Work In Progress (Red Lipstick Coalition #3) - Staci Hart Page 0,90

with eyes and fingertips.

I wanted him to kiss my thigh again. I wanted him to keep kissing until his face was between my legs.

The thought shocked and excited me, the vision of his face buried in my heat, of my thighs slung over his broad shoulders. I tried to imagine what it would feel like and couldn’t.

I desperately wanted to.

“Tommy,” I whispered, and the word was a plea.

He met my eyes, leaned over me, capturing me in his arms, clutching me to his chest. “Yes?” he answered, close enough for his word to brush my lips.

“I…I don’t know how to…how to tell you what…how to say that…”

“Just tell me. Just say it. The answer is yes.”

Relief and courage rose in my chest. I drew a painful breath against tight ribs and let it out. “I want you to touch me. Really touch me. I want you to kiss me. Kiss me everywhere.”

Everything about him darkened, heated up until he was crackling, his hand gripping my hip. “Melia…” The way he said my name, like I’d be his deliverance and his undoing.

I knew the feeling with exact certainty.

“Please,” I whispered, terrified and desperate.

His hand moved to my face, his broad thumb tracing my jaw all the way up to the curve near my ear.

“Tell me if it’s too much,” he finally said, his voice rough and rumbling.

“It won’t be,” I whispered and pulled him down to me, my lips reaching for his like they needed him.

That kiss branded me with intention, with gentle demand, with the promise of his care and protection.

He kissed me until I was wriggling against him, my body hot as a struck match. Only then did he let my lips go, his hands forging a path that his mouth followed. First down my neck, brushing my naked collarbone. His fingertips traced the curve of my breast before nestling it in his palm. And then were his lips. A brush of tongue against the soft flesh above my bodice. His hands moving to the zipper at my ribs as his mouth closed over my peaked nipple through the cotton of the bodysuit.

A shock of cold air brushed the newly exposed skin of my ribs. It was too much feeling—the heat of his mouth on my breast, the chill of my exposed skin, the ache between my legs, the weight of his body against mine. I was a slave to sensation.

He shifted again, bringing his lips to mine for a kiss, a kiss meant to soothe, to warn me as his hand slipped into the V of open zipper to cup the back of my ribs, his fingers squeezing my back, testing my comfort.

To answer without words, I slipped my hand into his hair, my legs threading through his, my hips twisting to meet him.

It was the encouragement he needed. His hand shifted, skimming up my back, knuckles trailing back down. And then his fingers hooked in the bodice and peeled it away.

He didn’t break the kiss. I could feel him whispering comfort with his fingertips and lips against mine.

My breast filled his palm, and he squeezed, the pressure a perfect, delicious sensation that spurred the kiss deeper.

All I wanted was to wriggle out of this bodysuit and feel the heat of his skin against mine. The urge was inexplicable, as was the realization that I wasn’t afraid. I was too hot and bothered for logic or pragmatism.

I wanted him. I wanted him with a deep, wild desire that overrode all else.

On the recognition, I was filled with boldness. I unwound my arms without breaking the kiss to tug at the gaping bodysuit.

Tommy took over, first taking my hand to drape it over his neck again, the kiss slow and deep and probing. And with one-handed deftness, he peeled the bodysuit away, exposing first my breasts, then my ribs, then the rest of me. Down my legs it slid. I brought them up to shorten the distance, not wanting him to stop kissing me, not wanting to see my nakedness for fear it would put out my desire.

My eyes remained pinned shut, and I existed only in touch. His hot, hard chest against my soft breasts, his arms a vise, his hands splayed across my back, our necks bent as we wound around each other, unable to get close enough. He twisted, putting me on my back, pressing me into the bed with his chest. His thigh had found its way between mine again, the rough denim of his