Read Online Fool's Gold (A sexy funny mystery/romance, Cottonmouth Book 2) by Jennifer Skully - Free Book Online Page B

wanted in such a way in
a long, long time. And he did want her. She knew.
    He robbed her of her breath. He stole her
power of speech. He warmed her skin and peppered it with goose
bumps all at once.
    Dropping her gaze, she played absently with
her toes. He stroked her forearm. Ooh. He was big-time getting to
her.
    “I want to kiss you, Simone.”
    Oh my. The things this man made her feel. He
was adorable, like a big huggable grizzly bear with a heart of
gold. Did grizzlies have hearts of gold? Well, he did. For the
first time in a while, she wanted more than the fantasy on her
computer. She wanted to close her eyes and lose herself in his hot
touch. As scary as that was.
    Very scary. Too scary. She was a baby-step
kind of girl. The thought of baring anything, everything—physically
or metaphorically—terrified her. What if she got too exuberant?
What if he covered her mouth?
    But, oh my, she wanted more. Not all-the-way
more, just a tiny bit more. Something nonthreatening, but very
sexy, very erotic. Something to tease herself with.
    He smelled so good. Purely soap and shaving
cream laced with the subtle hint of hot hard male. She’d forgotten
what an aroused male smelled like. She’d missed that, too.
    Simone raised her gaze to his, the light of
the TV flickering across his cheek. Then she tucked her feet
beneath her and rolled to her knees, putting her hand on the back
of the sofa next to his shoulder, her lips inches from his.
    “You know, Brax, I’d like to kiss you. But
there’s something I’d like even more.”
     
    * * * * *
     
    God help him, he was about to complicate
things. Against his better judgment. But right now, Brax would give
her anything. Everything. He couldn’t help himself.
    “What do you want?” His voice almost cracked
like an adolescent.
    He wasn’t a man who usually asked permission.
A woman gave signals. A man learned to read them. He didn’t think
he was wrong about hers. The quickened rise and fall of her chest,
the flush tingeing her flawless skin above the neckline of her
T-shirt, and her concentration with her toes. Yet something made
him hold back, some indefinable sense that he wanted her sanction.
Her unqualified consent to full participation in the sweetest kiss
his mind had ever conjured. He anticipated her taste with an
intensity so great his hands shook.
    He scanned her features, her eyes, her
slightly parted lips, and drank in the citrus scent of her hair. He
wanted the touch of her crimson lipstick and the lingering taste of
licorice.
    “I want the fantasy,” she fairly purred.
    “The fantasy?” Which fantasy? His? Hers? He’d
die to know what they were.
    “Yeah, you know, that whole building-tension
thing, where you want and you anticipate and you’re pretty sure
you’re going crazy, because it’s all you can think about, every
moment, sleeping or waking.”
    Her words were so damn close to the way he
was feeling. “And?”
    “Don’t you remember how it was when you were
sixteen? You wanted to touch that girl, whoever she was, so badly,
your fingers itched and your whole body felt like it was going to
explode.”
    He’d been seventeen, and the girl was Mary
Alice Turner.
    “You ached for the touch of her breast
through her blouse, wanted the feel of its peak in your palm. You
were on the edge, dying, needing.”
    Simone’s voice took him back to that time,
that place, the backseat of his dad’s Chrysler, sweet, pure,
innocent desire consuming him.
    “You wanted to get to first or second base,
maybe even third so bad you thought you’d die. It was so intense
you almost lost it with the thought of touching her most private,
intimate spot.”
    Her voice and his memories seduced him.
    “That’s eroticism,” she whispered. “Wanting
but not being able to have. It made you feel so alive, so aware,
breathless with desire. And when you finally got what you wanted,
if you ever got it, you’ll never forget that moment.” She licked
her lips. “Do you