Chapter 8
IZZY
‘I’d like to tongue your pussy?’
‘I-I beg your pardon?’ My words come out reedy, meanwhile his bound like a pinball off the walls of my uterus. Talk about nought to sexy, I mean, sixty—nought to sixty!
‘I said, has the pussy got your tongue? Why? What did you think I said?’
I don’t think I’m imagining how his voice sounds suddenly laced with whisky and taunt, or how, during our verbal sparring, we seem to have gravitated towards each other.
‘What did you think I thought you said?’ Could I be any more juvenile or dorky?
‘Judging by your face, I’d say you heard something about tongues and pussies, for sure.’ His hands grasp the counter at my sides, his body hemming me in, his strong arms my cage. ‘And I’m kind of hoping you’re experiencing a whole load of those tingles you were talking about last night.’
Heat floods my cheeks as I instantly recall mysex-doesn’t-work-for-merant. Who says that kind of stuff to a stranger? Even one she’s pegged as an escort?
‘What kind of man had Mo prescribed for you? The take-charge kind?’
‘And here I was thinking you weren’t for sale.’
The corner of his mouth quirks with the effort of curtailing a smile, his eyelashes casting dark shadows under his eyes. ‘Everything has a price, darlin’.’
‘And what’s yours?’
‘My price? I’d exact my price by kissing you until you sigh. Touching you until you weep, then licking you until you beg for release. And then? Then I’d fuck you until you scream.’
His words are so tempting they make my insides pulse emptily. But I’ve been here before—both in relationships and hook-ups—and the build-up never matches the rewards.
‘I’m afraid I’d leave you short-changed.’ His laughter is as dark as chocolate and more tempting than sin. And of course very, very cocky. ‘If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were trying to seduce me with your large, hot self.’
‘Who says I’m not?’ he murmurs, taking the almost empty glass from my hand, placing it on the counter. ‘Those who want to lick the honey must not shy away from the bees.’ I try but fail at curtailing my own smile, his delivery rough and rasping but so very, very Scottish.
‘I suppose I’m the bee in this scenario?’
‘The bee with the honey. And I’m the one with the tongue. So how about it, little bee? You’ll be wanting to sleep in my bed again tonight, won’t you?’
‘Your bed? That sounds a little like blackmail.’
His gaze narrows. ‘It’s coercion at best.’
‘Whatever makes you sleep at night.’
‘Fucking.’ Lord, that dimple has to be the antithesis of that word. But those lips? Those were lips made for sin. ‘Good sex makes me sleep. The kind of bone-deep fucking that you need, darlin’. But ... you don’t have to fuck me to get into my bed tonight. You could just keep up with those compliments.’ My brow furrows as he straightens, pulling his hands away from the countertop. ‘Because hearing I’mbigandhotnever hurts.’
‘That still sounds like coercion.’
‘Does it? I thought it sounded like a fun way to spend a cold night.’
Breathless with anticipation, I try to ignore the hammer of my pulse as the backs of his fingers brush a fallen strand of hair from my cheek. He strokes his thumb down the slope of my nose, then places it against the soft flesh of my bottom lip.
‘How can something so pretty be such a pain?’ It’s such a blatant invitation, and one I can’t resist, so closing my lips over his digit, I suck it. Swirl with my tongue. Bite the tip.
‘Ungh.’
That noise he makes? I have no words to describe it. All I know is I want to hear it again as his mouth falls open with the lustful lament, his eyes suddenly as black as coal.
‘You’re going to be trouble,’ he whispers.
