World Enough and Time (3 page)

But, after mere minutes, Connor pulled his Jeep into one of the vacant guest spaces at the foot of my building. For the first time since he’d shooed Kyle away at the bar, an awkward silence hung between us.

“Listen, without resorting to some clichéd pick-up line,” he said, “I’d like to see you again.”

I smiled. “Well then, without resorting to some clichéd response, why don’t I just give you my number?”

“I like the sound of that.” He pulled out his phone. I recited my number and he entered it, showing me the screen to make sure it was correct.

With my number securely in his phone, we could safely call it a night. Go our separate ways knowing we’d cross paths again and soon. Still, neither of us moved, nor did we speak.

He scratched the back of his neck, resting his other arm on the steering wheel. “I know I should let you go, but to be honest…” He paused, a shy smile pulling at his lips. “I don’t want to.”

I glanced around the parking lot. “Well, it’s not like they’re going to kick us out of here.”

He laughed. “True.” He set the parking brake and sent my pulse into overdrive. My heart pounded over the purr of the engine, but the tiny world inside the Jeep was otherwise silent. Though conversation had come easily all night, I couldn’t think of what to say now. Everything that came to mind would either sound stupidly awkward or be rife with double entendre.

Connor took a breath and started to speak, then hesitated. He rested his elbow on the steering wheel and rubbed the side of his jaw with the backs his fingers, the muffled scratch of skin on stubble making my fingertips tingle. I wanted to touch him. Good God, I wanted to touch him.

We just met. I barely know anything about him, How can I want him this badly? This can’t
—

My mouth went dry when the tip of his tongue traced a quick arc across the inside of his lower lip. Then his body shifted and the seatbelt snapped back as he freed his arm from the shoulder strap. When he turned to me, I wanted to let his beautiful eyes mesmerize me, but all I could do was stare at his lips when he spoke.

Leaning across the console, he reached for my face and said, “I’m sorry for the way you ended up moving to Seattle”—his fingertips met my skin and he drew me closer to him—“but I have to say, I’m really glad you’re here.”

His hand moved into my hair and he kissed me.

Just like everything about him tonight, his kiss was the very epitome of quiet intensity. Neither gentle nor rough, aggressive nor passive, but somewhere in between, with all the electricity of a first kiss and such familiarity it was as if he’d known all along just how I’d like it.

My fingers sought his face and finally satisfied the craving to feel him, to memorize the contours of his jaw and trace his five o’clock shadow. His tongue parted my lips and when his jaw moved and his cheek hollowed beneath my palm, I had the space of a single heartbeat to shiver, knowing he was deepening this already spine-melting kiss.

The tip of his tongue slid beneath mine and neither invited nor demanded, simply assumed I’d allow him to draw it into his mouth. Even the way his mouth moved was subtle, like he wanted to make sure I felt every place our lips met and tasted every touch of his tongue against mine. I was hyperaware of everything he did, of every way we made and broke contact. His breathing slowed and I couldn’t help but mirror it, inhaling deeply when he did, releasing when his warm breath brushed across my skin.

My finger grazed the surface of his earring before combing through his thick hair. When my fingertips ran down the back of his neck, a shudder pushed him closer to me.

He looked at me and sucked his lower lip into his mouth as if to get one last taste of our first kiss. “I’ve been wanting to do that all night,” he whispered.

Do it again and I swear to God, I’ll be your slave for the rest of the night.
I wasn’t quite brazen enough to say it, though. Besides, speaking was out of the question at this point. My mouth knew how to do one thing and one thing only.

My fingers tightened in his hair and he offered no resistance when I pulled him into another kiss. When we separated this time, we stayed close, just looking at each other. In the back of my mind, I couldn’t quite grasp the fact that we’d been strangers just hours ago. Nameless faces in a crowd.

But now we knew each other’s names, and I desperately wanted to hear him say mine over and over again.

With the taste of his kiss on my tongue, speech was still nearly impossible, but the only alternative was going out of my mind, so I swallowed hard. “Do you—”This wasn’t like me at all. One night stands weren’t my thing, but they sure were tonight. “Do you want to…” My eyes darted toward my apartment, then back to him, and I lifted my eyebrows.

