Читать книгу Wedding Vows: Just Married: The Ex Factor / What Happens in Vegas... / Another Wild Wedding Night - Nancy Warren, Kimberly Lang - Страница 18

“ARE YOU SUGGESTING I should get you to write my online dating profile?” she asked, wondering if she could have misunderstood him.

“Why not?”

“Because you’re my ex-husband. It seems a little unorthodox.”

“Like I said, nobody knows you better, or knows all your good qualities better than I do.” He grinned at her. “Of course, I know all your not-so-good qualities, too, but I’ll keep those to myself.”

“This seems like a really bad idea.”

“Come on, let me take a crack at it. If you don’t like what I write, you can delete it.”

Intrigued in spite of her better judgment, she said, “What would you say?”

She had her legs curled under her, sitting in a corner of the couch. He picked up the laptop and brought it over, sitting beside her. His thighs brushed her toes and she felt a zing of connection from nothing more than the denim warmed by his body heat shifting against her foot.

He didn’t move away.

And she didn’t pull her foot out of the way.

He typed. She was certain he was correcting her height, knocking her down to size, but when she couldn’t stand hearing the tap-tap-tap of keys, and watching the concentration on his face as he typed, she finally leaned over to check his progress.

What he wrote was, To know Karen you have to be patient. She’s outgoing and funny, has a laugh that makes people join in and the minute you meet her you feel like you’ve known her forever. His fingers paused and she waited, silent, until they resumed. But to know the real Karen, the one behind the fun-loving social creature, takes work. She doesn’t show her true self to many people, but it’s worth waiting for. She’s gorgeous, with clear blue-green eyes that make you think you’re on the bottom of the ocean.

“Oh, Dex,” she whispered, but he ignored the interruption.

Her skin’s Irish fair, with a few freckles that remind you of the kid inside her. Her skin tastes like rain-washed apples, and she smells like cherry blossoms.

“Do I?” she murmured. It was like reading a love letter while it was being written, both romantic and the sexiest thing she’d ever seen. Those long artistic architect’s fingers moved with precision over the keys, barely hesitating, as though all this had been composed in his mind and it was a simple matter to type it all out.

“You do. Stop interrupting.” He thought for a moment and continued.

Her hair is a rich red, it’s long and curly, thick enough that you could wrap it around your hands like rope, but when she’s making love to you, looking up with those big clear bottom-of-the-ocean eyes, her hair seems to catch fire, sparking flame. Hot and cold. Cold and hot.

“I’m not,” she said, feeling breathless.

“You are.”

And when she’s naked her body is a glory. Breasts so rich and full you can fill your hands with them. But go carefully, for they are sensitive to the touch.

She made a tiny sound in the back of her throat.

He took one hand off the keyboard, as though he were pausing to think, and ran it across her nipples, already pebbled inside her cashmere sweater. She sighed, rippling her body against him like a cat desperate for affection.

He turned his head, looking down at her with lust blazing in his eyes. She didn’t even think, simply pushed her computer off his lap and onto the couch, and then threw herself at him.

He caught her against him, crushing his mouth to hers, shoving his hands into the curling mass of hair tumbling around them, and began giving her what she needed.

Off came her sweater. Underneath it, she wore a sexy black camisole and, since she hadn’t expected company and had wanted to feel at her sexiest, she wore no bra.

He groaned when he realized this, running his hands over her, squeezing her breasts in the way he knew she liked, firm but not too hard, and never squeezing the nipples, which were exquisitely sensitive.

Instead he kissed them, suckled them, bringing her close to climax. She used to be embarrassed by how responsive her nipples were, but she’d learned to accept the easy pleasure. She leaned back, loving the feelings coursing through her body and the murmured appreciation from this man.

But she didn’t want this to be a quickie, like the desktop escapade. She wanted time to enjoy him, especially if he was going to be gone for a few weeks. This was her chance to savor him, and then she could figure out what she was going to do about her inconvenient passion once he was out of state.

So she rose, took his hand and pulled him toward her bedroom. She flipped on the bedside lamps, which cast a muted pink glow over everything. Except Dex, who somehow still managed to look masculine and commanding.

She wanted to see all of him, enjoy every inch of his body, so she slowly undressed him, pulling off his sweater, the T-shirt he wore beneath it.

“I see you still work out,” she murmured, running her lips over the muscular ridges of his belly.

The pale slash of an appendectomy scar, an old and nearly forgotten friend, drew her tongue and he sucked in his breath as she traced the line, something she’d done hundreds of times when he’d belonged to her. Moved by the memory, she suspected, as she was.

He was so familiar to her. His legs with the freckles above the knees, that ridiculous tattoo on his left shoulder he’d got on a drunken college trip to Thailand. He claimed he’d asked for an eagle and somehow either in a bad translation or a lack of artistic talent on the part of the tattoo artist, he’d ended up with a rooster on his back.

Which always made her smile. It was a reminder that her ex-husband might be competent at business and brilliant at design, but he could be crazy and unpredictable and just as stupid as the next person.

“I see you still have Millie.” And who but she would have named a rooster Millie?

He smiled at her, all dark eyes and simmering sexuality. “Do you know how much it costs to get a tattoo removed?”

She laughed at him, running her hands up and down his smooth, muscular back. “You’ve got lots of money. You’re just a weenie about pain.”

He grabbed her wrist and pulled her down beside him on the bed until they were in easy kissing distance. “You know me too well.” He kissed her. “Which has some advantages.”

“Such as?”

He grinned at her wickedly. “You know exactly what I like in bed.”

And the truth was he knew the same about her. As he pulled her even closer and began playing with her body, and she began playing with his, she knew precisely what he meant.

