He’s playing me. I swallow quickly and grab my wine to finish it off and clear my mouth.
“If Monday was a ‘business meeting,’ I can only imagine how you define a ‘merger,’ Mr. McCormick.”
“Is that a request for a demonstration, Ms. Jacoby?” His mouth is on mine before I can answer, tasting like fruit and happiness. His tongue parts my lips and this time he’s more insistent, the earnest sweetness swept aside by a familiarity that grows between us. His hands envelop my waist and pull me to him as he reclines back on the blanket.
We’re lying down now, his legs stretched out along my own, one knee pushing between my thighs as his heat seeks mine. He smells so good and tastes even better as his tongue runs along the edges of my teeth, hands in my hair, then down my back, caressing me like he owns me.
Or wants to.
My own hands can’t get enough, and I shift, feeling his hardness against my belly. Knowing that he’s hard for me sends an electric zing through my entire body, making me wet and needy. I’ve never felt such all-consuming want for someone else, a lust that threatens to wipe clean my common sense, to eradicate my inhibitions, to make me move and react from a place of primal desire.
His hand slides under the waistband of my jeans, hot skin against the small of my back, and I moan, that small sound of pleasure driving him to explore. His other hand slips over my breast, cupping it, and I take his touch as permission to see what I can discover on him.
This is a lovely game of I Spy. Except we’re using our hands.
He fills his palms with my ass, his own throat letting a low growling sound that makes me wetter. The wind makes the field undulate as the sun peeks out from behind clouds, making a final, desperate attempt to shine before its day ends. All I can do is feel. My sex begins to throb, br**sts swollen and plaintively wanting more of his body, his fingers, his touch.
His wanting me is the most erotic turn-on ever. Knowing he’s hot for me, feeling his response to my presence, my mouth, my touch.
Me.
“Shannon,” he whispers. Just my name. I understand, because his name zooms through my mind a million times a minute right now, trying to embed itself in deep grooves, to make it the only word I can think even when my mind is completely gone and I am nothing but sensation.
Declan.
This feels so good. So achingly good to have our hands and skin and lips and tongues all working together to get acquainted. He kisses my neck and one hand runs a long, luscious line up from my ass over my ribs to cup a breast from underneath, his thumb tweaking one nipple until it’s rock hard.
I gasp. I want so much more. The movement pulls my shirt out completely from my waistband and I wiggle, primed for him. In addition to throwing EpiPens in my purse, I’ve added a handful of condoms because you really never know. Splendor in the grass…
“You are so lush,” he whispers as he pulls away, my mouth raw and burning from so much kissing. I like it.
“You’re amazing,” I say as he pulls me on top of him, his erection pressing into my abs, my leg falling between his, thigh pinned between two powerhouses of muscled legs. I’m crushing him and he doesn’t care, his caresses insistent and making it very clear that this could go as far as we want it to, all the way, and the Shannon that normally would demur is most definitely not the one in charge right now.
As he flips me over effortlessly, Declan’s mouth crashes into mine with a roughness that I like more than I would imagine. He’s covering me, the push of tight legs and his hardness on my inner thigh, his hand under my bra now, teasing and stroking until I’m throbbing. Nudging my legs apart, he continues to sweep my mouth with his tongue, leaving me breathless and intoxicated.
And not from the wine.
A fly buzzes near my ear and rushes off. Then a second. My shirt lifts up under his controlled hands and he works the clasp of my bra, freeing my br**sts.
“You are so beautiful,” he whispers as my shirt pulls up and he slides both hands over my swollen bosom, my breath catching in my throat, body completely vibrating for him.
Gently, he pulls me to the ground again until we’re on our sides, hands exploring, mouths catching and releasing, my mind a blurred tornado of arousal. His hip nudges against mine and my hands go to his jeans, dipping down the front just enough to—
His groan gives me permission.
Apparently, my touch grants him a certain leeway as well, because his hands work the button of my jeans. Normally, I would pause. Date number two (or one? I’m not sure, and math isn’t exactly on my mind right now) is a bit rushed for this, but I don’t care. It feels right. It feels so damn right.
Freeing the front of our jeans simultaneously, we both go slowly, the curve of his lips on mine changing in its slope, our warm, wet exploration delicious and inviting, unwinding slowly as if we both recognize that time and space are ours.
His torso is like warm marble peppered with a sprinkling of hair, his hitched breath as I slide down that final half-inch deeply gratifying.
Cupid’s arrow hits its mark just as he reaches my core and I gasp.
No—really. Cupid’s arrow just stung my back.
“OW!” I shout, jolting up, my hand that just brushed against his thick rod now scrabbling across my rib. My bra is loose around my chest and a deep, intense burning is centered right on a specific spot on my back.
“What? What’s wrong? Did I hurt you?”
I climb off Declan and sit on the ground, filled with pain and insta-worry that I’ve ruined the moment.
“No, no, not you.” A freakish dread fills me as a fly buzzes in my ear again. And then one bites me on my back again.
That’s not a fly.
“Oh my GOD!” I scream. “Get it away from me!”
Declan looks at me with alarm, his face drowsy with desire and the intimacy we’d just been in the thick of. His hands shoot to his waistband, where he quickly does his button and zips up.
“I didn’t mean to push too hard or to ask you to do anything you didn’t want to,” he says in a rough voice. The look he gives me is confused and multilayered, open and closed at the same time.
I can’t process is because my entire body is throbbing. Blood and adrenaline and venom pulse through me, a blind cloud of panic descending.
Then I kind of get it.
“Not THAT!” I shriek. “THAT can come near me any time!” I point in the general direction of his unzipped jeans. “I mean the bee!” Three lazy, floating bee bodies hover over us like unmanned drones centering in on a target.