Clay’s laugh interrupted her. “Are you kidding? I’m not being sweet. I’m trying to get in your pants, Daphne. Maybe you aren’t up to speed on how this works, but let me fill you in. A guy forgets to tell his brother about dinner, and then he prays Ellery and her fancy fiancé are too busy to show. Then he uses as many ways as he can to let the woman he’s been thinking about for weeks know he wants her. He brings her wine, compliments her cooking, and maybe pours a little too much extra in her glass, hoping that it loosens her up a little. He tries to make her understand that he wants her . . . and he prays she lets him”—he took the plate from her hand and set it on the table—“kiss her.”
He tugged her toward him.
“Clay, I don’t think—”
“That’s the problem, Daph. You’re thinking.” He stood, quick as a cat or some other really fast animal. A puma. A striking snake. Something dangerous and sexy slamming into her with intention. Clay cupped the back of her neck, and she looked up at him. His blue eyes were half-lidded, and they were studying her lips. He lowered his head, and when he was a mere inch or two from her lips, he whispered, “How about we don’t think?”
Then he kissed her.
Clay Caldwell kissed her, and damned if her knees didn’t buckle at the rush of hunger unleashed inside her body. The torso beneath his T-shirt was rock hard. This was no Rex, soft and slightly pudgy. No, this was a fantasy . . . a young, hot, hard man who knew how to kiss a woman.
The hand he’d rested on her lower back moved down, hauling her body closer to his. The fingers at her nape exerted slight pressure, tilting her head so he could deepen the kiss. His tongue invaded, causing something hot and slithery to invade her belly. No, not her belly. Lower. Deliciously lower.
He used his mouth to punish and then tease, gently sucking at her bottom lip before deepening the kiss.
Daphne, held hostage by the desire rampaging like Godzilla ripping through a city, could do nothing more than knot her hand in his shirt and hold on.
The alarm on her phone dinged. Feed Jonas.
Daphne tore her mouth from the delicious assault. “Clay, wait. Stop.”
He did. “What’s wrong?”
“We can’t. We have to stop.” Daphne released his shirt and pressed the wrinkles out. Her ragged breaths matched his, and she was certain her body was calling her a total idiot for halting what had been the best thing it had felt since . . . forever.
Clay sank down into his chair. “Okay.”
Okay?
“It’s just that this is crazy. I’m too old for you. You used to date Ellery.”
He made a face. “Yeah, in high school. And we went out, like, three times.”
Daphne rubbed a hand over her chest. Her heart was pounding, her nipples were hard, and the throb in her pelvis hadn’t faded. She was primed like a Formula 500 engine waiting to tear around the track. “Still. This is a bad idea. You’re my contractor.”
“We’re both adults, and it’s just sex.”
Just sex.
Daphne ran an unsteady hand through her hair. “Uh . . . um, how about some chocolate pie?”
Jesus, she was so lame. How about some pie? What kind of dorky, lame-ass woman who needed to have multiple orgasms yesterday turned down hot, no-strings-attached sex with a guy like Clay? The man had abs of steel, sexy blue eyes, and wanted to do her. And instead of shucking her drawers and climbing aboard, she’d offered him dessert.
Clay’s mouth twitched. “Sure. I like pie.”
Daphne all but bolted for the kitchen, thankful for the swinging door and what it could hide. She leaned over, clasped her knees, and pulled in three deep breaths.
This was crazy and she couldn’t do it. She wanted to. She really, really wanted to be the kind of person who said to hell with it and let things take their course. But she was Daphne Witt, former secretary of the PTA, current children’s author, and soprano in the Saint Peter’s Episcopal Church choir. She couldn’t. It would be so wrong.
So, so, so wrong.
But Clay could probably go all night, not the usual five minutes of thrusting before ejaculating and then rolling over and falling into a chain saw snore. She knew this from his kiss and the way he’d moved his hands slowly.