Moon over the Bay (Moonlit Nights) (6 page)

_____

Why was he staring at her? Jess
kept mistyping on her phone as she felt Nathan’s eyes on her. The gallery was
emptied of patrons, and only the staff were left cleaning up. Jess’s clutch was
on the verge of bursting with all the business cards from the evening, and her
mind was overloaded with opportunities for her and Sadie.
Tonight could not
be any better!

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” Nathan
murmured from right behind her. Jess jumped and nearly dropped her phone. She
closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Lord, her hormones were out of control.

“I didn’t realize I said that
last part out loud,” she replied still clutching her phone to her chest as she
turned to face him.

“I sent Kyle and Sadie back to
the hotel in the limo, so looks like we’re left to our own devices.” He wagged
his eyebrows at her.

Really?

“What are you, five? Let’s call a
taxi.” Jess ran a finger across her screen before calling information.

“Wait, I’ve got a better idea.
I’m a little . . . ramped up.” Nathan held his hand out for her to
take.

Jess would have to be blind to
miss the latent sexual remark in that statement. But she was ramped up too.
Nathan’s constant steady presence made her feel as if she were drunk. Her skin
felt too tight yet tingled all over, and she couldn’t keep one solid thought in
her head for longer than a moment. However, she trusted Nathan, and suspected
he’d never hurt her or allow anyone else to do so.

“I’m game if you are,” Jess said
as she grabbed his hand and squeezed.

They left
the gallery and took a cab a few blocks over to a bar that Nathan directed the
driver to. The hostess found them a table, and they got settled while the band
finished their song. When it was quiet enough Nathan asked what she wanted to
drink and left for the bar to buy it.

Jess took the time to survey the
dark bar he’d brought her to. It was located in the lower level of a beautiful
art deco building, probably built during the roaring twenties.
Ain’t no
sunshine when she’s gone . . .
Bill Withers filled the dark
space. The brassiness of his voice gave the bar a sultry feel.

“Here you go,” Nathan said as he
handed over her glass of wine before taking his seat next to her. “Do you like
jazz?”

She nodded as she took a sip,
hoping to calm her nerves.

“I asked a few of the locals at
the gallery about the jazz bars around here, and a couple mentioned this place
since it was close. I thought it would a nice place to sit, relax, and get to
know each other a little better,” Nathan said before taking a swallow of the
amber-colored liquid in his glass.

“I’m a big music lover, so this
is great. Music has always had a way of relaxing me.” She felt her cheeks get
warm at the statement. Yes, music and her battery-operated boyfriend.

“Oh Jess, how I love to see you
blush. I have to know what brought that on, please tell me.” He leaned in
closer to her.

Could she tell him? Could she
explain how the last couple of months she’d spent most of her free time
fantasizing about him. His hands on her, his mouth touching her. She focused on
the connection she felt whenever he kissed her as she touched herself. Should
she tell him that it was his name that spilled from her lips when she came?
What would he think?

“I’ll tell you if you tell me
something personal first.” She smiled coyly as she took another sip of her
crisp wine.

“Hmm, quid pro quo I see. All
right, I’ll answer one question, and then you have to answer mine in return.”
He leaned back in his chair and regarded her intensely.

“Excellent, but you have to
answer first.”

He nodded at her request.

“Why did you pull away?” She was
looking at her hands when she asked. He reached over and pulled one toward him.
Her breath hitched when he placed his soft lips on the back of her trembling
hand he held to his mouth.

“Because I wanted you so badly it
made me forget that you aren’t like other women I date,” he murmured against
her skin. His breath was hot on her skin and ignited her blood. “What made you
blush, Jess.” It wasn’t a question.

“I-I was thinking about the last
time I touched my-myself. I called out your name.” Jess watched Nathan’s eyes
widen, and his pupils followed suit. She was pretty sure she heard him growl.

“God, you’re the sexist woman I
have ever met,” he leaned in, whispering in her ear. Goose bumps ran down her
neck and arms as a delicious shiver shot down her spine to her already
throbbing sex.

“I doubt that, but thank you.”
She blushed again. Nathan pulled back and ran his lips across her heated skin.
Jesus, she was on fire.

“Dance with me,” he said as he
pulled her from her chair. Again, it wasn’t a question.

