"What do you need?"
Holdin smiled that slow grin that had always made her catch a breath in sharply. "You know what I need, Jilly-girl. You've always known. But I'll settle for a taste. Tell me I can have a taste, baby."
"No." Jill pulled back and stood as Holden clenched his jaw and immediately took his hands off her. His eyes narrowed as he gazed up at her standing beside him.
"Testing me?" he asked tightly.
"Stand up, Holdin. I'm not having my first kiss over a plate of eggs and bacon. I want to feel you hold me. All of me."
Holdin's chair crashed backward on the floor. His big body was directly in front of hers as his hands rested lightly on her hips. His head bent and their lips were again a breath apart. "Meet me halfway, Jill. Don't make me take. Please, baby, don't push me that far," he growled fiercely, and stood still waiting for her.
Looking up into his amazing eyes as he literally vibrated with restrained tension, Jill let her hands rest lightly on his upper chest. Warm, breathing steel met her touch. His nostrils flared and she watched him endure the pleasure of her touch. As her hands glided up to his shoulders, his eyes changed, going dark and almost glassy. Jill noted each change as very slowly her fingers traveled his corded neck to tunnel under that golden crown of hair and cup the back of his skull.
"Could I step away now?" Jill questioned in a breathless whisper.
That's when she felt living steel tremble. His eyes squeezed shut and his lips brushing hers, he surrendered his strength to her. "No. My Jill would never be that cruel," he told her softly.
"No," Jill paused as he opened his eyes, "no, she couldn't be that cruel to herself. Please kiss me, Holdin."
His mouth came the millimeter to her lips. Slowly he brushed back and forth as both of them opened. His arms tightened around her to bring her body firmly against him as a hand slid to the small of her back. The other traveled up her spine to press her into him. Firmly, like a man savors the taste of fine food, he licked across her lower lip. His hand at her back moved up her neck to cradle the back of her head as he dragged his tongue over her top lip. He seemed in no hurry but the feel of his clenched body pressed into hers couldn't lie.
Jill moaned and closed her eyes. The hand low on her back moved down in a long, hard caress to span her bottom and press her hips firmly into his. He burned her through her jeans as that large hand pressed into her and went even lower to cup her curves. His middle finger had traveled the crease of her cheeks and now his fingers curled under to intimately press the ridge in the crotch of her jeans up into damp panties and suddenly engorged folds.
His mouth moved over hers, not pressing into her, sampling her in long licks and featherlight brushes. They were both open-mouthed and panting but he still didn't accept that damp invitation. His fist closed in her hair to hold her head firmly beneath him, but he didn't kiss her.
"Holdin!" sobbed out of her as he held her there. She felt surrounded, suspended in a hellish middle ground of razor-sharp touches that cut her with pleasure. Drowning in the emotional intensity of his tantalizing touch, her hands turned into claws as she tried to bring his mouth to hers. He had no trouble resisting and might not have noticed. "Holdin!"
"Right here, baby," he murmured into her mouth.
"No! More. Now!"
"I can't." His hand rocked between her legs from behind, shooting blistering sparks up her body as his fist in her hair turned her head fractionally so his open mouth could glaze over her cheek to her ear. "I need you to much, Jilly-girl," he confessed in rumbling growls, his mouth moving over her as if he needed to sample every inch of her for taste. "Don't let it scare you, baby. I promise, nothing happens you don't want. Nothing."
"I want, Holdin. I want already!"
His mouth moved around the base of her neck in nipping kisses and then he seemed to get stuck over her pulse, sucking tender skin into his mouth to bath it with his tongue. Jill raked her fingers down to his shoulders as the beast in her arms ate at her flesh in maddeningly tender nibbles and shattering kisses. He was sucking her neck and he'd found the spot with a mysterious bundle of nerves just under her skin. Jill groaned loudly and her hips moved as if his lips had them on puppet strings.
"Oh God, don't! Holdin, please," Jill sobbed as he let go of the spot and licked it tenderly.
"Don't what?" he asked softly.
"Don't make me like this. You know where, how, to touch me. Don't hurt me with it."
"Jesus, baby." His head lifted to look at the woman who inhabited his soul. "Why would you think that? This is me, Holdin. I'd rather lose a limb than hurt you."
Jill looked into his face. Her body trembled in his arms and her hands dug into his shoulders. "I'm afraid of wanting you this much. You haven't even really kissed me and I'm lost. What happens next? I've never been this lost since being with you and that was so long ago. I'm not young and firm. I'm not that uninhibited anymore. I can't handle this. I don't know what to do."
Holdin let go of her hair and wrapped both arms around her in a hug that was suddenly more comfort than seduction. He folded her into his body as she buried her face in his chest, her arms now linked around his neck as she clung to him. "Shhhhh, Jilly-girl. Shhhh. You're so afraid, little one. Try to remember you're safe with me. Safe in me. I want you any way I can get you. God, I can't believe you're worried about this body. You're going to have to let me prove something to you."
Holdin shifted a step to put his back to the door. "But we'll have to prove it later. I believe company is on the way."
"What?" Jill's head lifted off his chest to glance up in alarm.
"Relax. No makeup dripping down your face. No clothes undone. Even the hair is good." He smoothed a hand down the back of her head. "Only problem might be the hickey." Holdin's head swooped down and he took her open mouth, swallowing the words of surprise and thrusting into her.
Jill's body responded to the dizzying invasion with a flash fire of reaction. This was what she'd been hungering for with the intensity of a starvation victim. Opening wider, she sucked him in and promptly forgot every word he'd just said. He invaded her with that kiss. Claiming her. Her arms tightened around his neck and her fingers sank into his hair again as she strained to get closer to him.