Julian pulled back, his eyes gleaming in the darkness. Then he lowered his head and repeated the motion, scraping his mouth across hers. Her legs went rubbery, her core melting like lava.
A little quiver rippled through her, followed by a surge of desire so sharp and powerful, her world tilted on its axis. Not even Garrett’s kiss had done this to her. Nothing on this earth had ever done this to her. She shouldn’t feel such blazing need swimming through her veins, shouldn’t want to feel more, feel everything.
But she did, goodness, she did.
His nearness intoxicated her, the brush of his sensual lips fascinated her beyond measure, and she felt weak with wanting, had never wanted anything so much as she wanted to be kissed by him. Right now, in this tiny lightless room, this very instant. Kissed thoroughly and deeply by this sex god everyone wanted but no one could ever have. Least of all Molly.
But Julian did not kiss her. Only teased her with the possibility of it. The delicious scent of his body enveloped and dizzied her. It was incredible; this feeling of flying. He was so familiar and at the same time totally new. As if discovering your body could do something you never expected it to. This was how it felt to awaken to Julian John. And that was the only word she could think of. Awaken.
To Julian John.
He just had to kiss her.
Please kiss me.
Her breathing escalated and her lips parted as he scraped his mouth across hers for the third time. She heard a sound come out of herself and almost collapsed in a puddle on the floor when he released her.
“There. I’m probably wearing more lipstick than you are now. Come on, Mo-Mo. Let’s get out of here.”
He went to open the office door, and light from the corridor spilled in, silhouetting his magnificent form. Their eyes met across the gloom while he waited for her to get her bearings. But her knees felt like soup.
Her legs like noodles.
She blinked but couldn’t focus.
She couldn’t even breathe.
She didn’t know what was wrong with her, but her mind was screaming for him to come back, for him to kiss her, for her to kiss him, for her to do anything to be kissed by Julian John. And suddenly when he swung around to leave, she blurted out, “JJ, wait!”
Her heart stopped when he froze, and for a wild instant, all that was audible in the dark room was both their uneven breathing. Their eyes met again—and something electrifying pulsed between them.
He closed the door so slowly her heart almost disintegrated, and then she heard a click as it hit the doorjamb. Darkness swallowed them again, darkness and something wild and untamable. An unbearable intensity charged the air as he took a step forward.
Molly was not thinking right, felt drunk with sensations. With expectation. Anticipation.
“What did you just say?” Julian asked. His voice was very, very soft. Dangerously soft.
Molly held her breath, her lungs near bursting. “I said JJ.”
His eyes shimmered like lanterns in the night, and her heart rattled in her chest and the blood roared in her ears as he took that last step closer.
With slow, deliberate precision, he placed his hands on either side of her head against the back wall and caged her between his arms as he leaned forward. A gravelly sound stole into his voice as he slid his fingers through her loose hair and encircled the back of her head. “Say it to my face, Molly. Say it one more time to my face. I dare you.”
Longing burst open inside her. Hunger. Want. Everything.
She knew this was crazy and wrong and yet she couldn’t help herself, couldn’t stop. Her body was trembling, head-to-toe, trembling. He had been playing a game with her and perhaps she wanted to play back, but this was more than a game.
Maybe?
Was it?
She didn’t know anything anymore, except that maybe she should apologize for calling him by his most loathed nickname and just leave.
Maybe she didn’t really want to be kissed by Julian John, because she wanted Garrett. Or maybe she’d truly lost her head tonight, because as she met his gaze in the shadows, she heard herself speak between panting breaths.
“I said JJ, JJ.”
* * *
The silence was deafening.
Julian’s eyes widened, for he was sure that he hadn’t heard right the first time. But this second time, he just couldn’t believe it.
Molly had called him JJ, and he was going to have to make her pay for that. Stat.
In a whiplash move, he yanked her up against him and hoarsely demanded, in a voice as jagged as torn paper, “Do you remember what I told you I would do if you ever, ever called me JJ again?”
Smiling a smile that was all mischief, Molly tilted her back, her breasts rising and falling fast. She nodded slowly, provocatively—tauntingly.
The little she-cat wanted this!
Almost drugged with the thought of exacting his punishment, Julian caressed his hands up her slender arms, savoring the feel of her smooth skin against his calloused palms. “Well, then, I’m going to have to kiss you now,” he purred, the words acting like foreplay as he leaned closer. He could almost taste the gloss on her lips already.
“O-okay, Jules,” she said, almost a squeak as she gripped the rolled-up sleeves at his elbows as though hanging on to him for dear life.
Swamped with every single emotion in the world and close to exploding with wanting her, he cupped her face between his large hands and lowered his head, his heart going a powerful baboom baboom baboom. “‘Okay, Jules’? Is that all you have to say? All right, then, you asked for it, Moo…now you’re getting it good…”
He started easy, her face framed in his grasp as he lightly set his lips on hers, but with that whisper touch alone, lightning streaked across his veins and seared their mouths like fire. Suddenly, that single, wholly erotic fusion of their bodies lit his entire being on fire. He grabbed her closer, and she slid her hands up his bulging arms, their mouths parting hungrily in unison.
Groaning as her plush lips opened for him, he plowed his tongue into her mouth in a thirsty search for hers. Her soft moan tumbled down his throat as she shyly licked him back.
She tasted like peaches. And he loved peaches.
Deepening their kiss, he trailed his open palms down to the small of her back and conformed her curvy body to his. Her breasts softly pressed against his diaphragm, and it drove him crazy when she rubbed the tips of her nipples up against the wall of his chest.
Her nails bit into his shoulders while her mouth eagerly explored his, and when her hips began rocking against his, too, his senses swam with both pain and euphoria. The pain came from his pulsing length pressing against his pants zipper, aching to grind against those luscious hips she taunted him with.