn’t have thought himself worthy of such sweet regard, wouldn’t have enjoyed it from anyone else, ever before. “Honey,” he murmured, hearing the break in his voice. “You’re just undoing me here, sugar.”
“Shh,” she said against his lips. “Kiss me back.”
He’d never kissed sweetly before. Slow, easy, a comfortable slide into seduction, yes. But this wasn’t anything like that. Surprisingly, when he brushed his lips against hers, dropped his guard the rest of the way, and let himself express the tumble of emotions in the form of a single sweet kiss . . . the tenderness came quite naturally.
She moaned softly against his lips, and her hold on him tightened. He responded swiftly in kind, but it wasn’t that raging thing from before, though it felt a hundred times more primal. His body leaped, but he didn’t let it ramp up the connection they were making with their kiss.
“Dylan,” she murmured, her voice so soft he could barely hear it.
“Mmm,” he managed, kissing the corners of her mouth, then tracing a line slowly along her jawline.
She groaned and dropped her head back, allowing him access to the most tender spot just below her ear. “Take me home. Please.”
How a man could want to howl wildly at the moon while simultaneously suckling a woman’s earlobe, he had no earthly idea, but damn if he didn’t feel the urge. He finally made himself lift his head, trepidation filling him in that split second before their gazes met for the first time since they’d begun this journey. Not because he worried what he might see in her eyes, but because of what she might see in his.
But hers lit up immediately, smiling right into his own, sparking the way a woman does when she sees that thing she wants the most.
He grinned. It was that or howl. “Hold on,” he said, and scooped her up tight so he could carry her around to the passenger side of his truck. He tucked her inside, fighting the urge to follow her down until they were splayed across the front seat. He closed the door before he could change his mind and walked quite uncomfortably around to the other side of his truck, almost tripping over her satchel.
He snagged it up and put it in the flat bed of the truck, then carefully slid into the driver’s seat, trying not to unman himself in any way.
He pulled on his seatbelt, sucking in his breath as he worked the clutch and the brake. Damn, but he’d never been so hard in his life.
“You okay?” Her voice was deep and throaty and oh, he wanted to hear what it sounded like after she’d come apart under him.
“Yeah,” he managed. “Fine.”
“Liar,” she said, making the word a lazy drawl filled with smug knowing.
He slid his gaze toward hers as he backed up and pulled out of the alley. She was leaning back against the seat as if it was simply too demanding a task to remain sitting upright. She’d rolled her head to the left, and was watching him.
“What makes you say that?” he asked, but he was already grinning.