Page 54 of Halloween Town

“I thought this was a Puritan town?”

“It was when the Salem offshoot arrived, but they loosened up over the decades. And I’m talking back in the late nineteenth century. Anyway, upstairs from the saloon was a brothel, and the sex workers doubled up as waitresses, and this was what they wore. Luna thought it would be fun to have the waitresses, in her words, ‘harken back to those days.’”

“She made you dress up as a sex worker?”

“Or a waitress. Luna said that they found a trunkful of performers’ clothes in the theater when they did the renovations.” Poppy took the bottle from him. “I presume this outfit came from there. Luna says that they haven’t been worn because the women were smaller back then.”

“I approve.” He tapped the neck of his bottle against his. “Cheers.”

He took in her tiny waist and flaring hips. “They are pretty damn sexy. Why did corsets go out of fashion?” he asked, his voice deeper, growlier.

“That might be because women passed out in them and they are damn uncomfortable,” Poppy replied, tugging at the top of her corset. “I would be grateful if you could get me out of it, Sheffield.”

“I can do that,” he said.

Walking around her, he stood with his front to her back and looked at the bow holding her laces in place and gently pulled it apart. As the fabric separated, he took in her smooth, creamy back, the bumps in her spine, her surprisingly round hips.

He ran his finger up and down her spine, and when she shivered, he placed his mouth on the ball of her shoulder, leaving it there in a long, open-mouthed kiss. Poppy dropped her head back to rest it against his and sighed. He crisscrossed his hands over her torso, then his fingers drifted over her stomach and came up to cup her breasts, his thumbs easily finding her nipples and rubbing them into hard points.

“You have the prettiest body,” he muttered, tracing the line of the now loose fabric of her corset, where her breasts started to swell.

Poppy pushed her hand back and found his thigh, pushing the tips of her fingers into his skin below his jeans. “Yours is better,” she told him. “You were always tall, but you’ve filled out and piled on muscle.”

He didn’t want to talk about his gym routine now. Hell, he couldn’t even remember his routine.

He pushed her hair away and gently kissed her neck, nibbling it and exploring that super-soft skin just below her ear. Pulling the laces at her back loose, he snaked his hand under the corset to find her nipple. She was hard, and he cupped her breast in his hand.

“So fucking gorgeous,” he murmured in her ear. Needing to see her, to kiss her, he came to stand in front of her. Placing his hands on her hips, he gently lifted her up on the table. Then he pushed her thighs apart and stood between her knees. Holding her thighs and loving the feel of her silk stocking beneath his fingers, he looked at her mouth and slowly lowered his head. Poppy immediately responded, and he smiled at her eagerness, loving the fact that she was so open and receptive. But he wanted to savor the moment, to go as slow as he could.

Tracing her lips with his, he swallowed her sigh, smiling when her hands came up to play with his hair, to stroke his shoulders and his back. She pulled his shirt up, and he closed his eyes when her cool hand met his bare skin, loving the way her fingers stroked his skin.

When her hand slipped into the gap between his belt and skin, just above his hip muscles, his restraint gave way, and he plunged his tongue into her mouth, needing to take. And take and take.

Poppy shifted closer and lifted her knee to curl her calf around his leg, and she twisted her tongue around his, also needing to feast.

Dear God, if his kitchen caught fire, he wouldn’t be surprised. If it meant he could keep doing this with Poppy, he’d light the match himself. Lifting his hand to hold her face, then the back of her head, he pulled her as close as he could, needing to feel as much of her pressed against him as he could. He’d never felt this desperate before, never needed a woman so much. His body loved their chemistry, the way they just seemed to fit together so well.

But while his body was loving the way his evening was going, his mind was in panic-mode. It had pulled the fire alarm and was desperately demanding that he find the closest exit and leave because this woman was goddamn dangerous.

To his self-control. To his emotional distance. To his self-sufficiency.

But that was all for later; right now, he simply needed her. In his arms, and to bury so deep inside her they were practically one.

Thom pulled her corset down and took in her perfect breasts, her nipples a delicious strawberry pink. He’d had her this morning, but God, he couldn’t wait to taste her again. Impatient, he pulled the thin fabric further down, and Poppy grabbed his hand and squeezed. When he met her eyes, frantically praying that she wasn’t about to ask him to stop, she winced. “Very old fabric, and I don’t want to have to explain how it got ripped.”

He nodded, released his tight grip and gently pulled the corset up and over her head, tossing it onto the seat of the nearest chair. “Much better,” Poppy said, then stopped speaking as he sucked her nipple into his mouth.

Poppy responded by moaning and grinding into his hard erection, which was perfectly aligned against her tiny skirt with its silly fringe. Those would be the next to go, and he couldn’t wait. Judging by the way Poppy was rotating her hips and sliding against his dick, she was eager to be shot of them, too.

Poppy tugged at his shirt and surprised him by ripping it apart. Much like he did the first time they made love. He heard a button ping as it hit the floor as she pushed his shirt off his shoulders and placed her hot mouth on his skin above his heart. “I want you,” she said, looking up at him. “Do you want me?”

“Only as much as I want to take my next breath,” he told her, his voice husky. Poppy wriggled out of his grasp and dropped to her feet. Standing with her back to him in between him and the kitchen table, she bent over, hair falling to the floor to undo the buckles on her shoes. Kicking them off, she shimmied the skirt over her hips and took the silk stockings with it. Thom noticed the tiny beads on her thong. Damn, he loved G-strings…

His heart picked up pace as he traced the cleft of her buttocks, caressing the skin under the gossamer band of her thong.

“These make men stupid,” he muttered, stroking the pad of his thumb across one of the two dents above her butt cheeks.

“Take me to bed, Thom,” Poppy told him, her voice languid and sexy as hell.