It’d be super inappropriate for him to like kissing her or to wrap his arms around her and slide his tongue into her open mouth. Not to mention going with her when she fell back onto the bed without breaking the kiss. This was complete insanity. They worked together. They fought like cats and dogs all day, every day. What in the name of hell was he doing kissing her like he’d just found a boat after a year on a deserted island?
He’d stop this. He would. In a minute. Or two.
Chapter Seven
“Suffering is the price of being alive.”
—Judy Collins
Brianna should not have been kissing Noah Coleman as if her life depended on it. This might count as the single stupidest thing she’d ever done, and considering her track record with men, that was saying something. Surely somewhere in architecture school, they’d told her not to make out with her general contractor, hadn’t they? If not, that should’ve been on the day-one agenda. Twisting tongues with the contractor when the job was only half finished wasn’t a good career move.
But damn if she could be bothered to care about her career when Noah’s lips were so soft and his kisses so hot and dirty. And was that his hand sliding under her sweater and branding her back with its heat? God, no one had touched her this way in so long, she’d almost forgotten what it was like to feel desired. If the hard length of him pressing against her core was any indication, Noah wanted her.
While she knew she ought to put a stop to this, she couldn’t seem to find the wherewithal to do it, not when her sweater slid up and over her head or when he released the front clasp on her bra and pushed aside the cups so he could get to her nipples. She didn’t stop him when he kissed and sucked on the hard tips or when he moved down to unbutton and unzip her jeans.
That really should’ve been the end. Brianna was about to say no more when his hand slid inside her pants, and one finger ended up deep inside her.
Stop. The word was on the tip of her tongue, but unfortunately, her tongue was super busy at the moment, wrapped as it was around his. With his hand inside her pants, she didn’t think it would matter much—in the grand scheme of things—if she unbuttoned his jeans and returned the favor.
One of them would come to their senses before this went too far, before something happened that they couldn’t undo.
Any minute now.
He’d call this off. Or she would. She definitely would. But not quite yet, not when he was stroking her there and making fireworks explode within her entire body. Not when he was pulling off her jeans and panties or moving down to replace his fingers with his tongue. That’d be a terrible time to stop him.
Oh God.
And was he ever good at that. He had her holding back a scream in a matter of seconds. Usually, it took her months to feel comfortable enough with someone to let them do that, but Noah didn’t ask if she was comfortable. He just did it, and as she launched into an explosive orgasm, she was damned glad he had.
She was still panting as he kissed his way up the front of her.
“Tell me to stop,” he said in a gruff, sexy voice.
“No, I don’t think I will.”
“Brianna, seriously.”
She pushed at his jeans and stroked the long, thick cock that had breached the top of his boxer briefs. Who’d a thunk he had that going on inside the faded jeans he wore to work? It really would be tragic to let that go to waste.
“Brianna.” His breath was hot against her nipple, which tingled from the brush of his whiskers against it.
“Hmm?”
“Tell me to stop.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
Now, this was more like their usual bickering routine, only usually they were fighting over construction priorities or supplies or invoices or something that simply didn’t matter. As the wind howled outside and the icy snow pinged against the glass, Brianna wondered how long they’d be stranded at the Pig’s Belly. They might as well enjoy themselves before they had to return to reality.
“Do you have a condom?”
He stared at her, his face flat with shock. “No, I don’t have a condom.”
“There’re some in the cabinet. You want to get them, or should I?”
“Are you still drunk?”
“I don’t think so.”
“You must be drunk if you’re not telling me to stop.”
“I’m not drunk, and I’m not telling you to stop.” She stroked him with a firm grip, from root to tip. “Unless you’re telling me to stop.”
“Not saying that,” he said through a clenched jaw.
“Why don’t you go see what kind of condoms the Pig’s Belly left for us.”
He gave her a long, intense look as if he was waiting for her to say “April Fools” or “psych” or something that meant game off.
She said nothing.
Noah lifted himself on his arms and pushed off the bed to go into the bathroom and root around in the cabinet. When he returned, he stood by the side of the bed, the hem of his Henley hiding his erection. “Last chance to say no.”
“Not saying no. Are you?”
“I should.”
“But you’re not?”
“I don’t seem to be.”
“Take your shirt off.”
He did as directed, revealing a well-defined chest and abdomen covered by dark blond hair that got darker at his waist.
“Now, your pants.”
Brianna propped herself up on her elbow so she could watch him strip for her. If she was going to cross every line, she might as well enjoy the show. She held out her arms, inviting him to come back to where he’d been before he’d gotten up.
He hesitated. “Tell me this isn’t going to make everything between us weirder than it was before tonight.”
“I won’t let it if you won’t.”
“I won’t. And it’s just this once, right?”
She smiled at him. “Maybe twice if the first time goes well.”
A grin stretched across his face, which softened his hard edges. It was shocking to discover how genuinely handsome and sexy her adversary had turned out to be.
Brianna drew him into another one of those fantastic kisses that had led to all this nakedness. The brush of his chest hair against her nipples made her gasp from the pleasure that touched every part of her.
Fourteen months ago, the thought of being naked in a bed with anyone other than her beloved husband would’ve been ludicrous. Since then, every aspect of her life had changed. Not one thing was the same, except for her family.
Never in her wildest dreams had she pictured herself in a bed above the Pig’s Belly Tavern in Somewhere, Vermont, with a sexy contractor named Noah Coleman, who had been, as recently as this afternoon, the most irritating human being she’d ever met. When it came to unlikely lovers, she and Noah had to take the prize.
They might be unlikely, but they moved together like they knew what they were doing, the desire drowning out everything other than the urgent need to see this through to the logical conclusion.
“Condom,” she said. “Now.”
He pulled back from her, grabbed a condom from the strip of five he’d brought from the bathroom and rolled it on.