His expression grew serious, intense, as he stared down at her, and a tremor went through her. This Jack looked like a dominant male, a predator, capable of anything. "I'm the man whose gonna make love to you until you forget every stupid thing I ever said," he muttered.
If he had tried to snatch her against him, she would have bolted. If he had stepped too close, she would have kneed him. If he had tried to force her, she would have done her best to get her hands on the gun in her purse and shoot him. But he did none of those things. Instead, he lifted his hand and cupped her cheek, the fire in his eyes softening to tenderness.
"Let yourself live a little bit, angel," he whispered. "Live. Not for work, not for somebody else's cause. For the moment. For yourself. Reach out and take something you want for once."
Then he lowered his head and kissed her, softly, gently, experimentally. His lips, firm and smooth and oh-so-clever, moved against hers, rubbed over hers, seduced hers into softening and responding. He inched a step closer, raising his other hand and sliding his fingers back into her silky hair.
"Kiss me back, mon coeur," he commanded on a phantom breath. "There's no reason you shouldn't."
Just that she didn't trust him or respect him or want the complication of an affair in her life, she thought dimly. But she gave voice to none of those reasons, thinking that they didn't really have much to do with the here and now. "Let yourself live a little bit, angel…"
She'd been so careful for so long, she couldn't believe she was being seduced by a rogue like Jack. But then that was his allure, wasn't it? He was bad for her. He was wicked. And she had always followed the rules, made the correct choices, done the right thing.
"Reach out and take something you want for once."
Jack's mouth moved insistently over hers, coaxing, luring, tempting, offering pleasure, promising bliss, guaranteeing an hour or two of blessed oblivion of the problems in her life. And God knew she wanted him.
Hesitantly, she obeyed his command, rising on tiptoe, relaxing her lips beneath his. Her fingers curled into fists, gathering the fabric of his shirt in bunches. Then he slid his arms around her, anchoring her against him, holding her safe and secure as she opened to him.
Jack groaned at her surrender and deepened the kiss. With a slow, sensuous stroke, he eased his tongue into her mouth, probing deeply, suggestively. She answered him with a tentative foray of her own, her tongue tracing his lower lip, dipping inside his mouth.
He wanted her, had wanted her from the first, this angel with her alluring combination of fire and fragility. He wanted her in a way he hadn't wanted a woman in a long time-possessively, obsessively. He wanted her to be his in a way she had never been any other man's. He would have seen it as dangerous thinking if he had been able to think at all.
Without breaking the kiss, he took her glasses off and set them aside on the steering console, then guided her hands down to his waist and abandoned them there as he shrugged his shirt off and tossed it aside. He gasped a little at the feel of her hands, so cool and soft, gliding back up his chest.
Laurel explored the smooth, hard planes and ridges of his body, marveling at the strength there, marveling at her own response to his fever-hot skin. She couldn't get enough of touching him, wanted to press into him and feel that strength and heat against the length of her and absorb it through her skin. When he lifted the hem of her top, the sound she made in her throat wasn't protest, but the eager anticipation of pleasure. Naked from the waist up, she moved into him, what was left of her breath vaporizing in her lungs as her breasts flattened against him.
Jack growled low in his throat as he kissed her. Like a sculptor admiring a work of art, he traced his hands down her back, caressing, exploring, interpreting every graceful curve, every plane and hollow. Lifting her into him, he pressed her hips to his, pressed her into his arousal, letting her know how badly, how urgently, he wanted her. He felt her tongue dip into the hollow at the base of his throat, and the flames of desire licked at his sanity.
Need making his fingers clumsy, he fumbled with the button and zipper at the back of her skirt and pushed the garment out of his way. At last she was naked in his arms. He stood back for a moment and drank in the sight of her with greedy eyes.
She was slender and sleek, but there was no mistaking her feminine curves-or her uncertainty about showing them to him. A delicate blush rose up her neck into her cheeks as he studied her, as if she were afraid he would somehow find her lacking.
"Viens ici, chérie," he whispered, holding out his hand to her. "Come here before your beauty undoes me."
He pulled her tight against him, kissing her greedily, hungrily, letting her know his words were more than just the clever prattle of an experienced Lothario. They were truth.
Slowly he lowered her to the red flowered cushions of the bench that was directly behind her, following her down, sprawling over her. She arched her back off the cushion as he found her breast with his mouth, capturing her nipple between his lips and sucking hard on the turgid tip, then sucking gently, massaging her with his tongue.
Laurel tangled her hands in his dark hair and moved restlessly beneath him, soft, wild sounds of yearning keening in her throat. She wrapped her legs around him, lifting her hips against his belly, seeking contact, seeking to assuage the urgent ache that burned at the core of her desire.
He stroked the swollen petals of her woman's flesh tenderly, seductively, opening her to his touch like a precious, fragile flower. She gasped with pleasure as he eased two fingers into the hot, tight silken pocket between her thighs. Then he found the sensitive bud of her desire with his thumb, tapping against it with the slightest of touches, then rubbing gently until she was breathless.
"You like this, sugar?" he whispered, stroking deep, then easing slowly out of her, opening her, stretching her.
"Yes-no-" she gasped, lifting her hips.
"Enjoy it, darlin'. Let yourself go," he coaxed. "Let me make you happy," he murmured. He kissed her quivering stomach, mouth open, hot, wet, tongue dipping into her navel. "Are you ready for me, angel?"
"Yes. Jack, please…"
She gulped a breath and strained against the fist of desire that tightened and tightened within her. She'd never wanted like this. When Jack sat up, reaching for the button on his jeans, Laurel reached out to help him. Sitting up, she pressed fervent kisses to his chest as she closed her fingers around his thick, pulsing shaft.
Jack's control broke at the feel of her small hand stroking him. He tumbled her back on the cushion, pushed her hand aside and guided himself, squeezing his eyes shut as he eased into her.
"Mon Dieu, you're tight!"
Laurel moaned. "I'm a little tense," she said breathlessly. "It's been a long time for me."
Her admission caught Jack by the heart and squeezed. "No," he said, bending down to kiss her. "It's the first time. Our first time. Just relax and enjoy, darlin'."
Laurel closed her eyes and wrapped her arms around him as he began to move against her and within her. He kissed her deeply, then playfully. He nipped the side of her neck, murmured hot, sexy words to her as they moved together. The pleasure built and intensified, swelling inside her until she could barely breathe for the pressure of it.
Jack's kisses grew more urgent, more carnal, his thrusts deeper, driving, straining, filling her to bursting. The time for play faded, paled in the face of something hot and intense that enveloped them and threatened to consume them. Something like fear gripped Laurel by the throat, and she tightened her hold on him, not sure where this was taking her or what would happen after.
"Don't fight it, sweetheart," he whispered urgently. He rubbed his cheek against hers, swept her hair back from her face, kissed her temple. "Don't fight it. Let it happen. Take us to heaven, angel."