Calling All the Shots by Katherine Garbera Page B

but a part of him knew it was.
    “I just have to be in control,” she said at last.
    “I know. It’s your defense mechanism. I hadn’t realized it
until this moment. You seem so tough that I never guessed there was anything you
weren’t confident about,” he said at last. He stood up and walked around the
table and drew her to her feet.
    “What makes you think I’m not confident?” she asked.
    “The way you’re staring at me,” he said. “You look like you’re
afraid of me. Why is that?”
    With his hands on her hips, he held her still when she would
have turned away. The curves of her body drove him mad. She was tall and slim,
but so damned womanly. He wanted her out of the skintight jeans she wore and
naked in his arms.
    “I can’t think when you are this close,” she said.
    He pulled her even closer but their bodies didn’t touch except
for his hands on her hips. Still, he could feel each exhalation of her breath
against his neck.
    “Why not?”
    She lifted her hands to his shoulders. Then he felt her fingers
along the back of his neck as she rose on her tiptoes and whispered in his ear,
“I want you.”
    He shuddered as blood rushed to his groin and he hardened.
“Good.”
    He lifted her off her feet and brought his mouth down on hers.
He was tired of waiting for something that he knew he wanted. He needed her and
the past week had only reinforced that fact.
    He hoped that Willow never realized the power she had over him.
Because if she did, he’d be on his knees.

Seven
    W illow melted inside as Jack’s mouth moved
over hers, removing all her doubts at last. This was what she should have been
focusing on since the beginning. Once she and Jack had sex, her obsession with
him would fade and she’d be able to get back on track with her life.
    She wrapped her legs around his hips and her arms around his
shoulders. She tunneled her fingers through his hair and deepened the kiss. She
kissed him with all the fear and longing and desire that had been plaguing her
since she’d left his apartment little over a week ago.
    He tasted of coffee and Jack. Something that was unique to him,
and she realized that it was something she’d never get tired of tasting. His
hands cupped her butt, his fingers moving over the tight denim that encased her
and making her squirm in reaction. She loved the feel of his big hands on
her.
    He rubbed them up and down her back settling them on her waist
to hold her close against him as his tongue thrust deeper into her mouth. He
kissed her like he was as addicted to her taste as she was to his.
    She rocked her hips forward rubbing the center of her body
against the tip of his erection. He moaned—the sound was earthy and sensual and
she shivered again.
    She felt like she was falling and then felt the solid wood of
her butcher-block table underneath her. Jack leaned over her, caging her with
his body. His breath sawed out of him and there was a slight flush to his skin.
His pupils were dilated and his lips full and wet from her kisses.
    He surrounded her, his hands on either side of her hips, his
chest over her torso and his head right in front of hers. That sexy look in his
blue, blue eyes made her shiver. She wanted this man.
    “Enough playing around,” he said. He found the sensitive spot
beneath her ear and tongued it before nibbling his way down her neck until he
encountered the collar of her sweater.
    Jack was a dominant lover and though she usually liked to take
charge, a part of her didn’t want to with him. This was her break from reality
and the more she wasn’t herself the better she felt she’d be when they
parted.
    “Good,” she agreed. “I was waiting for you to make the first
move.”
    “That doesn’t sound like the Willow I know. You go after what
you want…don’t you want me?”
    He was right. Something about Jack had thrown her off her
stride and made her forget that Willow Stead waited for no man. She put her hand
on his chest and pushed him back