Hotblooded-- the cappuccino excerpt!

“You’re making things–complicated.”

He knew the feeling. Things had certainly been complicated in his life since Brooke Donovan showed up in it. But things here with the clinic didn’t need to be complicated. She just needed to show everyone the warm, funny, passionate side he’d seen.

“Complicated can be good.” It at least meant something mattered.

“Jack, I’m aware that—”

“Come on, Brooke, cut the formality.” He was tired of watching her swallow her first reactions. “Tell me off if you want to. Kiss me if you want to. Slap me, rip my shirt off, tell me to go to hell—whatever you’re feeling just do it. Stop making everything so proper and unemotional.”

She took a deep breath and looked directly into his eyes. She exhaled all at once.

“Fine. I hate how you came barging in here and took everything over. I hate that you can make everyone love you and trust you without even trying. I hate that you are so comfortable here after only a few days while I feel like an outsider in my own hometown.”

She said it all in one breath and then stood, rapidly inhaling and exhaling, watching him, waiting for his reaction.

Jack was fascinated with everything from the raised volume of her voice to the flush in her cheeks. 

“That’s more like it. How do you feel now?”

“Better.” She sounded as if she resented the fact.

“You should always show your true emotions. You shouldn’t close yourself up. People can tell when you’re holding back and it’s hard for them to trust that. You don’t have to have all the answers or be happy all the time. Just be real.”

“You want real?” she asked. “You want me to just do what I want, whatever I’m feeling, no worries about consequences?”

“I think you should do what makes you happy.”

She licked her lips and nodded, her eyes on his. “Okay. You asked for it.” She shrugged out of her jacket and let it drop to the floor behind her. Then she leaned in, wrapped her arms around his neck and put her lips against his. “Why is it whenever you’re within five feet of me I want to kiss you?”

Ah, consequences.

“Five feet? Hell girl I can’t be in the same town without wanting to kiss you.” Then he sealed his mouth over hers.

The moment she stroked her tongue along his, he put both hands under her butt and lifted her, turned, kicked her chair out of the way and set her on the edge of her desk. His fingers went back to the buttons on the front of her shirt and quickly freed them all, spreading the blouse open before pulling back to look at her.

“Every time I see your hands on someone else, I remember the way they felt on me that first day,” she said breathlessly. “Every time you take a drink from your coffee cup I think about how your mouth felt on my nipple. Every time you…”

“Jesus, Brooke.” Jack pulled in a sharp breath as need sliced through him. He was wound so tight that another word or two from her and he’d be a goner. “You have to stop that.”

She leaned back, the white satin of her bra hugging the curves that he remembered too well.

“You’re the one that wants me to make it real, wants me to say what I really feel.” She gave him a naughty smile. “This was your idea, remember?”

“I remember. And I love that this is what you really want deep down.”

She smiled and it was the first time he had seen a truly confident smile from her. She knew just what she was doing to him and she knew that she was good at it. Very good at it.

“I want something deep all right.”

The woman was going to kill him just by talking.

“The door is locked,” she reminded him. “No patients for awhile. You can help me with all this tension and emotion and need.”

He couldn’t fight this. He needed to have her need him.

Even if it was only sexually, the idea of giving Brooke something—like a nice hard orgasm right on top of her desk—was something he couldn’t resist. He leaned in and rubbed his jaw against hers. 

“You need me, Brooke? There’s finally something you’re going to let me give you?”

“What do you think?” She turned her head and kissed him, full and wet and wanton.

But he had to hear it. “Tell me,” he said raggedly, pulling his lips from hers. “Tell me what you want.”

She had a wicked gleam in her eye as she turned on the desk and lay back. “Make this desk my favorite piece of furniture ever.”

Her blouse was spread out around her, her nipples pressing against the soft satin of her bra, her skirt hiked up on her thighs. He leaned in over her. “Tell me how. Exactly.”

“I want your mouth on my nipple, your hand up my skirt, your finger in my—”

He kissed her before she could finish the thought. He didn’t actually need her instruction beyond that point—thank you very much. She was clinging to him when he lifted his head. He looked down the length of her body, on display for him on her desk. It was the most gorgeous sight he’d ever seen.

He reached to push her lamp and pencil holder out of the way.  As he slid a coffee mug to the side as well, he noticed it was still half full of room temperature cappuccino.  His second favorite flavor in the clinic—next to Brooke’s skin.  The idea to combine them seemed natural.  

He reached and dipped his index finger into the liquid. With his wet finger he traced a trail from the valley between her breasts to the waistband of her skirt, then bent his head and followed the path with his tongue. “God, I love cappuccino,” he said huskily.

She chuckled softly, her hand in his hair holding him close. “If you’d told me we were going to use it like this I would have been all for it from the beginning.”

“And this is just the start. This is going to be your favorite beverage in the world when we’re done.”

He hooked his index finger in the waistband of her skirt and tugged it down to reveal her belly button. Which had a dark red gem in it. He stared, then lifted his eyes to hers. “A pierced belly button?”

“Surprised?”

He thought about that. Was he surprised that Brooke Donovan, the woman who could go from ice cap to inferno in under a minute, had a sexy secret? Not in the least. “It fits.” He dipped his finger in the cappuccino again and then let it drip from his finger to her belly button, wetting the stone before bending and sucking it clean.

Her back arched and she moaned, further fueling his desire. He wanted to hear a lot more of that.

“Unhook for me,” he said.

She reached to free the hooks on her bra. The satin cups fell away revealing the breasts he’d been thinking about for days. They were firm, the tips tight, begging for his touch.

Without taking his eyes from her, he dipped his finger again, then ran the pad of his finger around her right nipple. As she arched closer, his eyes went to her face, wanting to see her eyes as he wet the nipple itself. Desire colored her cheeks, her eyes slid closed and his name escaped her lips on a breath.

Making himself go slow, he lowered his head and took the nipple in his mouth. At first he teased with light flicks over the tip, but in response to her sounds he increased the pressure and finally sucked, pulling all the sweet coffee from her and finding the skin underneath was even sweeter.

Her fingers tangled in his hair holding him closer. “More, Jack. I need more.”

She needed more. From him.

He was happy to oblige.

He kissed his way down her rib cage to her stomach, pausing to paint another stripe of cappuccino along the edge of the white satin panties just barely revealed when he pulled her skirt down. His tongue followed that edge as his hand slid over her skirt to her bare thigh, then between her thighs.

Her legs parted and she arched closer to his hand. “Jack.”

He loved the sound of his name from her. “You sure?”

She gave a half chuckle, half sob. “God, yes. Please.”

The skin on her inner thigh was as silky as her stomach and he paused to stroke his hand up and down a few times. She shifted restlessly and he could feel the heat emanating from only a few inches higher. Drawn to that heat he slid higher, until his middle finger contacted hot, wet silk.

A sharp breath hissed from between her gritted teeth and he smiled. “You really sure?”

“If you stop now,” she said tightly. “You haven’t even begun to see cold and bitchy from me.”