Dare to Love by user (read dune TXT) 📗

How many times in her life had she taken a chance, taken the initiative? What would

happen if she leaned back a little against Jake?

Feeling more than a little emboldened by the wine she’d consumed, she scooted toward him, her back half resting against his chest.

“What are you doing?” he asked, his voice suddenly tight.

“Getting more comfortable.” What would she do if he pushed her away?

Shifting slightly, she half turned and placed her palm down on the glider on the other

side of Jake. This put them nearly face to face. Her chest was inches from his chest. In

fact, if she leaned in a little…

“Lucy.”

“Yes?”

“You’ve got about five seconds to move away, or I’m going to hoist you on my lap and kiss you until your toes curl.”

Fire burned from her already-curling toes to the top of her head. She struggled for her next breath, trying to find a way to bank the raging flames his hot words had sparked.

Every second that passed, she knew she wanted that heat, that scorching flame.

“Okay.”

In the light of the full moon his forehead wrinkled, his whisky eyes darkened, and he

swallowed. “Okay, what?”

Now was the moment. She could scoot away, maintain her distance, and keep things

at the respectable level they’d been before. Or she could say the words and change their

relationship. “Kiss me.”

Without another word he pulled her roughly onto his lap, threaded both hands into

her hair and pulled her face toward his. His mouth swooped down over hers, capturing it

with the urgency of a starving man.

Her lips trembled at the first touch of his mouth on hers. Her breath caught on a sigh

of exquisite pleasure as his tongue weaved its way inside, searching until it captured hers,

tangling and twining in a heated frenzy.

This was no gentle kiss. This was hard, demanding passion, just as she expected. It was like the kiss he gave her in the bar that night, the kind of kiss she’d wanted ever

since. Jake was not a tentative man in any way, and his kiss proved it. This was a man

who knew what he wanted, and when he went after it, no holds barred.

Keeping one hand at the back of her neck, the other sloped down over her bare shoulder, sliding down her arm until he found her hip. He adjusted her closer, fitting her

more intimately against him the same way his mouth held hers. Her hip brushed the

hardened length of him, and heat pooled low and deep within her. She couldn’t help

pressing a little closer, rewarded by his guttural groan.

Breathing normally wasn’t an option. She let loose a series of panting gasps as she caught her breath, desperate to touch him. She clenched at his shoulders, holding on to

him as if she would fall.

Not a chance that would happen. Not the way he clutched her to him. She was practically on her side now, her legs drawn up against him, her breasts crushed against

his heaving chest. She felt the mad thumping of his heart against her breasts, heard his

groans of pleasure as he breathed against her mouth.

She uttered a protest when he tore his mouth away, but she was in ecstasy when he

tilted her head back to rain kisses down her neck, licking the pulse point at her throat.

“Your heart’s pounding,” he said in a deep whisper.

“Yes,” she rasped.

“I love your neck.”

Goose bumps prickled on her skin at the feel of his tongue lathing the recesses of her

throat. She slipped her hands into his hair, willing him closer, releasing a throaty laugh as

his teeth nipped that spot between her neck and shoulder, lightly teasing the tender skin.

Jake turned the flame up a notch when he slipped his hand underneath her tank top,

his palm grazing her ribs. Her stomach quivered at the glide of his fingers over her flesh.

She’d never wanted a man’s hands on her more than she did at that moment. He could

have stripped her naked and had his way with her on the spot and she wouldn’t make a

single protest.

His hand snaked up the valley of naked skin from her belly to her ribs, resting on the

spot just under her bra where her heart beat a frantic rhythm. Her nipples tingled and

tightened under the flimsy silk, the only barrier to his questing fingers.

When his thumb swept over her breast she gasped and he once again captured her

mouth in a long, drugging kiss. He lightly rubbed the palm of his hand over her aching

nipple. It sprung to life, searching for the exquisite pleasure only Jake’s touch could give.

She arched her back, filling his hand with more of her.

Suddenly she was on her back across his lap, her neck resting in the crook of his arm.

Their eyes met, his dark and smoldering like the incendiary feel of her body.

“Your skin is like butter,” he said in a husky voice that pooled wetness between her

thighs. He swept the tank top upward, baring her upper body to his greedy gaze.

“I’ve

wanted to look at you, to touch your skin and kiss you like this, since that first day you

opened that sassy mouth of yours.”

She should have been embarrassed lying in Jake’s arms under a full moon, exposed

like she was. But for some reason her sense of modesty had disappeared. Jake looked at

her like she was the only thing in the world that mattered, a look she’d never seen on a

man’s face before. And whether it was reality or simply too much wine and stress, she

didn’t care.

All she knew was she didn’t want the moment to end.

And then in an instant, she was sitting upright. Jake stood, combing his fingers through his hair.

What had just happened? Her body was awake and alive and dying for more, and he

had suddenly stopped.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, trying for some semblance of clarity. Her brain was fuddled and her body still lingered in a fog of sensual pleasure wrought from Jake’s

kisses and touch.

He blew out a breath, seemingly as shaken as she. The outline of his erection pressed

rigidly against his shorts, telling her he was