Read Online HandsOn by Jaci Burton - Free Book Online Page A

doing okay over there?”
    “Yep.”
    “Anything you wanna talk about?”
    Silence. She chewed her bottom lip, waiting for a reply.
    Finally, he spoke. “This is one of those woman things,
right?”
    “Woman things?”
    “Yeah. That whole afterglow thing where we’re required to
dissect the sex and talk about how good it was for both of us.”
    “Uh, no, not really.” When would she learn to keep her big
mouth shut?
    “C’mon, Lara. It was great. I came, or didn’t you notice?”
    He couldn’t really be serious. She lifted up onto her elbows
and peered at his grinning face. Then he winked and she smacked his arm.
“Jerk.”
    Laughing, he tickled her ribs. “Couldn’t help it. You got
all serious on me for a second.”
    “Oh please. Like men don’t ask if it was good for us.”
    “This one doesn’t. I heard your screams.”
    “I could have been howling from the agony of boredom.”
    He shifted, moving her onto her back and holding her arms up
over her head. “You lie. You were in the throes of ecstasy.”
    Tossing out a snort, she shook her head. “I was on the verge
of falling asleep.”
    He kissed her, his tongue torturing hers until warmth spread
between her legs.
    “Wanna bet? I can make you yell again.”
    If this was foreplay, she was all for it. “What’s the bet?”
    “Loser cooks dinner.”
    “You’re on,” she said, then sighed as his mouth covered
hers.
    Good thing she liked to cook.
    * * * * *
    Mark watched Lara laboring over the stove, feeling supremely
satisfied with his ability to please her. Yeah, he’d made her scream all right.
Long and loud, howling like a wild animal.
    Damn, it had been good. So good it scared the shit out of
him. Now, sitting here all domestic-like and watching his woman fix dinner, he
was almost…dare he even think it? He was almost comfortable.
    Visions of nightly dinners and him doing the crossword
puzzle while gazing longingly at Lara over the table had him shuddering.
    He shook his head to clear his wayward thoughts. This whole
thing with Lara was a means to an end, a scam, and nothing more. He’d try to
keep it as low-key as possible so that when the time came for him to end
things, they’d have both enjoyed some fun and that would be the end of it.
    “What are you cooking?”
    She turned her head and smiled, warmth emanating from her
clear green eyes. “Spaghetti. You like it?”
    “Hell yeah.”
    How could watching her stir sauce be so arousing? He
adjusted the growing bulge in his jeans. “So, about the differences between men
and women…”
    She frowned. “Huh?”
    Great. And he called himself a writer? About as subtle as a
bomb drop there. “Remember what we were talking about after sex? That need for
women to be reassured?”
    She sipped the sauce off the edge of the spoon and then
nodded. “Oh yeah. What about it?”
    “What do you think?”
    “I think men like to be reassured about their prowess in bed
as much as women do. They just approach it differently.”
    Now they were really cooking. “How do you mean?”
    Lara leaned her hip against the counter. “Women want to know
that we’ve pleased our man. We also want to be held, stroked and cuddled. To
know that we matter to the man who just made love to us. That he wants to be
there, that he isn’t already thinking of the football game that starts in ten
minutes.”
    Good thing there hadn’t been a game on today. Not that he’d
have cared. What man in his right mind would trade great sex for sports?
    “For a man, he wants to be told that he made the earth move
for us, that we came. Other than that, they don’t need anything else, and in
fact they would prefer we just shut up and not say a thing.”
    “I don’t agree.” Even though he did. But the article would
have to be a difference of opinion and how the different sexes think about
things. This was as good enough a starting subject as any. “I think men worry
about all kinds of things after sex. They just aren’t as