Free Jaded by Anne Calhoun

one very specific longing.
    “I want to know what your beard feels like against my lips.”
    He tipped his head in a c’mere gesture. With Nina Simone playing in the background, Alana got up from her chair and circled the tiny table. He adjusted the chair so she could straddle him, and straddle him she did. His thighs shifted under hers as she gently brushed her fingertips over the scruff. Nerve endings ignited in the wake of the soft, rasping sound of skin over bristle.
    Pressing her hips to his was intimate. Simply spreading her legs to do just that was even more intimate. But the most intimate thing of all was touching his face with her fingers. His eyes darkened, but he didn’t move. One arm rested on the table. The other lay across the back of the little rolling cart that held her cookbooks. His legs sprawled into the narrow strip of linoleum between the table and the counters, his bare feet nearly to the baseboards. She couldn’t look directly into his eyes without her face heating unbearably, so she restricted herself to little glances, her gaze flicking from his flat abdomen to his throat to his eyes, then down to where her thumb grazed his full mouth. Her heart pounded slow and hard against her breastbone as she stroked from cheekbone over stubble to his jaw, then brushed her thumb across the spot where scruff met the edge of his lower lip.
    The muscles in his face slackened just before his tongue touched the tip of her thumb. Her heart skittered against her ribs, then settled. Kissing his mouth suddenly seemed like too much too fast too soon, so she angled her head and bent to brush her lips over his cheek.
    More nerve endings lit up, this time in her lips. A sweet heat ignited along her jaw. Never before in her life had a man like Lucas Ridgeway wanted to kiss her, let alone wanted her to kiss him.
    Is that what this was? Could she call the brush of lips on skin a kiss? Hesitantly, she touched the tip of her tongue to the bristly hairs emerging from his cheek. His breath stopped, just for a moment, just long enough for his thighs to tense under hers.
    He liked that. He liked what she’d done, so she kept on doing it, mouthing her way to his jaw, using teeth on his chin just to hear the rasp before she gathered her courage and lifted her mouth to his.
    He didn’t shape his lips to hers, or try to take control of the kiss, but his body grew taut under hers as she nibbled and licked her way around his mouth, luxuriating in the paradox of rough scrape and soft heat. His breath heated her lips, somehow trickling along her nerves to her nipples, then lower to pool in her belly.
    When she lifted her head, his eyelids drooped, and a heated flush stood high on his cheekbones. “How did it feel?”
    “Scratchy.” She stroked her own lips with her index finger, feeling how the stubble brought heat and tenderness to the surface of the skin.
    A corner of his mouth lifted. “I can go shave.”
    She shook her head slowly and felt her hair slide free from her ear as she did. “I want to know how it feels other places,” she said.
    The hand resting on the kitchen table flexed, then he exhaled and it relaxed. Trapping her gaze with his, he palmed her ass and snugged her up against his erection. One hand still cupping his jaw, she steadied herself on his shoulder and bent to kiss him.
    Chemistry incinerated the air between them. It was hot and sliding and wet, but better than the slick stroke of his tongue on hers was the way he didn’t rush things. He sat back, his hand flexing on her hip, yes, but he simply sat there and let her kiss him. Slow and not at all sweet, not until she nipped at his lower lip. Then his hand slid into her hair, gripped the back of her head, and held her for the same treatment.
    Lightning flashed from her mouth straight to her sex. She jerked back to stare wide-eyed at him, but his hand stayed on her hip and head, his brown eyes unrepentant. The message was clear: she wasn’t going anywhere,