Элла Франк - Entice

* * *

Shelly turned when she heard him coming back toward her. Her heart thundered inside her chest as she watched him stride down to the riverbank with a blanket beneath his arm.

He was dressed in a white T-shirt and the usual jeans and boots. She looked him up and down and smiled.

“It’s too early for a picnic, isn’t it?”

Josh stopped in front of her and held out a hand. “That’s not what I had in mind.”

“No? Then, what?” she questioned.

He tugged her forward, kissing her mouth a little harder than the previous two kisses they had shared this morning.

“Tell me what else you would dream about under your dreaming tree,” he requested with curious eyes.

Shelly looked up at him, dazed and caught under his spell. “I would lie under the tree and dream about the man I’d end up with—who he would be and what he would look like.”

She watched as a grin appeared on his face—that panty-dropping smile from the first time she had ever seen him.

“Oh yeah?”

Nodding, Shelly stepped forward, placing her hands on his chest. “Oh yeah.”

“And?”

Shelly moved to step around him, walking toward the tree. She looked over her shoulder and winked. As he groaned, letting his head fall back, she felt a shiver run all the way down to her toes.

“And he turned out much better than anything I could have imagined.”

When he reached a spot under the tree, Josh spread the blanket out as Shelly leaned against the thick trunk, watching him. After he arranged it the way he wanted, he moved around the edge to where she stood. He watched as a sexy smile appeared on her lips.

“What are you thinking about, Georgia?”

Keeping a little space between them, he watched as she reached up and removed her hat, tossing it on the ground beside her.

“I was just thinking about how right this feels, even though it’s so sudden.”

Letting his eyes wander down over her, he nodded, holding out a hand. She reached her small palm out, sliding it against his. He tugged her forward, pulling her away from the tree, until she was close enough for him to hold.

Tilting her head just a little, she whispered, “I was determined not to fall for you, and somehow, I don’t think I ever had a chance of resisting.”

Josh raised his free hand and stroked it down her blonde hair.

“Sometimes things just happen,” he told her.

“Like fate?”

“Fate, or in my case, good goddamn luck.” He chuckled a little at that, and then sobered as he said, “I looked at you and instantly wanted you, but my past was telling me not to touch.”

He watched as she tilted her head to the side.

“Why? Am I allowed to ask what happened?”

He nodded. “Of course. It was nothing out of the ordinary. I was involved with a woman, a beautiful woman who used her beauty to get where she wanted to go, and she used me as a bankroll.”

Josh watched as Shelly’s face tightened, and he felt her stiffen in his arms. He let go of their joined hands and reached around to rub a soothing hand up her spine.

“I’ve had boyfriends who have been all about my money, too,” she confessed.

Suddenly, things started to fall into place for Josh. She had dated rich, successful men because she’d been burned just as bad as he had. However, his ammo had been to steer clear from the beauties, and hers had been to steer clear of the ones who looked at her profession as a cash advance.

Leaning down by her ear, Josh clarified, “I don’t want a single penny from you, Shelly Monroe. I want your mind, your heart, and your sexy-as-hell body, but not your money.”

Josh felt her take a deep breath, letting it out with a whoosh.

He placed a gentle kiss against her neck just below her ear, smiling against her soft skin as she tilted her head to give him better access. He made his way back to her earlobe, sucking it gently into his mouth, and then he felt her hands come up, gripping his chest.

She let out a soft moan, and Josh felt his whole body shudder in response. Lifting his head, he looked down at her, noticing her eyes had clouded over and her plump lips had parted.

“I want to take off all your clothes, lay you down here in the morning sun, and love you from your head to your toes. Would that be okay with you?”

* * *

Hell yeah, it’s okay with me, she wanted to scream to the heavens.

However, all of a sudden, Shelly was finding it hard to form any kind of coherent sentence. When Josh had started kissing her neck, she had felt goose bumps rise all over her skin, but when he had sucked her earlobe into his hot mouth, her thighs had clenched, and her stomach had taken a flying leap off of a huge building.

She was sunk.

This man had snuck up and worked his way quickly and efficiently into her heart, like some kind of stealth operations mission. She hadn’t even seen him coming, and now, he was seducing her mind right along with her very willing body.

Removing his hands from her, he reached down and slowly undid the buckle of her brown leather belt.

“Did I tell you how much I liked your outfit today? You are wearing every single item on my fantasy list.”

Shelly found herself breathing harder than usual, so she nodded instead of speaking. She watched as one side of his mouth quirked up.

“Have I rendered you speechless, Georgia? Because, I have to say, I didn’t think that was possible.” He paused as the belt finally gave, and then he gripped an end in each hand, tugging her forward with a little more force than she was expecting. She ended up flush against him, her hands reaching up to grip his biceps for balance.

“Well, maybe Georgia would be speechless,” he continued as he lowered his head, his lips whispering gently across hers in a quick kiss. “But Man-Eater Monroe, who eats men for dinner, definitely would not be.”

With that, he dipped his head and kissed her with so much heat that she thought she would go up in flames.

Shelly felt his tongue swipe across her bottom lip and didn’t hesitate for one second before opening her mouth to him. She heard him groan softly as his tongue dipped inside to rub against hers. He still had a firm grip on her belt and tugged her even closer, rubbing his straining zipper against her own.

