Layover Read online

  It was all about pleasure.

  He stayed back to allow her to slide into the booth first, and handed her the menu before lifting his own. Julia held the stiff, printed sheet but didn’t study the selections right away. Graham’s face drew her attention. It fed her as easily and fully as the fettuccine Alfredo and garlic bread they both ordered. It quenched her thirst as well as the good red wine the sommelier recommended.

  The booth could easily have sat six, and they both pretended it was as crowded. His thigh pressed hers as he leaned to offer her another slice of garlic bread oozing butter. Julia took it, and their hands brushed. She bit into it and the full flavors of good Italian bread, sweet butter, spicy garlic, exploded on her tongue. Graham’s tongue slid over his mouth at the sound she made.

  “That good, huh?”

  “Try it.” She offered him the slice from her hand.

  His fingers circled her wrist to keep her hand steady as he took the last bite from her. He lipped her fingertips, suckling gently and so quickly only the answering tug of desire in her clit proved he’d done it at all. Without letting go of her wrist Graham chewed. Swallowed. His mouth gleamed with butter, and Julia wanted to lean in to lick it from his lips.

  Under the table, their legs touched. She waited, holding her breath, for him to kiss her. Graham’s mouth parted and he leaned forward…but he didn’t kiss her. His breath nuzzled her cheek and the scent of garlic and butter and wine all mingled until he was as tantalizing as the meal.

  Julia tensed at the brush of his mouth on her ear. She could turn her head and take his mouth with hers, but the tickle-tingle of pleasure his lips were creating against her neck as he spoke was too delightful to give up. Her nipples peaked against the satin of her bra as her eyes fluttered closed. Could he see that, the evidence of her arousal? She didn’t care.

  “Are you ready for dessert?”

  It wasn’t exactly what she’d expected him to say. Julia opened her eyes, her mouth already tipping into a smile as she turned to look at him. “Are you?”

  Graham’s fingers slid from around her wrist to link with hers. Palm to palm, their hands came to rest on the table. Below it, their thighs touched, moved apart. Touched again.

  “Whatever you want, Julia.” Graham’s eyes weren’t blue or green or gray but some mixed-up shade of all three. Now the pupils had gone wide and dark, with the table’s candlelight reflected in them.

  Julia also saw herself, hair tumbled over her shoulders. Her mouth a slash of red, tinged from wine, and her cheeks flushed pink with the heat of his closeness. His admiration had become her mirror.

  She meant to speak but her throat at first wouldn’t let her. She licked her lips, and he watched her do it. His fingers tightened on hers. She drew in a breath, then another.

  Graham’s gaze flickered, but he didn’t look away. There’d be no taking back the words, not that she wanted to. Julia leaned closer, just a little, to allow her lowered voice to reach his ear. Their mouths were scant inches apart, but they were not kissing. This close she could count the individual hairs in each of his brows, his lashes, in the line of his off-center widow’s peak. She could trace the tiny lines at the corners of his eyes with her gaze.

  “I think,” Julia said slowly, “I’d like you to take me back to my hotel.”

  The car ride had been eternal. Unbearable. Julia had turned on the radio and opened the roof, and the wind whipping her hair into tangles around her shoulders had also taken away their conversation, leaving only the sound of her laughter.

  In the parking lot she said nothing but looked at him over her shoulder as she moved toward the hotel. She didn’t have to crook her finger to get him to follow. The invitation was in her eyes, impossible to misinterpret this time.

  The lobby bustled with people coming and going. They got on the elevator, where Graham took a spot along the back wall next to Julia. She stared straight ahead, but he could see the tilt of her smile. The crowd pushed in on them, but even in the crush of people he could feel her. Smell her. She was the only woman there, as far as he was concerned.

  The elevator stopped. They got off. Down the hall he followed her, and still they hadn’t said more than a murmured word or two. At her door she paused.

  Now it comes, he thought. She’d say good-night and leave him with his cock aching and his heart pounding. But Julia glanced at him over her shoulder and slid her key card into the slot. She pushed open the door and walked through.

  Graham went after her.

  She was already turning as he stepped inside and the door started to hiss closed behind him. In two steps she was in his arms. In another she had him pushed against the door, her knee between his thighs, both her hands laid flat on his chest.

  She didn’t kiss him.

  They stared. He was breathing hard, his pulse like thunder in his ears. The perfect breasts he’d fantasized about for months rose and fell beneath her silk blouse, and though his hands itched to cup them, Graham didn’t move.

  Julia looked at him and tugged her lower lip into the grip of her even, white teeth. Her hands, fingers spread, moved down his chest to his belly. Her knee hitched higher, pressing her thigh against his balls, and his cock surged.

  Her eyes widened a tiny bit at the sound of the moan he couldn’t hold back. Her tongue swiped her mouth. Holding his breath, Graham watched her gaze move over his face, his jaw, his throat, the small part of his bare chest exposed by the undone couple buttons on his shirt. Her eyes licked kisses all over him.

  His hands, which had gone naturally to her hips when she put herself against him, clutched, but something in her gaze kept him from moving more than that. Julia’s thigh moved slowly back and forth between his legs, the pressure not enough to do more than tease.

  And still they hadn’t spoken. The sound of their breath, mingled, was harsh and loud even over the room’s noisy air conditioner. Through the door behind him Graham heard the mutter of voices, the squeak of wheels. He opened his mouth to say something, but had nothing to say.

  “I shouldn’t have walked away.”

  It wasn’t what he expected her to say, but once the words left her lips Graham couldn’t have imagined anything more right. He half nodded, not trusting his voice.

  One hand moved down his chest to his belt buckle, and he held his breath again. Her other hand slid over his heart. Her gaze went there next. When she leaned to press her mouth to his shirt, when she felt the leap and stutter of his heart at her touch, Graham said the only thing that came to mind.

  “You’re not walking away now.”

  Her breath seeped hot through the cotton and her lips traced shivery patterns on him when she spoke. “No. Absolutely not.”

  In his imaginings he’d had her on the bed already, exploring that luscious body with hands and tongue. But now, here, in the reality, with the slow but steady rocking of her thigh against his balls and her hand only inches from his cock, Graham couldn’t move.

  She wasn’t waiting for him to make the first move. He knew it though she hadn’t said so. Julia wasn’t waiting for him to kiss her, or touch her. Julia, Graham thought with another small groan easing from his throat, was the one in charge here. All he could do—all he wanted to do—was acquiesce.

  When she looked at him this time, her dark blue eyes flashed. Something passed between them in that look, and though Graham wasn’t sure exactly what it was, Julia nodded slightly, as though she approved.

  Her thigh pressed him again, and this time he couldn’t stop the breath from hissing out, or his hips from pushing forward. Julia smiled. The hand on his belt moved to cup him. She weighed him through the khaki, his cock stiff and his balls heavy; when her hand stroked him, the material blunted her touch but did nothing to diminish its power.

  Graham’s hands fisted in her shirt, just above her hips. “Julia—”

  “Shh.” She shook her head a little. “This is all right. Isn’t it?”

  He didn’t know what to say. No other woman had ever