Sylvia Day - [Georgian 04] (23 page)

You’ve got to try

THE BEAST IN HIM

by Shelly Laurenston,
out this month from Brava . . .

J
ess gripped her forehead and spun around to stare at Smitty. “What kiss?”

He slowly got to those big wolf feet. “The kiss we almost had sixteen years ago.”

“Why would anything have to do with that kiss that never happened?”

Smitty gave her an indulgent smile. “Now, Jessie Ann, we both know how you felt about me.”

“How
I
—”

“And maybe you still feel that way so you’re afraid to get too close to me. To trust me. To—now, Jessie, let’s not start throwing things.”

Jess held an old 60-gig external hard drive in her hand that she’d grabbed from one of the shelves. The thing weighed a ton. It would cave his head in quite nicely.

“I’m just trying to find out the truth.”

“And you’re doing that how?” She didn’t want to talk about that night. The night he’d pushed her away. Always a late bloomer, sixteen-year-old Jess still hadn’t had her first kiss by then mostly because she’d wanted that kiss to come from Smitty. But he’d hurt her that night when he pushed her away. Not physically, of course, but emotionally her young, way-too-romantic heart had been crushed.

Even now, sixteen years later, she still didn’t want to have this discussion. She could already feel her cheeks heating from embarrassment, remembering how she wasn’t cute or hot enough to get a drunk boy to kiss her. What girl couldn’t manage something that simple from the weak? Apparently she couldn’t.

Already she could feel her embarrassment turning to anger. No, she didn’t want this discussion. She didn’t want to hop down memory lane with Bobby Ray Smith. Not now, not ever.

“You know, Jessie, I’m of the mind if we get that kiss out of the way, maybe you could focus on the bigger issues right in front of you.”

Huh. Look at that. Her leash just snapped.

 

Good thing he was fast because that heavy piece of metal came right for his head. Smitty stepped to one side and it went sailing by.

He stared at her. “
Woman, have you lost your mind?
”

“No, I think I’m getting it back.” Her hand reached out and she blindly grabbed some other hunk of metal. Computer equipment it looked like. “Yeah, I’m feeling better each second.” She pulled her arm back like a pro baseball player and Smitty took the three long steps over to her, grabbing hold of the thing in her hand and wrenching it away from her.

“Jessie Ann, calm down!”

“Go to hell,” she snarled as she reached for that damn shelf again. Everything on it was a potential missile to take out his head.

Slamming down the thing already in his hand, Smitty reached out and grabbed Jessie by the back of the neck. Without thought, only wolf instinct, he yanked her over to him, determined to get her under control. To get her to submit. That’s what Alpha Males did, and it didn’t even occur to him that Jessie wasn’t part of his pack. Hell, she was barely part of his life. Just a blip in his week, really.

But when her body slammed up against his, everything but the wolf in him was wiped clean. All that calm, cool, rational logic he’d spent years and years refining until he moved only as fast as he wanted or needed slipped away from him, leaving the raw, demanding animal behind.

Jessie stared up at him, her hands slapping against his chest, trying to push him off. Too late for that, and he could tell by the way her eyes widened and her breath left her body in one rush that she realized it too.

His grip tightened on her neck and he lifted until she stood on her toes.

“Smitty, wait—”

He didn’t. He cut off her next words by slamming his mouth down on hers, his tongue sliding into her already open mouth, and kissing her hard. He sensed her claws unleash, coming for his face or his chest, so he released her neck and grabbed her wrists, before turning them both and forcing Jessie up against the wall. Using his hold on her wrists, he pulled Jessie’s arms above her head and pinned them in place.

She struggled against him, her knee trying to move so she could take out his nuts. Again, the rational voice in his head that he always listened to told him to let her go. Told him a “nice Southern gentlemen” didn’t do this sort of thing to sweet, innocent, wild dogs.

Then Jessie Ann groaned. It slid up the back of her throat, easing into his mouth, setting his nerve endings on fire. In that moment, his rational voice got shut down for the beast who ruled his heart.

And this . . .
this
right here was why he didn’t kiss her that night all those years ago. If it had caused even a tenth of the lust pouring through his body this very second, his poor little eighteen-year-old brain would have crumpled from the pressure, and the two of them would still be stuck in Smithtown up to their armpits in Smith sons.

He didn’t have to worry about that now, though. They were both adults with an excellent grasp of birth control. They could keep this simple and friendly and still have the time of their lives. Because he had to have her. Now. This very second.

Don’t miss Dianne Castell’s

HOT AND BOTHERED,

out this month from Brava . . .