_____

Nathan tossed back the rest of
his scotch before pulling a very naughty redhead behind him toward the small
dance floor in the middle of the room. Her reason for blushing damn near had
him making a fool of himself in public. She had to know he thought of her every
time he took matters into his own hand.

Jess was an unassuming vixen, he decided.
Her responses were too potent to be faked, yet she said all the right things to
drive him crazy. That was a highly dangerous combination.

They cut through the couples
circling the dance floor to get to the center. He spun her then pulled her into
him hard so that she collided with his chest, and he felt her full breasts
pressed against him. Nathan raised the hand he was holding and curled it into
his chest and placed his other hand dangerously low on her back.

Nathan led them on a slow circuit
of the floor and kept with the flow of the other dancers. Having her this close
made it hard for him to concentrate; Jess’s alluring scent flooded his senses,
her soft skin made him ache to touch her all over. Her fiery red hair was all
he could see as he lowered his head and rested his cheek on its softness. The
jazz sounds flowed around them creating their own bubble of lust and
sensuality.

“This is a beautiful song, and
oddly appropriate.” Jess chuckled. He took a moment to listen to the Neil Young
song.

But there’s a full moon risin’

Let’s go dancing in the light.

We know where the music’s
playin’

Let’s go out and feel the
night.

“Seems it’s a sign, don’t you
think?” Nathan asked.

“Perhaps, but we don’t have a
love story like Sadie and Kyle. We don’t have a story at all,” she whispered
the last part.

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that. A rich
girl with a flair for art meets a sexy wannabe actor whose worlds collide
because of star-crossed lovers. That’s a pretty decent story.” He glanced down
and Jess was staring at his chest.

“Is that all you think of
me . . . a rich girl with a flair for art?”

Nathan was taken aback by the
question. Is that what he really thought?

“No, I don’t think that. I think
that you have a real gift for dealing with people who have an eye for art. I
saw how you handled all those stuffy patrons when they thought the work was too
racy. That’s not something someone of your age typically knows how to do. So
that leads me to believe that you really care about what you do, and you are
passionate about your artists.” Nathan held her gaze. Shock was written all
across her face at his response. Hell, he didn’t even know where that all came
from himself.

“Uh, well. Thank you, for that,”
she said, gifting him with a huge vibrant smile that was worth more to him at
this moment than all the acting jobs in the world.

“Come back to my room with me,”
he blurted. Her response was that of surprise and shock. She missed a step and
landed on his foot, stumbling before he could catch her. “I’m sorry for being
direct, but here’s how I see it. We are both adults, and we both feel this
‘thing’ between us. I’ve thought about you a lot during the last couple of
months, and I know our best friends are getting married, so if this ends badly
things could get awkward. I’m not looking for forever, but I’m not a total
douche. What I think we should do is to go back to my room, fuck until we can’t
walk, and get this thing out of our system. We don’t have to tell Kyle and
Sadie if you don’t want to.”

At some point during his little
pitch they had stopped dancing and were standing right in the middle of the
floor. Jess stared at him, and he could see her mind moving behind her
expressive gray eyes. Just as he was thinking she was going to reject his
offer, she moved closer.

“Yes,” she breathed against his
lips before brushing hers against them. Nathan was stunned for a split second
before he dove into the kiss and turned it from sweet to molten in a flash.

“Let’s go, now,” Jess hissed with
urgency as they made it back to their table to grab their things and headed out
to hail a cab.

_____

As they stepped off the elevator
of the hotel, Jess started to panic. Was this really happening? Was she finally
going to get her hands all over Nathan? Was he finally going to touch her in
all the places that had ached for months? God, she hoped so because if he were
to back out now she might beat him with a very heavy object.

They stopped in front of her
hotel door, which was farther away from Kyle and Sadie’s than Nathan’s room
was, and she frantically dug through her purse for the stupid key card that
seemed to have gotten engulfed. Nathan moved in close behind her and she could
feel his heat on her back. She felt something else too. Jess dropped her key
card, and as she bent to pick it up, her rear end pressed right up against his
arousal. She gasped, and he growled before snatching the card from her and
shoving it into the lock.

Nathan threw open the door and
literally yanked Jess in before she knew what was going on. His hungry mouth
was on hers the same time her back hit the wall. After a few seconds of shock,
Jess’s mind joined the party her body was already at. She dropped her purse and
wrapped herself around Nathan like she’d wanted to do for so long.

