The Bromance Book Club - Lyssa Kay Adams Page 0,76
cheek. The stubble of his day’s growth was scratchy beneath her fingers, but his skin was warm and soft. With a quiet groan, Benedict closed his eyes and pressed his face into her touch, like a flower turning to the sun.
“I missed you so much, Irena,” he said.
“I missed you too,” she admitted.
With a groan, he lowered his forehead to hers. “I am at your mercy, Irena. From the moment I first saw you, I have been half a man because the other half belongs to you. End my agony, love. I beg you. Kiss me. Let me hold you. Please.”
She would no sooner deny him the comfort he needed than she would deny a starving man food. She pressed her lips to his. Softly at first, but then with more pressure. He groaned again and quickly took charge. He pulled the book from her fingers and dropped it. Then he lowered her to the floor. His lips moved across her heated skin, teasing and taunting a hot trail from her jaw to her throat to the rise and fall of her rounded breasts. His hand slid up her side, gathering and dragging fabric to reveal her legs, then farther still until his fingers brushed the underside of her breast.
The need to be touched sent her arching into him with a fervent plea on her lips, but a plea for what, she knew not.
“My love,” he murmured. “May I touch you?”
“Yes,” she moaned. “Yes.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“How’s it coming, Thea?”
Thea dropped her paintbrush and whipped around, face red. “What?”
It was nine days later, and they were at Alexis’s café. Thea was painting the restaurant’s logo onto the raw brick wall behind the bakery counter. And not for free, either. She was getting paid for this gig. Her first real paid job as an artist.
Liv clunked the large vase she was carrying onto the nearest table and crossed her arms. “Okay, that’s it. What the hell is up with you?”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re distracted, edgy. You’ve been avoiding me for a week, and you’ve barely said a word since we got here. It’s like you’re itching in your own skin or something.”
“I’m fine,” she lied. Thea had been avoiding Liv. There was no denying it. But this was why. Her sister could always see right through her, and she was tied up in enough knots already without her sister’s sarcasm. Something significant had happened between her and Gavin the night by the fire, and things had been different between them ever since. They had come closer and closer every night to crossing the final bridge, but they always stopped.
But tomorrow night was the team Christmas party. The night when she would be spending a night alone in a hotel with him. And both of them knew what that meant.
Oh, the irony. Liv used to be the only person she trusted with the truth. Now she was back to faking it. For Liv.
Liv suddenly laughed behind her. Not a funny, ha-ha laugh, but an OMG cackle, as if she’d suddenly figured out the punch line to a joke she heard hours ago. “Holy shit,” she said with a snort.
Thea looked over her shoulder. “What?”
“I can’t believe it. I missed the signs, but holy shit.” Liv laughed again.
“Are you going to let me in on this little epiphany?”
“Yep.” Liv said and grinned, crossing her arms. “You’re horny.”
A hot flush raced up Thea’s neck. “Shut up.”
The door to the kitchens swung open and Alexis emerged. A cat named Beef Cake followed at her heels. “Who’s horny?”
“Oh my God, no one.” Thea returned to her mural.
“Admit it. You are. I know he makes nightly visits to your bedchamber—” She said that last one with a horrible British accent. “It’s starting to get to you. And if you’re this horny, think about the state he must be in. Serves him right. He’s probably primal at this point. I bet the sheets in the guest room are as stiff as he is.”
“Ew, Liv!” Thea choked.
Liv started dancing a little jig. “You’re horny. You’re horny. Admit it, you’re horny.”
Thea jammed her paintbrush into the jar and whipped around. “Fine. Yes, I’m horny. But why shouldn’t I be? Have you seen my husband? It’s like living with a walking firemen’s calendar. The shirtless ones. Every day it’s a different month—shirtless with the dog, shirtless with the kids, shirtless working on the wall, shirtless reading.”
Alexis shook her head. “Wow, I have no idea what is going on.”