Tilting her head a little, she moaned as he deepened the kiss by sucking on her tongue when she dipped it into his mouth. Shelly could feel herself becoming more and more aroused with every dip of his tongue and every suck from his wonderful mouth. When he finally pulled his head back, it took everything she had not to whimper from the loss of it.

Shelly stood very still as her heart raced inside her chest. Josh’s breathing was coming a little too fast now as well, and Shelly felt a smile slide across her mouth because she had caused that.

* * *

Josh took a small step back, still gripping her belt in both hands. That kiss had just about fried his brain cells, and as Shelly stood there smiling up at him in the morning sun, he knew he was about to give his heart away.

His breathing felt labored as he looked over the beautiful woman in front of him. Her amazingly blue eyes were currently focused on him with such sexual intent that he thought they could probably just touch fingers, and they would explode. Then, she smiled and licked her lips, and Josh knew he wanted to touch her everywhere and be consumed by her.

Apparently, his annoying brother had been right. Yeah, so I can’t do sex without feelings. So what?

Dropping one end of the belt, Josh gripped the buckle and slid it deftly through the loopholes of her Daisy Dukes. It made her hips jiggle a little, and that, in turn, made her breasts sway under that breezy top.

Holy hell, this woman is something else.

He heard a laugh bubble up out of her, and he raised his eyes to meet hers.

“Am I amusing you?” he questioned with an arched brow.

Shelly bit her bottom lip, shaking her head. “No, you just seem hypnotized by my breasts.”

Josh couldn’t help but laugh at her audacity. There she was, Georgia mixed in with the Man-Eater, blunt as always.

Keeping the belt dangling in his hand, he told her, “Well, maybe you should take your top off and see what you can make me do—once I’m under hypnosis and all.”

Josh knew Shelly was not shy, and as her mouth turned up in a okay-mister-you-asked-for-it smile, he stood still and waited for the unveiling.

There in the shade of the beautiful old oak, the Shelly who had morphed somewhere between Chicago and Savannah reached down, tugged her shirt from her jean shorts, and took it off, throwing it on the ground beside her. In true man-eater style, she reached behind and undid her bra, throwing it to the ground as well.

Josh gripped the belt tight in his hand as her breasts were bared to him. The morning sun streaming down seemed to kiss them all over. He watched as Shelly tilted her head to the side and cocked her hip out, resting her hands on her waist, which jutted those perky rose-colored nipples out even closer to him.

“What do you plan to do with that belt?” she asked out of the blue.

Josh looked down at his hand where he still held the belt, and then let his eyes come back up to the half-naked woman in front of him. He grinned, tossing it aside.

“Not a damn thing.”

Shelly chuckled as she took a step toward him. “Good, because I have to tell you, that is so not my scene.”

Josh let his eyes run all over her when she stopped so close her nipples were brushing his white shirt.

“Oh no? Then what is?” he asked.

* * *

Shelly grinned up at Josh as he waited for her to do something.

It was almost comical to Shelly that she had felt more comfortable, more like her old self, when Josh had suggested she take off her shirt. She knew how to be this person—a sexy siren who could seduce a man with no problem. Shelly understood her.

She didn’t understand or have any idea how to handle the vulnerable, smitten, and lovesick Shelly.

Reaching out her hands, Shelly let them wander under the bottom of his shirt to his jeans, releasing the snap and unzipping them.

Josh stepped back from her. He quickly pushed his jeans down and kicked them aside, leaving him standing in his white shirt and navy boxer shorts.

Shelly let her eyes roam all over his body, and she had to admit that his muscle tone was amazing. She had always liked a little bulk on her men, but Josh was ridiculously buff.

Instead of moving a step toward him, Shelly watched him closely as she kicked off her boots, and then unsnapped her own shorts, sliding them, along with her tiny excuse for panties, right off her excited body.

She heard Josh suck in a deep breath as she kicked aside her final pieces of clothing, and then she moved to lie down for him on the blanket under her dreaming tree.

“Are you coming?” she asked.

He stood there in the sunlight, watching her in silence. Finally, he seemed to gain motor function again because he moved so he was standing at her feet.

He shook his head. “Not yet, but I’m really close.”

Shelly winked and stretched her hands out behind her. Completely unashamed of her body, she arched up her back and had a good morning stretch in the sunlight.

“Holy shit,” Josh muttered, shaking his head.

Shelly could see his erection as it strained against his boxers, and she licked her lips.

“Are you going to get down here on this blanket, Josh? Or stand there all day, staring?”

* * *

Josh ran a shaky hand through his hair, looking at the sex goddess who was currently stretched out butt-ass naked on his old blanket.

“The view is pretty amazing from up here.”

Shelly propped herself up on her elbows. “Josh, take off your clothes. I want to feel you naked, rubbing all over me.”

Now, who can argue with that? Certainly, not me.

Josh whipped off his shirt, and then pushed his boxers down, stepping away from them. He watched as Shelly’s eyes zoomed in on his hard-on, but he wasn’t ashamed, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to hide it.

If the way her eyes lit and then came back up to him with pure heat was any indication, she didn’t want him to hide either.

Josh dropped to his knees at her feet and made his way up her sun-warmed body. When he was finally mouth to mouth, chest to chest, and—thank God—hip-to-hip with her, he winked at her.