Read Beginning Again: Book 1 in the Second Chances series (Crimson Romance) for Free Online Page B

persisted, taking tiny nips at her mouth.
    “Please, what, sweetheart? This, maybe?” Without waiting for a response, he took possession of her mouth with such authority she was breathless. The kiss took all the air from her lungs and turned her insides to liquid. She couldn’t move.
    Somehow her arms snaked their way around him as he pulled her tight against his body. Her hands buried themselves in the curls at the back of his head. Her mouth returned his kiss, her tongue tasting him, exploring his mouth as thoroughly as his explored hers.
    He slid his hands down her back and snugged her hips against his, fitting his erection into the V between her thighs. She moved to accommodate him and he pressed closer. Even through the layers of their clothes she could feel him get harder. She couldn’t suppress a moan, couldn’t stop her treacherous body from melting against him, from getting wet and feeling needy. She had to stop him … but oh, God, she didn’t want to.
    He broke the kiss and she tried to pull away. “Collins, please. You have to listen. This can’t happen. You’ll be disappointed.”
    “When you kiss me like that? Sweetheart, how could I be disappointed? And believe me, I’m paying attention — to your mouth.” He touched her lips with his. “Your body.” The palm of his hand grazed the tight, hard tips of her nipples. “Your arms.” He wouldn’t let her withdraw them from his shoulders. “Your body’s saying what we both want to hear. The only part of you that’s afraid is between your ears.”
    “I’m not afraid,” she gritted out through clenched teeth.
    “Show me. Come sit on the couch with me.”
    She could barely hear him as he nuzzled her neck. “The coffee … ”
    “Can wait. You said a half-hour and coffee or something. I’m picking ‘or something.’ And by my watch,” he looked at his bare left wrist, “I still have about twenty-five minutes.” He took her hand. “Come on, babe.”
    “And what,” she asked as he led her to the living room, “do you think this will accomplish?”
    “After a little bit, I think you’ll suggest we see why I don’t think sex is ‘nice.’ Are you brave enough to try?” He grinned at her. “Better yet, to bet?”
    “Bet? On what?”
    “I bet when we make love, you’ll admit that it wasn’t nice.”
    “Why do you think we’ll … ?” She shook her head, trying to make sense of what was happening. “Why will I … if we did that … which we won’t … why will I think it isn’t nice?”
    “Because it’ll be amazing. Twenty bucks?”
    She looked at the expression on his face and felt the jolt of electricity he sent through her every time those gray eyes held onto hers. She licked her lips at the thought of how his mouth tasted, the way her body responded when he kissed her. She had no idea why it happened, how it happened. All she knew was he affected her as no man ever had before. “I’ve never bet on sex … ”
    “Let me be your first, then.” He feathered a kiss across her lips and she shivered. “Although, fair warning, I expect to win an easy twenty bucks,” he said softly.
    Taking her face again in his hands, he held her gaze for a long moment, stroking her cheeks with the pads of his thumbs. “God, you’re beautiful. Beautiful and sexy and smart and funny and all the things any man could ever want in a woman.”
    He outlined her cheekbones, her eyebrows, the sides of her nose with his fingertips. “All the things I want in a woman.” As his hands neared her mouth, she felt her breathing kick up a notch, felt a swirl of desire skitter through her body. When he finally kissed her, it was familiar, somehow, the taste of him. She’d kissed him for the first time yesterday and yet he tasted like the place where she’d always belonged.
    She sighed as he raised the heat in the kiss. The slight suction of his mouth took the rest of her breath away. At least, she thought that’s what happened. Why else would it