Connor unbuckled his seatbelt.

Chapter Three

We managed to keep our hands off each other all the way across the parking lot and into the stairwell. The whole way, I didn’t dare look at him. Part of me was afraid I’d suddenly remember that this wasn’t something I normally did. Part of me was sure if I caught his eye, we wouldn’t make it to—let alone through—my front door.

Fishing my keys out of my purse, my hands shook, but I hoped he didn’t see. I couldn’t tell which tremors were from nerves and which were from anticipation. What was I doing? Inviting him into my apartment after a few hours of conversation and a couple of long kisses?

The memory of his kiss tingled on my lips and my mouth watered at the thought of tasting him again.
This can’t be anything but a good idea
.

I put the key in the door, somehow remembered which way to turn it to unlock the deadbolt, and let us into my apartment. As soon as we were inside, I turned the deadbolt again, then tossed both purse and keys into a heap just before Connor pushed me up against the door and kissed me.

Outside the confines of his Jeep, his kiss reached new heights of hungry and desperate. His hands tangled in my hair and his hips pressed against mine, just the proximity of his cock making my clit tingle. I had to have him. I had to have all of him. Hot, naked, touching, tasting, everywhere, every way. Right now.

“Bedroom,” I murmured.

Together we stumbled through the darkness, bumping walls, furniture, and each other. In the bedroom, we only got as far as kicking off shoes before I pulled him down on top of me. I’d never been so turned on, but no man had ever kissed me quite like this.

It didn’t occur to me to turn on a light until Connor pushed himself up and took his shirt off. When he came back down to me and my hands found the firm, warm contours of his muscles and the unmistakable grooves of a six-pack, I needed to see him.

After I’d turned on the bedside lamp, I blinked until my eyes adjusted. And when they did, I wasn’t disappointed in the least.

“Fit” didn’t even begin to describe the sculpted, powerful build of his chest and shoulders. He was as lean and slender as I’d first thought when I saw him in the pub, but every bit of him was solid and defined. Some men were a disappointment when the clothes came off. Connor was not one of them, and I couldn’t take my eyes off him.

He didn’t seem to mind my staring. In fact, he was much too busy watching his fingers trail across my skin to even notice. They followed my collarbone to the lapel of my blouse, then down to the first button. With a flick of his thumb and forefinger, the button was open. His eyes met mine and that barely-there grin made my temperature jump.

He unfastened each button in turn, but made no effort to push my shirt out of the way. I was tempted to wriggle out of it, to expose as much skin as I could for him to put his hands and mouth on, but what he was doing seemed so deliberate. Calculated. He knew what he was doing, even if I didn’t, so I let him.

It was only after he’d opened every last button that he hooked a single finger under the lapel and drew it down, deepening the “V” of my blouse one inch at a time. His fingertip caught on my bra for a fleeting second,
just
brushing my breast before continuing downward. That touch, however brief, was electric, and I closed my eyes when a shudder went through me.

A flutter of warm breath above my bra was my only warning before soft lips pressed against my skin. It was a light, gentle kiss, but my back arched and pushed me closer to him, letting his five o’clock shadow scuff against my skin and raise goose bumps all over me. Another huff of breath, this time with the force of a quiet laugh, made me shiver.

I looked down at him and met his eyes in the same moment he kissed between my breasts once more. Pushing himself up on his arms, he came up and kissed my mouth. When his hips touched mine, when his belt buckle chilled my skin and I realized that we were both still mostly dressed, my toes curled. He had to know how powerful his touch was, how just the lightest contact flared my every nerve ending to hyperawareness. He had to know that all he had to do was say the word and we could call foreplay complete and skip right to what we were here for.

But he didn’t.

I’d never known a man to savor every gentle touch and long, deep kiss the way he did. It was some ungodly hour in the morning, we were both horny, and still he took his time. This was the kind of sex I’d fantasized about, and we hadn’t even taken off our clothes yet.

