“Did you not send for food, Jessica?”
Jessi blinked again, trying to refocus her thoughts. “Yes, but it won’t be here for a little while yet. Look, I’ve been thinking, what’s your plan, anyway?”
“To bed you.”
“No, I mean, your plan that might actually work.” She bared her teeth in a cool masquerade of a smile.
“Ah, that plan. That would be to cross this room right now and kiss you until you start tearing off your clothing and begging me to f—”
“No, that’s not the one I meant, either,” she said hastily.
How in the world had he moved that fast?
One instant he was across the room, the space of two beds separating them; the next, one big hand was cupping her chin, tipping her head back, the other hot and possessive on her waist. The man was lethally fast. Which boded well for protection—from everyone but him.
He stared down at her with smoldering intensity. He lowered his mouth slowly, lazily, never breaking eye contact with her. Up close, he was beyond gorgeous. Those whisky eyes shimmered with golden depths and were framed by thick dark lashes. His skin was tawny-velvet, darkly stubbled. His lips were sensual, pink and firm, and curved in the hint of a smile.
“Tell me not to kiss you, Jessica. Tell me right now. And best you make me believe you mean it,” he warned softly, a breath from her lips.
“Don’t kiss me.” She wet her lips.
“Try again,” he said flatly.
“Don’t kiss me.” She swayed toward his body, a magnet to steel.
“Try again,” he hissed. “And best ’ware, woman, ’tis your last chance.”
Jessi took a deep breath. “Don’t.” Another deep breath. “Kiss me?”
He laughed, a cocky, rich purr of a sound.
Crimeny, she thought dismally, as he lowered his sexy dark head toward hers, even she’d heard the wrong punctuation there.
10
Even though she knew it was coming, Jessi wasn’t prepared for Cian MacKeltar’s kiss. Nothing could have prepared her for the mind-blowing, sizzling intensity of it.
This was no gentle brush of a kiss like the one he’d given her in the lobby. This was the real deal. Intense and demanding, it was every bit as raw and unapologetically carnal as it was seductive.
Gripping a fistful of her short dark curls, the ninth-century Highlander slanted his mouth over hers. He cupped her cheek with one big hand and pressured the corner of her lips with his thumb, nudging them apart. The moment she yielded, he sealed his lips over hers, opening wider, deepening the kiss, taking complete possession of her mouth, obliterating any lingering protest she might have thought to make.
It was a dominant kiss, an expert kiss, the kiss of a man who knew he was a man, liked being one, and knew exactly what he was doing. This was no college boy kissing her, no young grad student toeing the lukewarm line between desire and political correctness. This was a man who was one-hundred-percent okay with lust, who suffered no hesitation or inhibitions.
It was exactly the kind of kiss, she realized dimly, for which she’d always been waiting. But until now, she’d not been able to define exactly what it was she’d been missing, what she’d been holding out for. She was struck by the sudden realization that the problem with her boyfriends was that they’d been just that—boyfriends, with the emphasis on “boy.”
Cian MacKeltar was a man—and a formidable force to be reckoned with sexually. She was, quite simply, out of her league with him.
She was struck by another sudden realization then: that she was going to be very, very lucky if she managed to walk out of that hotel room, at whatever point in the future they departed, the same way she’d walked in. A virgin, though she’d never admit it to any of her friends. Nobody was a virgin anymore, and peer pressure could get intense if people thought you were.
Personally, she’d never thought it was anyone else’s business whether or not she was. Only her own, and whatever man she chose to share it with. Her mom might liberally encourage baby-having, but she’d also encouraged a healthy degree of self-respect. Pick carefully, girls, Lilly St. James had advised her daughters. There are a lot of duds out there. As her mom was currently between husbands number four and five, Jessi figured she should know.
“Christ, lass, you taste sweet,” he purred.
She shivered with pleasure as he sucked her lower lip into his mouth, nipped it, then closed his mouth hard over hers, plunging deep. He kissed like a man who hadn’t had the luxury in—oh, maybe a thousand years or so—exploiting it for all it was worth, savoring all the subtle, sensual variations. Luring one moment, assaulting the next, and it made her crazy. He kissed like he wanted to devour her, maybe crawl inside her skin. He kissed like he was fucking her mouth, this sinfully gorgeous Highlander with his hot wet tongue and his hard, tattooed body. He kissed so thoroughly and possessively that she wasn’t Jessi anymore, she was a woman and he was a man, and she existed because he was kissing her and if he stopped, she might stop being.