The Mix-Up (Southern Hearts Club #3) - Melanie Munton Page 0,56

my shoulders and down my arms. My breath hitches when they flutter silently to the floor. Standing under these bright lights, facing him straight-on, I’m baring myself to his lascivious gaze far more than I did in the viewing room. But I’m not self-conscious. Not nervous. In fact, basking in the spotlight of his worshipful gaze is liberating.

After drinking me in for several long pulls, he reaches around and lowers the zipper of my skirt. This brings his mouth to rest just above my ear, so I hear every minute change in his breathing. How ragged it’s gotten. And his hands…they’re…shaking?

Holy shit, is he nervous?

Would never have guessed that.

The material whooshes down my legs in a whisper of fabric and pools around my ankles. I carefully step out of it, my heels quietly clicking on the tiled floor. Ryder takes a step back and lets his hungry gaze drag over every naked inch of me. When it reaches my bare sex, he drags his hand over his mouth.

“Fuck.” He mutters it in such a low voice, I almost don’t hear him. “Keep it together, man.”

Heat thrums low in my belly. Between his hoarse words and the sight of his red tie hanging over his naked chest, it feels like someone tossed my body into an incinerator.

“Now what?” He doesn’t raise his eyes when he asks the question. I get the sense he’s committing everything he’s looking at to memory.

This is suddenly feeling too serious for my liking. I want to go all sassy on him and address how undone he looks at the sight of me. Infusing levity into a situation via sarcasm is my defense mechanism—my go-to when I’m uncomfortable. But I just can’t grasp onto it.

Because I’m being pulled under by him, too.

“Now…” I take a step back.

Then another.

And another.

When my heels bump into the first step that leads to the tub, I lower myself onto the second one. Propping my elbows onto the highest step, ass resting on the second, I spread my legs wide, putting every waxed bit of my goods on display.

He curses under his breath. “Goddamn, woman. You should be fucking illegal.”

“You going to lock me up and throw away the key? I might be a bad girl and resist.” I inch my thighs even further apart. “You might have to cuff me.”

His body surges forward.

Then, amazingly, he stops.

But the blood has left his fisted hands. His pupils are the size of frisbees. His shoulders oddly appear even broader when he’s turned on like this. He looks on the razor’s edge of losing his shit. I don’t know how long I’ll be able to prolong the foreplay before he goes catatonic.

I nod. “Good boy.”

He licks his lips, eyes locked on the apex of my thighs. “Is that for me? Do I get to have that?”

The way he phrases that has currents shooting through my body like I just received an electric shock.

“I did tell you it was yours tonight, didn’t I?”

I might as well have just told the eight-year-old version of him he could open his Christmas presents early. “All mine.”

I ignore the possessiveness in those words. Mostly.

“Now, it’s your turn to tell me what you want.”

“I want to kiss you there.” No hesitation. “Want to finally figure out what you taste like. I think about burying my head between your legs at least five times a day. Most of the time, I fantasize that you’re lying across my desk when I do it. Then I have your taste in my mouth all day. When I meet with clients or talk on the phone, all I can smell, all I can taste, is my duchess.”

If some part of me was unconsciously testing him with that question, he just passed with flying fucking colors.

“Like I said.” My voice comes out thready, breathy. “It belongs to you tonight. I’m giving you the right to touch me, Ryder.”

That’s all the permission he needs to spring into action. Spring being the operative word. His erection is jutting against his slacks so insistently, a sliver of sympathy ripples through me. Though that quickly disappears the moment he drops to his knees and crawls toward me. His jaw is hanging open, like an animal salivating over its next meal. When he gets close enough for my thighs to cradle his head, he stops.

“Never could I have imagined that you’d offer yourself to me like this. I am the luckiest damn bastard on the planet, because you?” He shakes his head.