it, so he burned to hear her answer. What
would she say? Josh was practically on the edge of his seat, oddly desperate to
know.
She glanced up, the smile dropped from her mouth and
she swallowed. Josh watched as she seemed to flounder. She bit her bottom lip
and shook her head as if her thoughts collided with what she really wanted to
say. Her gaze shifted away, and Josh felt shut out from her thoughts again. “I
don’t know , I just have always been shy.” She shrugged
as if were nothing, but the tension in her shoulders and the lines on her
forehead as she twisted her hands together on the table said that it wasn’t nothing .
“Look at me. Please.” He expected her to refuse. He
was pushing a little hard, but Josh had no real experience on how to go gently.
And he wanted to see her pretty eyes.
When she lifted her head and stared at him, Josh cleared
his throat as his body heated up suddenly.
She blushed deeply, chewing at her bottom lip, nervousness
in that one innocent gesture. Even though it was clearly hard for her to do, she
did as he asked and held his stare.
He didn’t know what he expected by asking her to
look at him, but he sure as heck didn’t expect this. His body responded immediately,
his heart pounded and his veins sung with adrenaline. The throb that had been
gentle all night between his legs suddenly roared into life and Josh was hard
in record time. And then it was he who broke the contact—the hot, sizzling, make-my-heart-pound,
contact.
Oh,
fuck .
****
Sammy sipped at her pint and swallowed back the ball
of disappointment lodged in her throat. She‘d been helpless
against Josh’s order when he’d demanded she look at him. Her heart had banged
hard in her chest but she’d forced herself to do it, though her entire body quaked
from the effort it took. Then he had just looked away as if she didn’t merit a
second of his attention, his dark gaze dropping to his pint a moment before he picked
it up to take a sip.
Ouch,
that stung.
The calm, cool way he demanded her obedience sent
shivers through her body and chills along her skin. The man was sex-on-legs,
and Sammy was afraid she might throw herself at him—felt as if she already had.
As soon as he’d asked her to look at him, she had. And maybe her desperation shone
in her eyes, because his dark gaze moved away as if he hadn’t even noticed the
effort she put in. As if he didn’t see the way her entire body reacted to his
words.
Why
should he notice? He doesn’t even know you.
He was nothing like any of the men she worked with
at the school, nothing like her sophisticated father, who drank aged whiskey
and held dinner parties. And he was definitely nothing like James, the scholar
she dated for a year. This man, Josh, could probably talk her naked and have
her on her back in seconds, when it took James a whole six months, and even
then it had been… Meh . Sammy doubted that there was anything ‘meh’ about Josh.
“G’night, young ones, we’re off to bed.”
Sammy looked up from her pint and her hurt-filled musings
to see Reg and Bev, hand in hand, smiling down at her and Josh.
Night?
Sammy looked at her watch, it read 9:30pm. She wasn’t tired at all and wasn’t ready for the evening to end
just yet. The way her body had reacted to Josh, Sammy doubted she’d sleep all
night. She glanced to Josh where he sat looking up at Bev and Reg, his dark
brows heavy over his eyes as he watched the older pair.
“This early?” Josh
asked, obviously having the same thoughts as her.
Reg lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper
and leaned down. “Bev’s had a few pints. If I time this right, I might find
myself getting lucky tonight.” Bev bopped him on the arm, but she grinned
happily beside her husband, neither agreeing nor disagreeing with his words.
Sammy barely stopped herself from groaning out loud as her chest tightened painfully at the sight of two
people obviously infatuated with each other even after many years