H
is neck snapped as someone grabbed his tie and yanked him inside the carriage house, the dark interior making it impossible to see who did the yanking.

“What the . . . !” he gasped as the wood door clicked closed. He stumbled, his body flattening a woman’s against the wall, giving him a soft landing that made the choking worth it. He caught the faint aroma of coffee and doughnuts as breasts swelled against his chest, his body reacting as if he hadn’t had sex in months. Hell, maybe he hadn’t. “Charlotte?” he croaked through a shrinking trachea.

“We need to talk.”

“Wish I could.” He loosened his tie and gave a quick glance around the narrow hall, his eyes adjusting to the dim light. “Consider using a telephone?”

“Someone might overhear and I know you don’t want that, and I was heading for my house to change and I saw you coming, and . . .” She took a deep breath, her face scrunched in question as she peered up at him. “So why did you really come to the office?”

“The will? The missing daughter? Keeping things quiet? Stop me if you’ve heard this before. You sure you didn’t whack your head when you fell off that chair?”

Her breath came fast and was getting faster. Her eyes lit with fire—even in the dim light he could tell. “Why me?” she whispered, the implication having nothing to do with the case but with the two of them together now in this hallway after all these years of dancing around.

His brain refused to function, probably because the part of his anatomy below his belt was over-functioning. “You run an ad in the yellow pages.” Maybe? He had no idea about anything right now except Charlotte and wanting to kiss her and knowing he shouldn’t. Things between them were complicated—always had been and getting worse by the minute. He studied her delicious mouth, wanting and waiting for his lips. Make that getting more complicated by the second, and if his plan worked,
complicated
would be a huge understatement and their lives would be totally fucked.

He touched Charlotte’s cheek, her skin soft and smooth, as her body leaned into his, setting him on fire.

“We don’t have an ad.” She bit her bottom lip. “You’re right, I should have phoned,” she said with a shiver. “But we’re here now.” She yanked his tie again, bringing his face to hers, and she kissed him right on the mouth, her lips full and moist and delicious and opening. Did they have to open? Closed lips were a lot easier to dismiss, but this was not a dismiss kind of kiss, especially since he’d wanted it for so many damn years he’d lost count.

She released his tie, her arms sliding around his neck as his tongue touched hers and he lost his mind. Dumbass!

Their tongues mated, and his hands dropped to her sweet round bottom, pressing her softness to his hardening dick. There’d always been an attraction between them, but this was pure jump-her-bones-and-do-her-right-now lust . . . and he liked it more than he ever imagined.

She sucked his bottom lip into her mouth, the motion suggestive as hell as her legs parted, nesting his erection tight against her heat. God, she had great heat! He slid his hands into the waistband of her skirt, her firm rump fitting so well into his palms. His mind warped, there was a ringing sound . . . no kiss or ass-grabbing had ever made his head ring before, especially to the tune of
Moon River
. . . a Johnny Mercer song . . . his favorite. Ah fuck! His cell!

Meet more sexy shifters
in Cynthia Eden’s

HOTTER AFTER MIDNIGHT,

coming next month from Brava . . .

“
I
’m an empath, Colin. My gift is that I sense things. I sense the
Other
. I can sense their feelings, their thoughts.”

Oh, yeah, he’d definitely tensed up on her. “You’re telling me that you can read my thoughts?”

The temperature seemed to drop about ten degrees. “I’m telling you that
sometimes
I can tell the thoughts of supernaturals.” She’d known he wouldn’t be thrilled by this news, that was why she hadn’t told him the full truth the other night. But now that they were working together, now that her talent was coming in to play, well, she figured he had the right to know.

Colin grabbed her arms, jerked her forward against his chest. “So this whole time, you’ve been playing with me.”

The sharp edge of his canines gleamed behind his lips. “No, Colin, it’s not like that—”

“You’ve been looking into my head and seeing how much I want you?”

“Colin, no, I—”
Seeing how much I want you
. Had he really just said that?

His cheeks flushed. “While I tried to play the dumbass gentleman.”

Since when?

“Well, screw that.” His lips were right over hers, his fingers tight on her arms.

“If you’ve been in my head, then you know what I want to do to you.”

Uh, no she didn’t. Her shields had been firmly in place with him all day. Her heart was pounding so fast now, the dull drumming filled her ears. She licked her lips, tried once more to tell him the truth, “It’s not like that—”

Too late.
His mouth claimed hers, swallowing her words and igniting the hungry desire she’d been trying so hard to fight.

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Copyright © 2008 by Sylvia Day

 

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