Page 77 of Devil in Her Details

Didn’t look away.

Not until the last drop left him. Only then did she lift her hands, studying them with a satisfied grin. Outrageous. Completely outrageous.

He groaned, fingers digging into her skin. “Do you want me to return the favor?” he asked. He’d return the favor all night long.

Her eyes lowered to him, and her grin widened. “Next time.”

“Next time?” he blurted before he could rein himself in. “What if there is no next time?” There shouldn’t be a next time. Next time was for bloody fools. Next time was the biggest lie people ever told themselves and others.

“Where is your sense of adventure, Mr. Panther?” She leaned forward and placed a kiss on his lips. “Don’t ruin this moment for me. Next time is next time.”

This bloody woman.

There were things a man could want and things a man could have. He didn’t care into which category those two words fell, but he’d damn well hold her to them.

Next time.

Chapter Sixteen

Lilly stared into her cup of tea in a daze, the memory of last night at the forefront of not only her mind, but her entire existence, which she couldn’t help but question at the moment.

The wall of pillows had been a futile gesture.

Futile!

No help at all!

Her thoughts of being safe with a panther seemed ridiculously naïve now. However, there had been no bite. Only the pleasurable purr of a beast satisfied by being rubbed! She should have taken the man up on his offer. She wouldn’t mind being rubbed by him. However, she’d wanted to savor him. And Lord, Lord, how she’d savored. Her dreams had been full of his face right before he spilled himself.

Lilly’s whole body heated at the memory.

No more rubbing!

Lots and lots of rubbing . . .

She pushed all thoughts of rubbing aside and reached for her list. She could always just work at her shop, but the house was bigger. More places to hide. A snort escaped her. Why hide? She had nothing to hide from! Nothing to squirm over. She’d done something positively wicked and sinfully scandalous, but so what?

Who would know?

Just her and that devil.

Besides, she was a woman who kept her own counsel, made her own arrangements, and did not lie awake willing the warmth of a man to her through a wall of pillows like some besotted girl in a novel.

She read over the list, item for item.

Would he brush her hair again tonight?

Footsteps approached, and Lilly’s gaze snapped up.

There he was.

Fully dressed, a newspaper tucked under one arm, looking for all the world like a man who had simply entered into a room and not like . . . well . . . not like that. Like yesterday. Beneath her thighs. Oh, Lord. She shouldn’t have thought that, for now the flashes of all last night rushed back up to the surface. Her cheeks heated as his eyes found her, and Lilly had the peculiar sensation of seeing him for the very first time. The sharp cut of his jaw. The scar that sliced his cheek, which somehow just made him look more handsome and not any less.

The furrow between his brows disappeared.

“You’re here,” he said softly.

“Where’d you think I’d be?” Lilly replied, as though she had not crept out of that room at dawn like a woman fleeing the scene of a crime.