Snippet Sunday

I spent most of yesterday working on the promotional items for After Midnight that I'm putting together special for RT 2012. So today I thought I would share with you the first kiss between Isabeau and Noah. Enjoy!

His shirt sleeve slipped down as she pressed the warm cloth to his skin. She shoved it back out of the way.

“Wait,” he said as it slipped a second time. He reached his arm over his head. Fisting his hand in his shirt, he pulled it off.

There was something so inherently male about the move that she didn’t look away. Then, once he stood before her wearing nothing but his jeans, she couldn’t look away. He was built. His body was sleek, smooth, and leanly muscled. Lightly tanned, with hard six-pack abs and a dark blonde line of hair that started below his navel and trailed down to disappear beneath the waistband of his jeans.

Not that she was looking.

Or drooling.

There was no doubt about it, he looked better than most men half his age.

“Is something wrong, Isa?”

Arousal clouded her mind. Her body thrummed with it. “What? No.”

But as she pressed the cloth against his skin, her hands shook.

She tried to keep her focus on the task at hand and off his chest, but it was right there. Suddenly she was hyperaware of the heat coming off him, of the scent of musk and man that swam through her senses.

“So what do you think?” he asked, his voice a whisper against her temple.

She thought she wanted to reach out and see if his skin was as soft as it looked, his body as hard. She swallowed. Her dry throat stuck together. “What do I think?”

“About the tattoo.”

“The tattoo?” Perfect. She sounded like an idiot. Heat flooded her cheeks. She could feel his eyes on her and knew he noticed. He had a habit of watching her in a way that made her toes curl, her stomach turn over. She’d caught him doing it on more than one occasion and knew if she tipped her head up, she’d catch him doing it now.

So she focused on his tattoo, and smiled.

Thomas had given him a small skeletal body, wings and a halo above the over-sized and even more animated skull. “It’s perfect.”

Trading the wet washcloth for a clean, dry one, she patted his arm dry, then applied a thin layer of ointment. “There you go.”

“Thank you.” Reaching up, he tucked a stray wisp of hair behind her ear.

Her breathing shallowed when his fingers grazed the side of her throat, caught as his other hand settled on her hip. Slowly her eyes raised, moved up his throat, past his dangerously tempting mouth, before she met his gaze and felt a punch of awareness.

“You have the most beautiful eyes,” he said, and shifted just a little closer.

Never had her eyes been called beautiful. Strange? Yes. Beautiful? Never.

“They change color depending on what you’re feeling, did you know that?”

“I…no.”

“Right now they’re blue—a very pale blue. What does that mean, Isa? Tell me what you’re feeling right now.”

Desire. Need, unlike she’d ever felt before. She’d had no idea how much she’d craved a physical touch, his touch. Her stomach fluttered. Her heart skipped a few beats. She slicked her tongue over her lips, and his hand flexed against her hip.

“I have to know,” he murmured.

“What?”

“Your taste.”

He slipped his hand from her hip to the small of her back, pulling her against him. Their bodies molded, soft to hard. His thigh slid between hers and desire curled her toes, tightened her nipples into hard, aching points. And still, he didn’t kiss her. Why didn’t he kiss her? Then he did. Finally, he did. He teased her lips with his tongue, and she opened to him, drank in his dark seductive flavor.

She settled her hand against his chest, reveling in the feel of hard muscle and hot male. Good God the man could kiss. His body surrounded her, engulfed her as his mouth continued to seduce. She arched into him, and as his erection pressed against her stomach, she couldn’t hold back a moan.