The Saturday-night crowd at the Crow Bar put Stella in a strange mood. While she appreciated the dollars flowing through her cash register, she did not like how comfortable that crowd of college kids by the window looked. It was 1:50 a.m. Didn’t they have somewhere to be?
She did. The silver service counter behind the bar—the one Jace had promised to turn into a pleasure paradise—had been in her peripheral vision all night as she pulled the lever on the tap to fill a beer glass or slid a credit card through the reader. It was supposed to be a secondary surface for prepping drinks so you didn’t have to use the main bar where drunken customers could knock things over. Now it was nothing but a surface low enough to sit on while a gorgeous hunk of masculinity knelt between her thighs.
Jace wasn’t helping. All night, he’d been shooting her these heated once-overs that made her shiver with anticipation. What kind of man got so worked up over giving someone else pleasure? It was mind-boggling. And hot. So flipping hot that she could hardly breathe as the kids at the table by the window, the last customers in the place, stood like they were actually leaving three minutes before she closed.
It was a Saturday-night miracle.
Jace strolled to the rolling glass wall as if he had all the time in the world and her pulse wasn’t hammering a mile a minute. He pushed on it, squealing the rollers along the tracks as he pushed on the wall with brute force that was downright sexy to watch. Of course, everything he did was sexy. With a yank, he pulled the curtain closed that blocked the view of the rest of the world, and then there was nothing else between them but time.
He turned his molten brown eyes toward her, skewering her with so much intent and awareness and heat that her knees liquefied.
“Where were we?” he murmured and glanced behind her to the counter, tracing his top lip with the tip of his tongue in a slow slide that she felt in her core. “Oh yes, I remember. We were going to take a walk and stargaze.”
“We so were not,” she shot back and scowled at him as his long, low laugh echoed in the empty bar. “You’ve already tortured me for hours and hours. How much more dirty are you planning to get?”
“Filthy,” he advised, his voice dropping into the suggestion with relish. “There are many, many things I plan to do to you that could never be described as vanilla.”
The rush of heat to her center eclipsed most of the lingering embarrassment at the way he talked to her, as if she was really as sexy and desirable as he seemed to think. She wasn’t. But couldn’t she pretend for a little while?
Jace waltzed toward her, and just when she thought he was going to snag her by the waist and drag her into his embrace—which every pore of her body wanted more than oxygen—he skirted her, disappearing into the back room.
Had she missed a venue change or what? “What are you—”
He reappeared instantly, one hand behind his back, then pulled out a huge pile of flowers. “For you.”
Oh God. The riot of blooms spilling from his fist blurred as the tears she’d successfully fought back earlier reappeared with a vengeance. “Jace, what is all this?”
“Uh, flowers?” he said, and the duh was implied. “Because I saw them and thought to myself hey, Stella might enjoy these.”
The dam burst, sending a cascade of tears down her cheek. She blinked back the rest but not very well and smiled because the pleased-beyond-measure flutter in her heart wouldn’t let her do anything else. “I do. They’re beautiful. I didn’t get you anything.”
He laughed and handed her the bouquet, his fingers tangling up with hers way more than a simple flower transfer required. “Well, the next time you see something you think I might enjoy, knock yourself out. In the meantime, I would like it if you wouldn’t cry when I do nice things for you.”
“I can’t help it.” She sniffed. “It’s been a long time since anyone did nice things for me.”
“That’s crappy.” The little noise of disgust he made widened her smile. “You deserve to be treated like a queen twenty-four seven.”
This wasn’t the first time he’d said stuff like that. But it was the first time he’d said it after giving her a beach-blanket orgasm without demanding she reciprocate. Wasn’t that how men operated? Mike had given her flowers on their first date, but the act had a definite “this is expected so I’m doing it” vibe, and he’d never been one to be generous just because.
And Mike was the last person she wanted to be thinking about in the middle of her bar with a gorgeous man who’d just handed her flowers. “You’re certainly the first person who’s thought so.”
With a growl that sounded a lot sexier than it should have, Jace swept her up in his arms, snuggling her deep into his chest. She only just managed to hold on to her flowers and her sanity as he carried her across the room, blazed through the pass-thru to the backside of the bar, no more talking, just Jace and his brute strength on a mission.
He set her down on the service bar and fisted his hands on either side of her hips, leaning into her space. The cold metal burned through her simple skirt that she’d deliberately worn in anticipation of this night getting a whole lot hotter.
It did. Fast.
Jace nipped at her bottom lip, murmuring wicked phrases as he smoothed his hands up her thighs, spreading them with a firmness that excited her in a whole different way than his easy slowness on the beach. This was not slow. She didn’t want it to be slow.
This was a good time to drop the flowers. Not too far away though. She wanted to see them as he did things with his hands.
His hands—oh God, they were delicious on her skin as he opened her, stepping into the V of her legs. He slid his magic palms under the skirt, around to the back where he cupped both butt cheeks, and shoved her forward hard against his hips, burrowing his blisteringly large erection into the hollow of her still-covered core. The kiss he dropped her into melted her bones, and she felt the wicked slide of his tongue between her lips all the way to her toes.
The way he tasted her was like nothing she’d ever experienced. Long, demanding licks were accompanied by throaty groans from his chest as if she thrilled him so much he couldn’t contain himself. Which was fine. She didn’t want him to. This was a whole different side of Jace, one with a dangerous edge that made her quiver with anticipation.