His hand went to my side and started around to my back, which obediently arched. Still kissing me, he sat up, the hand on my back urging me to follow him, and we rose together.

I whimpered into his kiss when he pushed my blouse over my shoulders, fingertips following it until it fell away completely. Once it was gone, he wrapped his arms around me and ran his hands up and down my back, my sides, my arms, exploring every inch of exposed skin the way his mouth explored my own.

When he went for the clasp of my bra, my nipples ached and tingled. I didn’t know what I wanted him to touch them with first—his skilled fingers or his sensual, attentive mouth—but I knew I wanted him to touch them. Soon. Now.

He tried to unsnap the clasp, but failed. Tried again. And again.

“Damn it,” he muttered.

“Need a hand?”

He laughed. “You don’t mind?”

“Not at all.” Willing my fingers to cooperate, I reached back and unsnapped it, shrugging just enough to let the straps fall over my shoulders. He slid them the rest of the way down my arms, then cupped my breast. The tip of his thumb made a slow circle around my nipple, turning my insides to liquid. I put my arms around him and pulled him closer, but even casually using him for support was useless when the heat of his skin melted my spine.

He must have known how precariously aroused I was, because with one hand still on my back, he guided me back down to the bed.

No longer needing to hold onto him to keep myself from collapsing, my hands were free to roam his gorgeous body and feel him. Feel him everywhere. With only the lightest touch of my fingertips, I traced every curve and contour of his muscles. He moaned against my lips when my palms drifted down his sides to his narrow waist, pausing on the cool leather of his belt. I followed his belt to its buckle, and he raised his hips enough to grant me access. I slid my hand between us, squeezing him gently through his jeans and smiling into his kiss when his breath caught.

Shifting his weight onto one arm, he reached for his belt with his free hand, but I gently pushed it away.

“I can do it,” I said.

“I know you can.” He kissed me lightly. “But I want your hands on me.”

“My hands are on you.” I squeezed him again, then traced the outline of his cock with one finger.

He closed his eyes. “You know what I mean.”

“I know exactly what you mean.” I gently dragged my nails along the front of his jeans until his lips parted and his eyebrows knitted together. “And I’m getting there.” Frustration tried to show itself in the grooves between his eyebrows and the thinness of his lips, but quickly disappeared when I drew his zipper down and unbuckled his belt. The buckle, no longer quite so cold now that it had been between our bodies for so long, still gave me goose bumps when it touched my skin because I was now that much closer to touching more of
his
skin.

And I was desperate to touch him. Between the two of us, we got his jeans and boxers over his hips and out of the way, and when my fingers closed around his cock, my entire body reacted as if he’d just thrust deep inside me. A wave of cool heat rushed through me like a phantom orgasm. Or a prelude to the real thing. We both gasped, trying to draw the same air from the space between our lips, and I couldn’t quite tell whose tremors were whose as I stroked him.

Forget more foreplay. I was still half-dressed, he hadn’t even touched me below the waist yet, but if I didn’t have him inside me in the next few seconds, I was going to need medical attention.

“I want you—” I hesitated. I’d never been the one to make that move, to make that call. Self-consciousness lodged the words in my throat.

“You want me to what?” A playful lilt nearly masked the unsteadiness in his voice.

“I—” I took a breath, unable to look away from him, but unable to say what it was I wanted when he looked at me so intently.

He must have known, because he bent and kissed my collarbone, freeing me from the scrutiny of his eyes only to distract me with delicious contact. His lips went from my collarbone to my neck and electricity went from my pussy to every nerve in my body.

“You want…?” A simple prompt to coax me to speak, to try to tease the words out of me, but the vibration of his voice against my throat silenced me.

I finally whispered, “
You
.”

The shudder that ran down his spine pushed his body closer to mine and his cock pressed against my hip. He raised his head and kissed me passionately.

Without a word, he reached over the edge of the bed for his jeans while I kicked my own off.

Riffling around in one of his pockets, he muttered something under his breath. Then he froze. “Oh, son of a…”