The Piano Man Project Page 0,53

nature. There was an edge to him, a seam of danger that ran through him. Don’t get too close unless you’re prepared to risk it all. If Honey had to sum him up in one word, she’d call him lethal.

‘Remember to breathe, baby,’ he murmured, tipping her head back in his hands to slide his open mouth down her neck, kissing the dip between her collarbones. His fingers were unpicking the small buttons down the front of her dress. Remembering to breathe was harder than it ought to be when he eased her dress down to her waist and then slid his hands up her ribcage. She heard him groan as he dipped his head and moved his mouth over the slopes of her breasts, his hands warm over the lace of her bra, stroking her nipples into peaks with the pads of his thumbs.

So this is what it’s supposed to feel like, she thought, as Hal reached behind her and unclipped her bra. There was something in the way he held her, in the way he cupped her and lowered his dark lashes when he kissed her that somehow brought a lump to her throat. She stroked her hands over his hair when he mouthed her nipples, watching the slow slide of his tongue and the almost holy expression on his face. She’d never seen him look that way before, and it was deeply moving, insanely erotic.

‘Please, Hal,’ she said, stroking his shoulders until he raised his head again and kissed her, this time hard and hungry. If she’d thought his kiss special up to then, this kiss sent her reeling. He clamped her against him until the skin of his abdomen welded to hers, one hand tangled in her hair, the other on her neck, her breasts, sliding up her thighs beneath her dress.

‘Let it be you,’ she whispered, ‘I want it to be you.’ Rocking on him, she wanted everything he had to give her and found herself closer than she’d ever been before – to orgasm or love, she wasn’t quite sure.

Her words tumbled into his mouth as his fingers grazed the lace edge of her knickers. ‘Let it be you,’ she’d said, ‘I want it to be you.’ In his whole life Hal had never wanted a woman more. He was so hard it was painful, and he could almost feel her heat through the lace of her underwear. It seemed that size thirteen was his definition of perfect, and the heady power of being wanted, of feeling like a man again was a hard drug to kick.

‘Honey,’ he whispered, slowing down their kiss because he never wanted it to end. ‘Stop me.’

‘No way,’ she smiled against his lips, her fingers working the top button of his jeans. He could tell that she didn’t think he was serious, and he could hardly blame her. He’d stripped her and he’d kissed her like a man on death row. She was shaking in his arms, and there was nothing on earth he wanted more than to slide his fingers inside her underwear and give her what she needed.

‘Honey,’ he said, moving his hand out of her dress and easing his head back. ‘I can’t do this.’

He felt her stiffen and knew she’d registered that he was serious this time, and for the first time in his life he was glad he couldn’t see, because he didn’t have to witness the hurt that had to be written all over her face.

‘You can, please …’ She clung to him, her mouth on his ear as he rocked her in his arms. ‘Let me in, Hal. I want you so much …’ she whispered, stroking his back. Her breasts were pressed flat against his body, and his hands ached to hold them again. It would be so, so easy to let her in, but she wouldn’t like what she found if he did.

He dipped his head and buried his face in her neck, drinking in her scent and then pushing her gently back in his lap.

‘This can’t happen, Honey. I’m sorry, it just can’t.’

Frustration crackled from her like electricity. ‘It can. It already is. You want me, Hal, I can feel it in you here,’ she touched his mouth, ‘and here,’ she lowered her fingers to his chest, ‘and here,’ she dropped her hand down again and he caught it before she could reach his crotch. It pained him to know that the only way to make this any easier