“I know you love to say that, but I felt the vibe coming off you the moment our eyes locked,” Eli replies, confident as he starts to undo his cuff links. Jesus, I feel like I should be filming this and selling it to a suit manufacturer for their next campaign. It’s hot as hell.
“There was no vibe, rookie,” I reply.
“I’m not a rookie yet. You’re going to have to come up with a new annoying nickname.” He starts to unbutton his dress shirt. “How about Sex God?”
I snort.
He grins, eyes wide. “Did you just snort?”
“Hell yes. That was a snort-worthy level of machismo.”
“Machismo?” He laughs loudly. “I know you’re older than me, but no need for vocabulary from the forties.”
“I’m only one year older than you.”
His shirt is completely unbuttoned now and hanging from his shoulders. My eyes take a long, slow journey from his collarbone down his perfectly toned chest and abdomen.
“A year and two months,” Elijah corrects. “You’re a certifiable cougar, Dixie Wynn Braddock.”
I regretfully pull my eyes off his gorgeously ridged abs and up to his face. But he’s not looking at mine. His eyes are on my legs. I glance down. My dress hiked up quite a bit after I was tossed on the bed and he likes what he sees. I want to show him more so I move a little bit and the dress slides to the top of my thigh. He takes a step closer.
“Take off your shirt,” I whisper and our eyes finally connect.
Without a word he removes his shirt and lets it land at his feet, then he bends and once again he’s deliciously close, his face inches from mine.
“Now,” he says, reaching up with one of his hands and gently wrapping it around the back of my neck. “Where were we?”
“I think we were right about here.” I tip my head ever so slightly so our lips connect.
Yup. He’s as good at kissing as I remember. I don’t know what it is about his lips or his tongue or how he moves them, but it’s blowing my mind like it did the first time. I’m the definition of hot and bothered. His fingers press gently into my neck, and he tilts my head back farther and leans into me, pushing me back onto the mattress. My hands roam over his bare chest and graze a small but perfect amount of chest hair. I let out a little grunt of satisfaction at the feel of it. Jesus.
“You like the chest hair?” he asks, his lips still against mine, his words basically spoken against my mouth.
“Mmm…it’s awesome,” I whisper and let my fingernails scrape through it and over his nipples, which makes his pecs clench. “Helps me forget what a baby you actually are.”
“Stop,” he says, laughing.
“Make me.”
His mouth covers mine again and his tongue sweeps over mine, and seriously, why is this so damn hot? Just kissing him makes me ache between my legs. I move my hands down his stomach and then I move them back up so I can slide my fingers down it again. Because seriously, it’s so hard and rippled with glorious muscle it deserves double the feels. I deserve double the feels.
I’m suddenly, fleetingly, self-conscious. I’m in no way out of shape, but I am also in no way in shape. Definitely not the kind of shape he’s in. His body looks like he’s auditioning for Jason Momoa’s naked stunt double. He is like some kind of specimen created just for my fantasies. I should probably stop eating donuts and start drinking protein shakes or something.
“I want that dress gone,” he sort of growls against my neck with that voice that’s so rough yet somehow soft it reverberates on my skin.
“That requires standing up,” I tell him and start to try to sit up. But once again he manhandles me, flipping me onto my stomach before I know what’s happening.
“God, I am never going to get tired of how tiny you are.” I feel his fingers start to pull the zipper on my dress down.
“I’m letting you do this. Make no mistake, if I didn’t want you to treat me like a blow-up doll, you wouldn’t be,” I advise him. “I have a blue belt in hapkido.”
“That sounds like something you order at a sushi restaurant,” he snarks, and I try to glare at him over my shoulder but it’s impossible. My zipper is now at the base of my spine and I feel the fabric part as his hand slides up my back, palm flat against my skin. It’s warm and rough because his hockey gloves have given him calluses. It feels like his fingers, spread out like they are, cover most of my back.
“Hapkido is a very serious martial art,” I explain, even though the last thing I want to be doing is giving him a lesson in anything other than where I want those hands to go next. “My dad made my sisters and me take it for years growing up so we’d have self-defense skills.”
“So you’re a lethal weapon. Good to know,” he replies and his fingers move to the clasp of my bra. “I promise not to sneak up on you in a dark alley.”
I smile. “I’d love to flip you on your back. But I don’t need a dark alley for that. I can do it here later. After.”
