her. Placed his mouth back on her throat. Used his other hand to pull her against his body again, except this time, instead of placing it on her back, he splayed his palm over one ass cheek. Oh dear God.
His lips started moving. He wasn’t kissing her exactly, just dragging his mouth against her too-sensitive flesh.
She let loose a shaky sigh. He made her feel like she was melting and tensing up at the same time—the two sensations were at war inside her body. “What about the condom, though?”
“We don’t need it,” he whispered against her skin.
“Uh, yes we do.” She stiffened. She was on the pill, but there was no way she was having casual sex without a condom. She never would have thought of Jake as one of those guys who would try to suggest otherwise. She was shocked, frankly.
“No, I mean we don’t have to do stuff that requires a condom.” He was still speaking with his mouth right on her.
“Ohhh,” she breathed, her body surrendering to the melting as she contemplated what “other stuff” might mean. “Okay.”
“Although…” He pulled back again. “I could go downstairs and ask Karl if he has one.”
She laughed and shrieked at the same time. The idea of Karl finding out what was going on up here was both mortifying and amusing. He took a step away, and she tried to reach for him to get him back. That was the wrong direction. He was supposed to— Oh. Oh.
He was taking off his shirt.
She sucked in a breath. It wasn’t like she hadn’t seen his chest. He’d been shirtless a couple times in her yard, back at the old house. But that had been a look-don’t-touch situation. Now, by contrast, she was going to get to put her hands all over him. She was— All right, then.
He was shucking his jeans, too.
He was taking the efficient approach, which she could appreciate. The idea of seductively peeling your bed partner’s clothes off was always sexier than the reality of it, when legs got caught in pants and bra clasps were hard to figure out.
And either he wasn’t wearing any underwear, or he was good at multitasking, because when he straightened, he was naked.
He was a naked man-god.
Muscular and beautiful and…he was a big guy, and every part of him was in proportion. In proportion and at attention.
“Well,” she said. “You get right to the point, don’t you?”
His eyes darkened, and she worried she’d offended him. “I don’t do romance, Nora.”
There had been a warning in his tone, but she didn’t need it. “I don’t want romance.” She meant it. She wasn’t cluttering up her life with furniture right now, while she found her feet, so she certainly wasn’t going to clutter it up with romance.
She pressed a hand to her throat. She’d been worried before that her fluttering pulse would give away her lust, but now it was thundering so hard it physically hurt. So did the juncture between her legs, where she could feel her pulse equally strongly.
“I mean it. I like you, Nora. And obviously I’m attracted to you. But I had my run at the whole relationship, white-picket-fence thing, and I’m done with that.”
She must not have answered fast enough, because he took a step back and something shuttered in his expression. “And before you try to tell me that time heals all wounds—”
“I would never tell you that.” She’d spoken more sharply than she’d intended, but honestly she was a little offended. “I would never tell you that.”
She’d thought maybe that was going to be the start of an argument, and/or the end of the proceedings, but he surprised her by smiling. “And that’s exactly why I like you. You don’t speak in platitudes. You don’t think in platitudes.”
She sucked in a breath. That might be the nicest thing anyone had ever said to her. “Well, I mean it, too. I’m supposed to be figuring out my life these next two years. Being kind of selfish. I can’t do that chained to a guy.”
His smile deepened—he liked that answer—and something twisted in her belly. “I also like your hair.”
Okay, apparently they were still on the listing-things-they-liked-about-each-other section of the proceedings. “I like your hair, too. Will you take it down?” He started to do so, and she worried suddenly that she should say something else, lest he think she regarded him merely as a hot body with a great head of hair. “I also like the way you…get stuff