On the Steamy Side - Louisa Edwards [79]
Lilah left Devon negotiating his schedule and headed down the hall to Tucker’s room. There she found Tucker sound asleep, looking tiny in the full-size bed. He slept on his stomach with one hand fisted by his face, the other buried under his pillow. His dark sable hair, so like Devon’s, was a mass of tufts and spikes against the white cotton pillows.
A warm, solid presence at her back made Lilah smile.
“Is he asleep?” Devon’s voice was hushed, almost awed, like a man talking during a hymn in church.
She murmured an assent and gave him a moment to take in the peaceful sight of his son slumbering away before she closed the door softly.
The living room appeared to be empty. Lilah glanced around and said, “That Daniel seems like a real nice boy. Did you send him on home?”
Devon nodded, his eyes kindling. “It’s just you and me.”
A shiver of delight raced through Lilah. She felt bold and fearless, but at the same time so full of nervy anticipation it was like her belly had been hollowed out to make room for a colony of junebugs.
“I want to make one thing clear before we do this,” Lilah said, mouth dry. She turned to face him and forced herself to look him dead in the eye.
Devon cupped her cheek. His palm was rough in some places, soft in others, warm and strong all over. Lilah wanted to push into it like a cat, but she had a topic to discuss, dang it!
“What’s that, Lilah Jane?”
Suppressing the shimmy of happiness her full name in his voice always caused, Lilah said, “I told you before. I’m not Jane Eyre—you’re not Rochester.”
“And thank God for that. Doesn’t he get caught in a fire caused by his psycho wife and go blind?”
Lilah raised her brows. “Look at you, getting all literate. But that’s not what I mean.” She took a deep breath. “I meant I’m not going to fall madly in love with you if we h-have sex again.”
Curses, how could she stumble over that last part? What a dweeb.
Devon didn’t seem to mind, though, if the amusement brightening his eyes to sky blue was any indication.
“Very reassuring,” he told her gravely. “Although if I were you, I wouldn’t make any promises I might not be able to keep.”
With that infuriating remark, Devon swooped his head down and took her mouth, stealing the indignant retort right off her lips.
Her irritation at his cocksure manner burned to ash in the fire of that kiss. Their tongues danced and stroked, stoking the flames higher. Devon’s hands were never still, sweeping down her sides and back up, knuckles grazing her jaw, her neck, fingers tightening in her hair.
Lilah gave it all up to him, throwing herself into the moment with the abandon she’d always dreamed of. It felt amazing, like flying, and suddenly greedy for more, she fisted her hands in his shirt and dragged him even closer. Their bodies aligned, Devon stooping and curving his body around hers to make the fit better, and then they were writhing against each other.
The friction of her own clothes was driving her crazier than Rochester’s wife. Lilah panted into Devon’s mouth, desperately wanting the clothes to just melt away like they did in books.
Her shirt stayed stubbornly in place, however, until she collected the presence of mind to let go of Devon in favor of wrestling with her own buttons. Tiny, fiddly little things, they didn’t want to come undone, and Lilah tugged at them, nearly sobbing against Devon’s kiss, frustrated beyond belief.
“This shirt is hideous anyway,” Devon told her before gripping the collar and tearing it right down the middle.
Lilah gaped, shocked, but she didn’t have time to dwell on Devon’s fashion critique or his act of wardrobe violence because in the next instant his hands were on her skin, hot and sure against her soft belly. She shuddered under the stroke of his fingers, firm enough not to tickle—but the sensation was like that, so intense as to be almost unrecognizable as pleasure.
The rest of her body didn’t seem to share