Anything For You. Kristan Higgins

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СКАЧАТЬ should... I...” She ran a hand through her hair, not looking at him. “Sorry about that. A guy buys me dinner, I guess it’s a reflex.”

      He wasn’t sure she was insulting him or herself. Her hand was shaking, he noticed.

      “It was good seeing you,” he said.

      “You, too.” She pushed the button for the elevator. “Take care.”

      He nodded once then turned and walked away.

      Shit, shit, shit. Whatever he’d just done had been all wrong. She probably hated him more than ever now. She told him she’d wanted a night alone, but he’d gone ahead and accepted what had probably been an obligatory offer, and then he’d kissed her as if he deserved something, and seriously, he would never get it right where she was.

      “Connor?”

      He turned so suddenly he almost fell. She was still there, looking at him, not smiling. “Yeah?”

      “Do you want to come up?”

      She was very still. Frozen, really. Then she bit her lip.

      She was nervous.

      “Yes,” he said, very, very quietly. “If you’re sure.”

      The elevator doors opened behind her. She glanced back, then looked at him again. “I am.”

      And much to his surprise, she smiled, and it caught him right in the gut, as strong as a punch and almost painful.

      Almost not trusting her words, he walked back to her, and she grabbed the pocket of his coat and pulled him into the elevator, pushed 11, and they were kissing again before the doors even closed, and she tasted so good, like apples and lemon and that hint of wine, and he was already drunk with wanting her before they hit the eleventh floor. When the doors opened again, he just picked her up and carried her out into the hall, smiling as she laughed against his mouth.

      She fumbled for her room key, inserted it upside down, then got it right, and they were inside. She stopped for a second. “Beautiful, isn’t it?” she said then kissed him again, shoving his coat off his shoulders, and Connor had never wanted a woman as much as he wanted her. She was lean and strong and soft in all the right places, and she smelled so good and clean, like lemons and cilantro. He kissed her neck, tasting her skin, and she yanked his shirt out of his jeans.

      “Wait,” he said, his voice hoarse.

      “There are condoms in the drawer,” she said. “Full-service hotel.”

      “Just...wait.”

      He was already breathing hard, his heart crashing against his ribs. His body was telling him to just tumble her back on the bed and get her naked and into her as fast as possible.

      “Change your mind?” she said, and there was an edge in her voice.

      “God, no.”

      “Then what?” The three feet away face was already in place.

      “I want to look at you,” he said.

      Something in her eyes flickered.

      He stepped forward again. His shirt was open, thanks to her quick fingers, but she was completely dressed. Her sea-glass eyes slid away from his, then back, and he cupped her face in his hands, smoothing his thumbs across her high cheekbones. Her lashes were soft and feathery. He touched her lips with one finger, then bent to kiss her, softly, softly, then the corner of her mouth, her cheeks, her nose, and back to her soft, pink mouth.

      When Connor was a kid, he’d seen a coyote take a rabbit from the woods near their house. He ran after it, even knowing the rabbit was already dead, only to find a baby rabbit there in the leaves, its sides heaving with terror. Connor picked it up and felt its heart flying under his fingers, the animal terrified, but safe. He took it home and fed it from an eyedropper. It had taken a week before the animal trusted him.

      It was kind of the same feeling now.

      Jessica, for all her bravado and impenetrability, seemed to be a little...scared.

      He kissed her neck, gently, slowly, and slid his hands under her sweater. Unhooked her bra and skimmed her skin, then slowly pulled the sweater over her head. Looked at her.

      She was perfect. The pulse in her throat was visible, and fast.

      “You’re so beautiful,” he said, and then he sat on the bed and tugged her down with him. He held her hands over her head, and kissed her for a long, long time, tasting her, learning her mouth. Then he let her hands go, smiling as they buried into his hair. Bit by bit, he undressed the rest of her, taking his time, tracing every bit of skin he saw, tasting it.

      “You’re killing me here,” she whispered, her breath ragged, and he lifted his head and smiled, and after a second, she smiled back. It wrapped around his heart, that smile, hot and tugging. “Hurry up, Connor O’Rourke.”

      This was one of those moments of honest-to-God perfection, and he wasn’t going to rush through it. No.

      He took his time instead.

      There were no complaints.

      * * *

      JESS WOKE UP on her stomach, her head under a pillow. The sun was bright behind the curtains, which they’d thought to draw around 2:00 a.m. after the third round of sex—against the wall, good God.

      Very slowly, she turned to see if Connor was still there.

      He was.

      So that was a first.

      In fact, it had been a night of firsts. First night in a hotel, for one. But it was hard to think about the hotel with a rather large, beautiful male in her bed.

      He was lying on his back, one arm over his head, looking ridiculously perfect, like an ad for Alpha Male Cologne. His lashes were long and curly, and his jaw was dark with razor stubble. Full lips, and a slight dimple in his chin. Just under his jaw was a divot from where Chico had bitten him, with a faint, corresponding scar curving from his eye to the top of his cheekbone. For a guy who spent all his time eating and cooking, he was pretty damn chiseled, with long muscled arms and a broad, lightly furred chest. Beautiful flat stomach thick with muscle. Those magical V-lines above his hip bones that led to Happy Land.

      She knew he was gorgeous. She’d known that all her life, in fact.

      It was his smile that was his secret weapon.

      And his words.

      I want to look at you, he’d said last night, and Jessica had gone from feeling rather lusty and a little irritable when he stopped kissing her to something completely different.

      Exposed.

      Because when Connor O’Rourke looked at her, she felt...different. She wasn’t the type to stop and feel the feelings all the time, because that was dangerous. In that moment she’d felt something she wasn’t used to feeling.

      Scared. Just a little bit.

      A СКАЧАТЬ