Free Merry and Bright by Jill Shalvis Page B

stepped closer and slid her hands up his chest. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she pressed all that hotness up against him.
    “I could guess,” he murmured.
    She smiled, and it staggered him. “My life has always been MapQuested out,” she whispered. “The route carefully highlighted. But with you, I don’t know what to expect, I don’t know what you’re thinking or what you’re going to do. Nothing is planned out, nothing is guaranteed, and it’s . . . exciting, Jacob.”
    His hand swept down her body and up again. “So I turn your body on.”
    “You turn my head on.” She caught his face in her hands and went up on tiptoe. He could feel her breasts, nipples hard, pressing into his chest. “Do you understand?” she murmured against his mouth. “This isn’t a fifth date, where I’ve carefully reflected and decided it’s time to put ‘have sex’ on the calendar. I haven’t lit a candle or turned on the music like I usually do because that’s what sets the mood and helps me relax. I haven’t slathered myself in some pretty-scented lotion to make sure I’m turning you on. Hell, I didn’t shave my legs—” She went still and closed her eyes, relaxing back down on the balls of her feet. “Dammit, I didn’t shave my legs.”
    He grabbed her before she could turn away, hauling her back up against him. “I don’t care. Finish. Finish what you were going to say.”
    “I want you because you’re different from the norm for me. I want you because when I’m with you, I don’t have to think. I can just feel. I know we said this was a one-time thing, but make me feel again, Jacob, just once more.” She stepped back, then slowly slid first one spaghetti strap off her shoulder, and then the other, letting the cami slip. It snagged on her nipples for one heart-stopping second, then fell, revealing her mouthwatering breasts. She nudged it past her hips, where it landed in a puddle of silk at her feet. Eyes on his, she hooked her fingers in her panties, and he stopped breathing. “Love me, Jacob,” she whispered, gliding them down past her injuries—which made her want to wince, he could tell—past her thighs to join the cami at her feet. Straightening, she reached for his shirt. “Love me.”
    He had a feeling he already did, but that wasn’t what she meant, and all she wanted from him was this adventure, was what he could do to her in bed, so he tugged his shirt off over his head, lifted her up, and carried her back to her bedroom.
     
     
    Maggie expected Jacob to put her on the bed and then follow her down, but instead he sat on the mattress with her in his lap, his spine against the headboard.
    “So you don’t put your weight on your cuts,” he said, pulling her thighs on either side of his hips so that she straddled him, letting her feel exactly what her kisses and touches had done to him.
    There was something about being entirely naked while he still wore his jeans. It made her feel exposed, and yet so aroused she could hardly stand it. “I’m a little underdressed here.”
    “I know.” His eyes were lit with heat and desire as they took her naked body in. “I like it.” Then he covered her mouth with his, going in for a long, drugging kiss that did something shocking to her brain that she’d never managed before.
    It turned off.
    She wasn’t worried about what she looked like naked, or wondering if she’d turned off her cell phone, or if her front door was locked. She wasn’t doing anything but feeling—and oh, God, what a feeling she had with his hands skimming down her bare back, cupping her bottom, gently pulling her in closer, careful of her cuts and bruises, until she was as snug against him as she could be, making her intimately aware of his jeans. The denim rubbed her inner thighs, and between.
    He was hard. Big and hard and she pulled her mouth free to pop open his buttons, while his hands stroked her breasts, gliding over her nipples, leaving her to restlessly rock her