Page 21 of He Has Pluck

“Why not?” he says as if we’re on our way to bed. “You’re like a dream come true—and we happen to share that particular guilty pleasure. Except I don’t feel so guilty about it.”

“You forgot one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“I prefer sex with a guy I’m attracted to.” I lick my lips because that’s what I always do when I’m about to lie my ass off. “And I never said I was attracted to you.”

His eyes go all bedroom seduction on me, and he knows. There’s no question that he has my number, can sense the meltdown in my panties, the heat in my bloodstream as he leans in so I can feast my eyes on his perfect mouth—the kind with cushion, the kind a trumpet player would kill for. And that square jaw with the shadow of manly stubble my fingers itch to touch. Fuck.

“Everything about you tells me you’re more than attracted,” he says. “Your sassy words, your body language, the way you stare, but most of all, the way you lick your lips because your mouth is watering to get a taste of me.”

I clench my jaw so that it doesn’t drop open, and my belly dips low like we’re in some kind of dance and he has made a daring move.

“Plus, there’s the fact you invited me back to your place.” His smile would be sweet if it weren’t for that note of triumph in his voice.

“That’s your imagination playing tricks on you. Your first impression was right. I’m an ice chip—where you’re concerned.” In an impressive move of strength, I push myself up from the couch. I need to get away from him because the scent of beer mingling with his brand of man is powerful, and I don’t need this distraction. Not that I have any real interest in him.

He’s the opposite of my type, no true ambition, easily satisfied, all superficially masculine and about as deep as a puddle. He puts his bottle down and stands, crowding me all over again, but I don’t back down this time. What the fuck am I truly afraid of? My heart floats high toward my throat where it has no business being.

Men don’t make me nervous, don’t threaten my self-control. Hell, I had the nerve to shoot a guy after I’d slept with him, didn’t I? An involuntary shudder goes through me, and he steps closer, winding an arm around me.

“I think your ice melted.” He takes the drink I didn’t realize I had in my hand, but I know he’s not talking about the ice in my glass. He’s talking about my icy reserve, my cold armor of protection from…what? From a hockey player I don’t respect?

All right, I find him attractive, but so what? What am I so damned afraid of?

Ruminski’s warning? He’ll never know, and I don’t like to let people shove me around. My private life is private. I can handle a night of no-strings sex and work with him tomorrow. There’s no danger that I’ll end up murdering Hockey Boy in the morning.

Can I really keep my professional distance from a subject if I sleep with him?

“You asked for it, Hockey Boy. Don’t cry to me tomorrow.” He raises a brow, but his eyes go from simmering to a full boil, and he follows me when I turn and walk to the bedroom.

As soon as I walk through the door, I step out of my shoes and start lifting off my sweater. With my back to him, I finish undressing. I can feel him, hear his breathing change, but he doesn’t say a word. Finally naked, I turn.

“What are you waiting for?” He’s still fully clothed. My gaze darts to the zipper of his jeans, to that magnificent bulge, and my fingers itch to free it from the confines of his clothes, to take him in my hands and then my mouth. I look back up at his mouth to see that smug smile shaky with need.

He reaches for his shirt, and I say, “No sex.” He stops, his face like stone, and squints at me.

“No fucking,” I amend. “I want you in my mouth and—”

“I get the picture,” he says. His raspy voice doesn’t sound at all disappointed. He rakes his eyes over me, making no attempt to touch and instead, he unzips his jeans and pulls out his cock.

Dizziness from lust and all the blood flooding to my pussy makes me sway as I move toward him and reach my hand to hold his mouth-wateringly big stiff cock. But he takes my wrist and stops me, instead pushing me back onto the bed.

“I’m hungrier than you are, and I’ve been dying to get a taste of you all fucking night, Ice Chip.” He lowers himself to my side and sweeps a hand from my neck down to my pussy and then leans in and kisses me on the lips, soft and caressing, and then hard until I open my mouth, let him in and kiss him back. The sensations take over, blocking out everything, my life, my past, my future. They don’t exist, only our mouths, hungry and exploring, tasting.

“You taste so fucking good,” he says, his hands caressing, moving everywhere like he’s blind and searching. “You feel damn good, too.” He nibbles my ear, sending the mother of shivers through me. This isn’t the kind of sensation I’m used to. This is too intimate, too intense. Too irresistible.

“Get on with the show if you’re—”

He doesn’t let me finish my sentence, taking my mouth and swallowing my tongue and all the words and thoughts with it. His hand snakes down over my ribs again, down to my navel and then to the mound where my pussy starts, and he strokes the light fuzz of hair there, so close, so fucking close where I need him to touch. I buck my hips up and moan into his mouth.

He sucks my tongue and fills my mouth with his, overwhelming me with the velvety invasion. With his hand, he clamps down on my hip, keeping me in place, and slides it down to caress my upper thigh, bypassing my pussy.

I moan again as I throb with need and reach for him, finding his cock and gripping it, shocked by the diamond-cutter hardness, the length and thickness and the silky-smooth feel as it pulses in my hand. He groans, and I let out a strangled moan, moving my hips against him.

This time when he pushes me back into the mattress, he lifts himself up and moves between my legs, forcing me to let go of him. Then, with his eyes intense on mine, holding me in the grip of that sensual stare, the kind I don’t remember ever seeing before, so laser-focused on me like I’m the beginning and end of his world, he lowers himself and slips his arms under my thighs, lifting them over his shoulders and positioning me so my pussy is like a plated meal in front of his face.

“You’re glistening with need for me, so swollen and ready.” His rough voice scrapes against my raw need, and I jerk in his hands.