His mouth slid away, skimming down her throat to the silky blouse she’d never worn to the bar before because she didn’t want to ruin it, but she looked good enough in it that it boosted her confidence. Jace scarcely seemed to register the blouse, wetting it as he mouthed her shoulder blade. With a growl, he grappled with the fabric, then it was gone, whisked off her body like the very best illusionist had abracadabraed it away.
Clearly impatient now, he threaded his fingers through her bra straps and pulled, sliding them off her shoulders until her breasts popped free.
“It’s a crying shame I missed out on this earlier,” he remarked with a pleased little hum as his gaze homed in on her bared flesh.
She fought to keep her hands by her side and let him look. This was part of it, and sure he’d likely had his share of women with double Ds, implants, and/or fifteen less years of gravity. But she was the only one with Jace between her legs at this moment, and she wasn’t going to let her insecurities get the best of her.
But then he bent his head and licked a nipple into his mouth, sucking on it with a wet swirl of his tongue, and she forgot everything except the explosion of sensation that had just engulfed her entire body. Hot, liquid heat soaked her core, drenching her panties and probably her skirt too, but she didn’t care. Gasping as he worked her flesh between his teeth, she gripped his head, holding it in place because dear God, she never wanted it to end.
He wasn’t of the same mind, pulling away to ease her skirt up over her thighs, bunching it at her waist to reveal the lacy white underwear she’d put on with him in mind after she’d taken a shower earlier. Her eyelids wouldn’t open all the way, drifting to half-mast as she watched him hook her panties with his forefingers and draw them down her legs. Tossing them over his shoulder, he spread her again with his firm hands, his gaze hot and laser sharp as he zeroed in on her naked sex.
Somehow in all her fantasies of this moment, she’d never envisioned that she’d be fully exposed while he was fully dressed. It was strange. Liberating in a way, especially as he murmured his approval.
“You’re so much more gorgeous than the stars,” he informed her. “I could gaze at you for hours.”
There was a bit of that poet’s soul he’d kept so well hidden. It stirred something inside her when he talked like that, something a lot deeper and harder to reach than the places he touched when he talked dirty. Though she liked both for very different reasons. “I could let you look at me for that long. But you have to do the same for me.”
He shook his head with a wicked smile. “Oh, no. This is all about you. Don’t change the subject. I’m ravenous to taste you and extremely determined to make this last as long as I can.”
“You’re not like anyone I’ve ever met before. I don’t know what to do with you.”
“You sit here…” He knelt and kissed her thigh. “Say my name a bunch of times, and tell me when I do things you like.”
This was accompanied by the barest brush of his lips against her center. Not enough pressure to ease the ache. But enough to make her gasp his name, as instructed.
“That’s it,” he encouraged and rewarded her with a harder kiss. “That’s what you do with me. It’s like magic. You say it, I do it. Try it. Say, ‘more, Jace.’”
“More, Jace,” she gurgled, and oh God, his tongue darted out between her folds, licking at her crease with fire and pressure that tore through her. “Again.”
He complied, lingering at her nub with the tip of his tongue, teasing her relentlessly until she circled her hips with mounting impatience.
“Is there something you’d like say?” he prompted.
“Harder, Jace.” Nearly delirious with need, she widened her legs on her own, shoving her center deeper against his tongue. “I need you to lick me harder. With your whole tongue.”
And he did, laving at her until her head lolled back, mere neck muscles not strong enough to hold her steady as wave after wave of pleasure rolled through her, thick and heavy, building to a release of epic proportions. When she came, his name ripped from her throat along with a cry so primal she didn’t recognize her own voice. The ripples overtook her whole body, flinging her into an alternate dimension for a long, beautiful moment where she became nothing more than light and sensation.
Reality leached through her bit by bit until her vision cleared. Jace was still between her thighs, cocky grin in place. “You’re really good at following instructions. I’m going to put that to use in a little bit.”
“I sincerely hope that means you’re taking me upstairs,” she murmured, refusing to give in to the urge to cover herself or crawl in a hole. Someone a lot more brazen than Stella had possessed her body, saying and doing things that she didn’t recognize. “Because my legs don’t work.”
His laugh was entirely too self-satisfied. But in all honesty, he’d earned every ounce of arrogance in the tilt of his head. “If that’s an invitation for a sleepover, I accept.”
“Who said anything about sleeping?” she managed to respond as he got to work redressing her with surprising skill. Undressing? Sure. The man was a master. But she would never have pegged him as one who took such care with reintroducing clothes to a woman’s body.
“Sleeping with you is one of the things I’m most looking forward to,” he informed her with wink that didn’t really fit the statement.
“What? Why? Maybe I hog all the covers and get up at the crack of dawn.” She didn’t do either one, but he didn’t know that.
“Because you might be looking for a one-night stand, but I’m not. I do my best work in the morning.” And then his grin slipped. “Plus I have a feeling you’re the most beautiful at dawn, and I want to see it.”
The dazzling solemnity of his expression arrowed straight through her heart, bobbling it off-center. Once again… she really, really didn’t know what to do with Jace. Other than let him sleep in her bed because refusing him wasn’t in her skill set all at once.