Just touching him, feeling his skin warm under her hands, hearing from his whispered encouragement how much he enjoyed her own response got her hot, hotter, and finally too hot to hold. He’d always been able to gauge her response and pace himself accordingly so she had the bone-deep pleasure of feeling orgasm begin to swamp her and then feeling his pleasure double hers. It was the ultimate excitement and she’d never found it before or since.

But once the first round was over, and their urgent need slaked, they began to play, rolling and teasing, laughing and groping until the play turned serious, and they were making love once more.

“I can’t keep up with you,” he groaned, his body slick with sweat, his breathing ragged. “You are the most insatiable woman I’ve ever known. But you’ve worn me out. I need fuel.” He slapped her rump playfully and rolled out of bed as gorgeous as she remembered. If anything his body had improved. It was so unfair.

“What have you got to eat?”

“Nothing. I ate earlier.”

He yawned, still naked, like it was no big deal and then he headed for her kitchen. “Any leftovers?”

“No.” She didn’t want to tell him she’d stuck a frozen diet entrée in the microwave. It seemed so lonely somehow.

But Dexter seemed to think he had the right to entertain himself in her kitchen. Maybe he felt like he could still open her cupboards and fridge as though they were still married.

Because she had to find her robe and slip it on, plus find slippers and run a brush through the red tangle that used to be her hair, by the time she got to the kitchen, naked Dex was standing with his head in the freezer section of her fridge.

He turned to her with a look of disgust. “What is all this diet crap?”

“In case you hadn’t noticed, I’ve put on a few pounds.”

“No. You haven’t.” He shook his head and shut the door with the plastic thunk of a freezer that prefers to keep its secrets. “No wonder you’re always in a pissy mood. You don’t eat.” He went for his coat and for a sad, sick moment she thought he was leaving, but he emerged with his BlackBerry. A couple of clicks and he was dialing.

“Who are you calling?”

“Chinese. Found a great delivery place.”

“Not Chinese,” she almost shouted.

With a puzzled expression he ended the call before it completed. “You always used to love Chinese.”

“I still do,” she moaned. “But I’ve used up all my calories today. I cannot watch you eat and not dig in.”

“You need to quit this diet craziness, you hear me? You look fantastic. Even better naked than I remember.” He grinned at her. “And I’ve got a very visual memory. It’s an architect thing.”

The thought of him comparing today’s naked body with that of five years ago was enough to send her into the bathroom to slam the door and lock herself in until he was gone. “You’re lying.”

He shook his head and pressed redial. She heard him ordering all of her favorite foods and wondered if any woman would blame her if she killed the man by plunging chopsticks into his heart. So long as the jury was packed with women on diets, she knew no one would find her guilty.

While they waited for the food to arrive, he poured them another glass of the wine and pulled his jeans on.

They sat together, chatting, almost like old times.

“Tell me about your project,” she asked.

“I’m excited about this one. The original building is a perfect example of classical revival architecture. The Stockard was built in the 1920s as the headquarters for a trading company, then converted to a bank and then a law firm. Our challenge is to transform The Stockard into a twenty-four-story mixed-use building with office, retail and luxury residential.” He took a sip of wine and she knew he was picturing the project. “They’d already agreed to preserve the exterior façade and mezzanine, where most of the original historic details still exist. But we had to convince them that green building was the way to go. And we did.”

“Congratulations,” she said, knowing that Dex, with his passion and vision, was hard to resist.

“Thanks. We’re mixing smart design with the original architectural detailing. Retail at street level, a couple of floors of offices and a separate entrance leads to top of the line condos. I love mixing old and new.”

She smiled at his excitement. “It sounds amazing.”

“It will be. I might buy one of the condo units.” He shrugged. “See how they turn out.”

She was surprised and she knew it showed on her face. “You’d move back to Philly?”

He flicked her a glance. “I don’t know. Maybe. Or if I keep doing a lot of work here it might make sense to keep a place. I haven’t decided yet.”

She didn’t know what she’d have said, wasn’t even sure what she thought of the idea of him spending enough time in the city to keep a home here, when the doorbell sounded.

“Get the plates, will you?” he said, as he jogged down the stairs to answer the door.

“Plate. One,” she muttered, even as she licked her lips in anticipation.

He jogged back in with a shallow box containing far too many takeout containers.

“What did you buy? Everything on the menu?”

“Sex makes me hungry. You know that.” He plopped the box on the counter and flipped open a carton. Waved the thing under her nose. “Makes you hungry, too. Don’t think I’ve forgotten.”

“Oh, I am a weak, weak woman, and you are an evil, evil man,” she said as she reached inside the container for a crispy chunk of ginger beef and popped it in her mouth where the spicy flavor exploded on her tongue.

From that moment she was lost.

They talked, they ate, and when she tried to stop, claiming she’d had enough, he started feeding her little pieces with his own chopsticks. When he dropped a fat, juicy prawn before it reached her mouth, so it slid down her chest, and then he went after it with his mouth, she laughed. “You did that on purpose.”

“Maybe.” He leaned forward and undid her robe.

“No,” she cried, trying to pull the lapels back together.

“Let me look. You are so beautiful.”

“After I lose five pounds.”

“You’re crazy, you know that?”

She shook her head at him.

He got a cunning look in his eye, one she knew well, and that stirred her blood. “What are you planning?”

“Maybe just a little peek.”

She laughed, but the light in here was so bright. “You’ve already seen everything there is to see.”

“Come on. I like to look at you.”

But she let him ease open one side of her housecoat. Revealing one plump breast, the nipple already as round as a blueberry.

He glanced up at her, then back at her breast. “I haven’t had dessert.”

“Have a fortune cookie.”

He reached for his chopsticks. “I have a better idea.”