The Best Thing by Jaci Burton Page A

harden and tingle, promising what she could have if she surrendered.
    She’d surrendered the minute she walked through his front door. She didn’t have the energy to fight this anymore. Not when it was what she’d wanted for so many years.
    With a low growl, he brought her closer to him, cradling her against his chest as he deepened the kiss. He was everything she wanted, knew she shouldn’t have, and tonight, she just didn’t care anymore.
    And when he made a swift move and slid her underneath him, his big body covering hers, she wrapped her legs around his thighs, aching at the intimate contact. He rocked against her and she wanted to weep. It felt so good, and she needed release desperately. She’d denied herself for so long—stupidly, foolishly holding on to the notion that if she kept herself from having what she wanted, time would stand still and nothing would change.
    But the world did change. She’d changed, and tomorrow, so would her life, which she wasn’t going to worry about tonight, because the only thing she was going to concentrate on tonight was having Brody.
    He lifted, giving her the opportunity to finally be close enough to look her fill of him, to touch him in all the ways she’d denied herself for so long. She laid her hands on his thighs, swept them inward, biting her lip as she zeroed in on one very sizeable erection.
    Her gaze swept to his and he cocked one of his famous grins at her, then laid his hands on either side of her head and bent to give her a smoldering kiss that rocketed her senses. He lifted her shirt, his hands big and warm on her belly as he snaked them upward.
    “Too many clothes,” he said, raising her shirt over her head. For some ridiculous reason, she blushed, likely because she’d allowed very few guys to see the goods. She was damn picky about who she slept with, and of course there was the ridiculous torch she’d carried for Brody all these years.
    But him looking at her? Yeah, she’d fantasized about this moment. She had a rockin’ body and she knew it. She worked out so she could eat whatever she wanted. She was curvy in all the right places and she loved her curves. Obviously, Brody liked what he saw, because his eyes darkened and he traced a finger around the swell of her breast, dipping his fingertip inside the cup of her bra.
    She suddenly found it hard to breathe as his touch sent wild sensation rocketing throughout her nerve endings.
    “God, you’re beautiful, Tori.”
    He bent, kissed the swell of her breast, and she was afraid her heart would burst. She breathed heavily and she knew he could hear her but there was honestly nothing she could do to stop the dizzying heights the touch of his lips to her breasts took her to.
    He dropped down beside her and she was ever so grateful for this oversized couch, because Brody wasn’t a small guy. She heard his boots drop to the floor—he must have toed them off, so she kicked off her shoes, and suddenly their feet were entwined. That made her smile, because there was something both playful and yet so intimate about it.
    He didn’t seem to be in any hurry to get to the good stuff, another thing that surprised her. He lazily drew circles over the swell of her breasts with his fingertips, while he played with her feet. He still had all his clothes on and she still wore her bra and jeans. Somehow, she had expected this explosion, with clothes flying everywhere, the two of them falling to bed and having a quickie. Yet here they were, lying on his sofa side by side while he mapped her breasts.
    Brody constantly surprised her.
    “You’re quiet,” he said.
    “I’m...shocked.”
    He lifted up on his arm. “Yeah? Why?”
    “I don’t know. I thought this would go...faster.”
    He laughed. “You have an appointment later that you need to get to, or a curfew?”
    She smacked his shoulder. “No.”
    “Then we have all night, don’t we?”
    “I guess we do.”
    He kissed her shoulder. “I’ve thought about