Can't Stand the Heat - Louisa Edwards [58]
She drew in a slow breath that nestled her even deeper into the embrace. She heard a quiet catching of breath in her ear, and those fingers tightened minutely on her own, making her imagine what else they might be capable of.
The air in the kitchen was thick and heavy, as if the steam from the poaching liquid had spread like fog, invading her lungs and making her struggle for every inhalation.
Adam’s heart beat out the passing seconds against her shoulder blade, and just when she felt sure he’d snap and do . . . something . . . just when it became inevitable that Adam would touch her and she knew without thinking about it that she’d respond . . . he stiffened and stepped back.
Bracing herself against the counter, Miranda whirled to face him. All the teasing and humor had left his face and she was shocked at the depth of desire that darkened his brown eyes to black. But he held both hands palm up in front of him, attempting to smile.
“My bad. I promised you wouldn’t have to look at those etchings and there I go, wanting to drag them out.”
Miranda took him in, the rueful expression, the no-harm-no-foul gesture—the intensity still lingering in his gaze. The gaze he’d locked on her as if it were the one thing he couldn’t stop. It reminded her of the way he looked at a tricky sauce, totally engrossed and focused. For some reason, that connection propelled Miranda out of her frozen stupor and into Adam’s arms.
Or, more accurately, into Adam’s broad chest, because as soon as she moved, Adam squawked in surprise and lifted his arms clear.
In the next instant, about when Miranda was starting to feel brutally awkward, Adam dropped his hands to her shoulders and stared down at her with wide, dilated eyes.
Miranda wanted him. Badly. Adrenaline zinged through her veins, lighting her up with the same devil-may-care bravado that had gotten her involved with Adam Temple in the first place. It felt so damned good, risky and out there and delicious. She grinned, giddy with the unfamiliar pleasure of throwing caution to the winds.
“Show me,” she whispered. Her voice was so throaty she almost didn’t recognize it, but it seemed to work for Adam. He slid one hand immediately around to the nape of her neck and up into the thick fall of her hair.
“Anything,” he said, his awestruck tone making Miranda feel like a femme fatale. “What do you want me to show you?”
Miranda smiled, knowing it was coy, feeling like Lauren Bacall and Cleopatra and Eve in the freaking Garden of Eden all rolled into one.
“Your etchings,” she said, and stretched up on tiptoe to kiss him.
The moment their lips touched, Adam broke free of his self-imposed distance from the proceedings. He dragged her into his body with a subsonic moan that reverberated down Miranda’s spine, heating things down low and making her squirm in his arms.
She was trying to get closer, not to escape, and Adam seemed to know it. He flexed the hand in her hair, his palm hot and encompassing as he cradled the back of her head and dropped the other hand to her hips. One embarrassingly arousing show of brute strength later, Miranda was perched on the edge of the kitchen counter, her head swimming from the vertigo of being unexpectedly lifted.
Tearing her mouth away, she sucked in air, her head dropping back against the cabinet with a thud. Undeterred, Adam took advantage of the suddenly exposed length of her neck, and moved that voracious mouth down to nip playfully at the tender skin beneath her jaw.
Miranda squeaked when he got to that certain place on the side of her neck, the spot that made shivers run up and down her legs and arms in a furious barrage of pleasure. Adam must’ve taken note, because he took his time exploring the area with lips, teeth, and tongue until Miranda was an incoherent mess.
All she could think to do was to link her wrists behind his neck and squeeze her knees around the trim slabs of muscle at his waist. The tense and release of her thigh muscles