A Spicy Excerpt

Rafe hung in the doorway like a lanky question mark or the punch line to a joke about a guy who says, “Be right back,” steps out for groceries, and then shows up twenty years later with a dozen eggs, a half-gallon of milk, and a loaf of rye bread as if nothing’s happened.

 

He was wearing the bottom half of a pair of Army’s gray silk pajamas. Tied loosely, they rode just above his hips. It didn’t take a genius to figure out he didn’t have on any underwear.

 

Though his chest was and had always been practically hairless, the suggestive trail that began just below his navel drew Jilly’s gaze lower where she could easily discern the outline of the wrist-thick column of flesh—impressive even when it wasn’t erect—that lay beneath the thin layer of shiny fabric.

 

“Hiccups gone?”

 

“All gone.”    

 

“What’cha reading?” he asked, nodding toward the potboiler in her hands.    

 

“Nothing,” Jilly said, trying to shove the romance novel out of sight under her pillow.    

 

“You never read nothing,” he said, making a grab for the book, wresting it from her grasp and holding it out of reach.

 

Jilly scowled as Rafe turned to the bookmarked page and read aloud. “‘Instinctively, his turgid member sought the warmth between the wet, waiting womanly folds of her sex.’” His look was incredulous. “Seriously?”

 

“Give me that!” Jilly groaned, but Rafe, enjoying her show of pique, read on. 

 

“‘His mouth slanted over hers in a mindless act of pure possession as the thick dark curling pelt on his chest rasped the delicate nipples that crowned her naked breasts, tantalizing the tight buds into stiff, rosy peaks.’ His mouth slanted over hers? How do you even do that?” Rafe angled his head left. “That can’t be it.” He tried angling it to the right. “Is this better?”    

 

“Oh, shut up and give me back my book,” Jilly wailed in frustration.  

 

“And I guess I won’t be rasping anyone’s nipples with this sorry pelt.”  

 

“Nope, no rasping for you,” Jilly agreed, making a lunge for the book, giggling. Rafe, laughing as well, tumbled onto the bed, and all at once, they weren’t laughing anymore.    

 

Rafe leaned in and kissed her. It was a tender kiss. Tentative. And then, it wasn’t tentative at all. She realized the pad of his thumb was resting just above her clitoris. He pressed down lightly, gently swirling small circles, incrementally increasing the pressure. Jilly gasped and her eyes went wide.    

 

“I don’t know if this is a good idea,” she said.

 

“Do you want me to stop?” he asked, not relenting.

 

“I’ve never wanted you to stop,” she answered, not pausing to think.

 

“But you don’t know if it’s a good idea?”

 

“No.”

 

“No, this isn’t a good idea?”    

 

“No... I don’t want you to stop.”

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