Page 63 of Puppy Love

A simple answer from a simple man. She liked it.

With more bravado than she’d ever thought it possible for her to muster, she said, “Harrison Parks, you are one strapping beast of a man, and I can’t stop thinking about you. Would you please kiss me already?”

There was no need for her to finish the question. By the time she got past thatstrapping beastpart, he’d already closed the distance between them, already grabbed her around the waist and pulled her flush against him. She’d barely gotten the last word out when his mouth pressed down on hers hungrily, his lips tasting and testing to see how much she would give.

The answer, as he would soon come to learn, waseverything.

She’d never wanted anything as much as she wanted Harrison Parks exactly like this—powerful and insistent yet still the same sweet man who could fall head-over-heels in love with a puppy overnight.

Each touch of his mouth against hers demanded that she return his kiss, but the way his hand cupped her face and the way he held her body against his spoke of a hesitant affection. It was as if he knew he was holding something precious but not breakable, someone willing but not compliant.

Determined not to let him go this time, Sophie wrapped her arms around his waist. She took a moment to slide her hands underneath the back of his vest, bypassing the insulin pump hitched to his belt to skim her touch between warm flannel and even warmer skin. Although she would have gladly stood there and let him keep nibbling at her lips with the urgency of one who could never be sated, she pulled away enough to catch her breath and speak.

“If asking for a kiss gets me exactly what I want, what happens if I make other requests?” she asked. “Do you have to do everything I ask, like a genie granting wishes? Is that how it works?”

His lips curved in a smile—that deep, enticing one that set her…well, everything quivering. Not only was he kissing her and making jokes, but he was playing along. He was playing, period.

“Why the hell not? I’ll give you exactly three wishes.” His smile dropped. “And no, you can’t wish for more wishes.”

“I wasn’t going to!” she protested. “I only play honorably.”

“No, you don’t. That’s what got us into this mess in the first place.” His laugh was more like a groan. “So…bearing in mind that it’s sixty degrees and Derek is nearby with a heavy projectile, what do you want from me?”

What she wanted was for it to be dark and the pair of them to be sharing a tent, but not even Harrison had the power to move time. However, that wasn’t going to stop her from trying.

“I want to feel you on top of me,” she said.

He blinked, as if waiting for more. When she didn’t do anything except stare expectantly up at him, awaiting his response, he laughed. “Fine. Never let it be said I didn’t hold up my end of the bargain.”

Without another word, he swooped down and lifted her in his arms. Sophie could feel the sheer strength of him, the way every muscle was taut and vibrating with energy. She could also tell that lifting her caused almost no strain on his physique.

Nor did it seem to tax his strength any as he lowered her to the ground right then and there. It was a patch of rock and dirt, no sign of any mossy embankment or field of flowers where she could rest her head, and she could have kissed him for it. There was nothing romantic about the pebbles pressing through her jeans; nothing comfortable about the way he stretched her body out, her shoulder narrowly missing the sharp edge of a boulder. She commanded, and he gave. That was all.

He did, however, shrug out of his vest and fold it into a pillow for her head. As he quickly followed it by pressing the entire length of his body on top of hers, she couldn’t find it in her to complain. He was gloriously heavy, his limbs and pelvis pinning her into place.

It was like bedding down with a rock, assuming the rock was made of lava and had designs on her maidenly virtue. Harrison’s chest was broad and his arms strong, locking her in place so he could once again crush her mouth under his. There was nothing to do but open up and let him in, so that was exactly what she did. He smelled like pine and tasted like the sky—two things she’d never thought could be intoxicating together, but she was wrong.

Because this wasright.

Whatever else was happening in the world at this exact moment—wars, crime, a dozen rugged outdoorsman close enough to march by at any moment—didn’t matter. All she cared about was the fact that Harrison’s lips wouldn’t stop moving over hers and that the press of his body wasn’t softening in the slightest. In fact, if she wasn’t mistaken, there was zero softening going on anywhere.

But there was definitely some hardening. Oh, yes. That was acock, no playful names about it.

It was too cold to do much in the way of disrobing, but Harrison managed to unfailingly find all the exposed patches of her skin. His fingertips moved along the arched slope of her neck, tracing the delicate line of her clavicle as one memorizing a masterpiece. They slipped along the bare skin above her waistline. They even, for one glorious minute, gave in to the urge to travel northward, skimming over her stomach and making a tantalizing approach near her breasts.

She arched in an attempt to get him to reach the urgently tingling tips of her nipples, but Harrison pulled himself away before he got close. He released a sound halfway between a groan and a growl, his large palm not lifting from where it rested against her rib cage. His rough skin attested to all those years of fighting fires, and she could feel the scrape of his calluses against her skin.

It was impossible not to make the leap from there, to imagine the hot, work-hardened fingers slipping into her softest parts, rubbing her body in ways that would scandalize the birds and the bees.

She might have even whimpered. It wasn’t her most elegant moment.

“Well?” Harrison lifted himself away just enough to speak, his words a breath against her lips. “That makes one. What’s your next command?”

Gone were all thoughts of bugs crawling into her jeans or rocks working their way into unseemly places. Sophie could think of only one thing she wanted, the rest of the world be damned.

She wanted him.

“Your hands,” she managed, her words escaping on a gasp. “I want to feel your hands on my bare skin.”