Her fingers found his soft blond
hair, curling around it as if to anchor herself to him even though he was
pressed against her from chest to knees. Nathan’s kisses were intoxicating and
made Jess feel drunk on lust for this man who was all wrong for her. But in
this moment she didn’t care who he was, only that he was touching her, and she
was on fire. At any moment, her clothes were going to burn away and leave
nothing but ashes.

Nathan made his way over to her
neck where he kissed and nibbled the spot behind her ear. Letting out a soft
moan, Jess moved her hands to Nathan’s bow tie and pulled. He stepped back and
finished taking it off as Jess started pushing his jacket over his shoulders.
His large muscled arms flexed under the white linen of his shirt as he tossed
his the tie and jacket onto the floor. When she started in on the buttons of
his shirt, Nathan just yanked the shirt open, scattering buttons through the
air. Jess’s already damp panties were soaked now.

The pure masculine beauty of
Nathan stunned Jess as she watched him pull off his shirt. Starting with broad
shoulders that topped his perfectly formed, muscled pecs, and he even had those
sexy defined muscles over his ribs. But it was his abs that deserved to have a
sonnet written about them. He gave new meaning to the term “washboard abs.”
Jess felt herself drooling, so she tried to collect her hazy thoughts and
looked up at Nathan, barely catching the look of hunger in his eyes at her
obvious appreciation before he pounced on her again.

This time he cupped her face with
his big hands as he assaulted her senses. His skin was like lava under her
hands where she ran them around his waist and up his back. He moved his fingers
to the back of her head and started removing the pins and combs used to fashion
her hairstyle. She felt the shift in her scalp as her curls rained down her
neck and onto her face. Nathan pulled back and gently swept the hair from her
eyes.

“You are so fucking gorgeous.
Your eyes have haunted me for months,” he said, his gaze heated. Jess’s pulse
raced as he leaned in and kissed her eyelids. She let out a deep breath when
his lips made their way down her cheek to her lips again.

The sound
of tearing fabric shot her eyes open. The cool air brushing over her bare skin
signaled that Nathan had torn the dress right off her. She gasped in disbelief
and looked down to see her very expensive dress in a puddle at her feet. If she
weren’t so aroused at the moment, she’d be upset at the waste. But before she
could think of what to say Nathan scooped her up and made his way to the bed.

_____

Nathan wanted to go slow and
savor the moment. But one look at her standing there in a skin-tone lacy bra
with matching panties and garters blew his mind. She looked nearly naked at
first glance except for her flushed skin. Her nipples strained against the cups
of her bra, like Nathan’s erection was pressed painfully behind his zipper
.

He tossed
Jess into the middle of the bed like a rag doll and crawled up to press his
skin against hers. He’d never seen skin that translucent; it was flawless except
for a slight spattering of freckles in places. While wrapping one arm under her
to keep her close, he kissed her mouth with all the lust he felt. It was a
brutal kiss, but he just couldn’t find his normal control. Using his free hand,
he unhooked her bra before tossing it off the bed. Soft clunking noises soon
followed as they both kicked off their shoes, landing in random areas of the
floor.

Jess
reached for the closure of his pants at the same time he pulled at her panties.
She had been a smart girl and worn them over her garter belt so they were easy
to remove. Nathan nearly jumped out of his skin when her soft delicate fingers
wrapped around his aching cock. As she pumped him a few times, she used her
free hand to push his slacks and boxers down. Not wanting to break their kiss,
he growled when he pulled away, and he reached down to pull one leg then the
other free of their confines. He quickly dug in his pocket and tossed the
condoms he had stowed away on the bed. Nathan wanted to thank the heavens for
having the foresight to grab a few from his suitcase before they left for the
viewing. Making quick work of sheathing himself, he settled between Jess’s
gorgeous creamy thighs. Next round he would spend worshipping her like the
pagan goddess she was, but for now he just wanted to put out the fire that was
clouding his mind.

Nathan
caressed both of Jess’s breasts and lifted them to meet his mouth. He suckled
first one nipple and then the other. She cried out when he nibbled on each
nipple before releasing them and moving back to her mouth. As their tongues
battled and their breaths mixed, Nathan slid one finger through her wetness
before positioning himself and thrusting home. Jess cried out again and dug her
nails into his shoulders.