right brand of ketchup. Where I could find a scorpion. You know, nothing too personal.”
Goose bumps skittered along her skin as his minty breath wafted over her face. “Nah. It was a smart thing to do. If you’d brought the wrong brand of ketchup, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
Just then, Kevin decided Jagger wasn’t paying the proper attention to him and launched himself at Jagger’s thigh. The scrape of claw meeting denim had Viv forgetting about the towel around her and reaching between them to extract Kevin.
“Kevin! No!”
But she stumbled on JT, who’d apparently decided to throw his back into this effort to get Jagger’s attention, and then she tripped on Howie, almost knocking him sideways.
Jagger, reached for her just as she fell into him, his solid chest like a wall of bricks as they stumbled backward and fell to the floor in order to avoid hurting the cats.
The BSB Boys and JT scattered, leaving only tufts of fur and Viv naked in Jagger’s arms.
Lifting her head, she rose up on the palms of her hands and looked down into his deep brown eyes. “I’m naked.”
Jagger popped his yummy lips and instantly dropped his arms to his sides. “It’s like you just can’t get it together, Vivienne Hathaway. Why is that?” he teased.
Her nipples scraped against the fitted shirt he wore, creating a sweet friction she had to clench her teeth to contain, yet neither of them moved. “It must be all the talk of ketchup.”
“Can I just say something?” he asked, his tone husky, his eyes still fixed on her face.
“Really. What is there left to say? I’m naked.”
“And I’m trying to remain a gentleman while you’re naked. But I gotta tell ya, the way you’re always throwing yourself at me like this is unnerving. How long’s a guy supposed to hold out before he cracks?”
Her cheeks grew hot as a thrill shot up along her spine. “You feel like you’re going to crack?”
Jagger cleared his throat. “I don’t want to mention the unmentionable because it’s unbecoming of a gentleman, but don’t you feel that part of me that feels like it’s going to crack?”
Did she ever. He was hard everywhere. Ev-ery-where . And it was doing things to her she’d never had done before.
Her laughter tinkled through the cottage as she sank deeper into his long length before she could catch herself. “I do. But I don’t mind if you don’t mind,” she managed to murmur while her head spun and her pulse raced.
“That’s what all the girls say,” he grumbled in that deep, dripping-with-hot-chocolate-sauce way.
“ All of them ? How many naked women have fallen on top of you after a full-on feline assault?”
He scoffed, his chest rising against hers. “I don’t have enough fingers and toes to count.”
“You’re a popular guy, huh?”
“Senior prom queen and everything.”
Her giggle was light and flirty, and she didn’t even care that she was naked anymore because their lips were now but a half-inch apart and his mouth was too busy mesmerizing her.
“You know what, Vivienne Hathaway?”
“What, Jagger Dubrov?”
“I think if I don’t kiss you within the next couple of seconds, something really terrible is going to happen. I know it’s really soon in our budding relationship. I know it’s untoward. Nay, bold even. But I’m just sayin’ it could get ugly fast.”
Viv made a pouty face, her body relaxing against his, relishing the long, muscled solidness. “I would never want anything terrible to happen to you. You brought me ketchup,” she whispered, lowering her head just a half inch more as he raised his.
Their lips whispered across one another’s, creating an instant zing of heart-pounding anticipation deep in her belly. Viv inhaled all this man beneath her, all those scrumptious ridges and planes, the scent of his cologne, his warm breath on her face.
She wet her lips, her tongue snaking outward, almost catching the soft pout of his mouth. Her pulse raced,
Steve Karmazenuk, Christine Williston