Can't Stand the Heat - Louisa Edwards [91]
A hint of vulnerability shone in the darkness of his eyes as he gazed down at her. It was like he half expected her to toss him out of his own apartment once she was through with him.
Making a sincere effort to curb her own pounding heart and runaway libido, Miranda tilted her chin back and ran a hand up Adam’s strong neck and into the soft curls at his nape.
“I’m not going anywhere,” she told him. Relief, and something stronger, glimmered through his expression before he smiled.
“Damn right you’re not.” With a triumphant growl and a lightning-quick maneuver, he trapped both her hands in one of his big fists and pinned them to the bed above her head.
“At least, not until I finally get to see you naked,” Miranda said.
Her own boldness turned her on, and from the dazed look on Adam’s face, it had a similar effect on him.
That’s right, she mused. He likes the way I talk.
Improvising, Miranda put on her best sultry voice, drinking in every flicker of expression that crossed Adam’s face as she began to speak.
“I want to take off your clothes and taste every last inch of you. You can tell a lot about a person by taste. I can, anyway. It’s that overdeveloped, exceedingly discerning palate of mine, I expect.” She inhaled deeply, the sharp aroma of masculine sweat and heated flesh rising to her nose.
“Even the way you smell,” she went on, forgetting to monitor Adam’s reaction and losing herself in the delirium of the moment. “You smell like sex, all musky and warm.”
“God, Miranda,” Adam groaned, dropping his head in supplicating defeat against her shoulder. “You’re killing me with this stuff. The way you use words . . .”
He trailed off helplessly, but Miranda could feel the truth of what he wanted to say in the quick, hitching breaths being panted against her abdomen. In the frustrated thrusting of his hips.
Miranda was making him lose control, driving him out of his mind with desire. The knowledge sent a sharp spasm of excitement straight to her center, and she swallowed against the liquid rush of it.
“So do something about it,” she demanded, spreading her legs wider and locking them around his narrow waist.
Adam sank deeper into the cradle of her pelvis. Groaning convulsively at the increased pressure of his sex against hers, he let go of her hands and raised himself up on trembling forearms to stare down at her.
The move bowed his body into hers slightly, jostling them together. The way his denim-clad erection rubbed across Miranda’s tight, swollen folds made her shiver with longing.
“Miranda.”
She met his eyes. Her head cleared enough to register the seriousness of his expression.
“What?”
“You know I love it when you use those ten-dollar words and make sense out of everything in my head.”
Miranda smiled. “I do.”
“Wonderful. But unless you want this night to be over before it begins, could you do me a favor?”
“Anything.”
“Shut up.”
Miranda felt his lips curve against the shell of her ear at the same moment as she felt his hands drift to the hem of her shirt. She moved to help him, and they divested themselves of their clothes in a breathless rush.
In some corner of her brain, Miranda acknowledged that as much as she’d imagined this moment over the last few days, she’d pictured a slow, anticipatory revealing, every inch of newly bared skin kissed and worshipped in a graceful dance toward completion.
It was nothing like that.
This was exuberant and fun, a mad dash toward nakedness. It was like they were in a race, falling against each other, gasping with laughter, hands hot and frenzied on each other’s bodies. It had never been easier to be naked in front of someone else.
Miranda wasn’t a prude; she’d had her share of boyfriends. Six, to be exact, none lasting more than a few months, but all of them serious enough at the time to warrant sexual intimacy. Not a single one of them had prepared her for this.
Adam tumbled back down on the bed, pulling her atop him. The coarse hair on his arms and legs abraded her skin gently,