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I wanted Lea. I wanted her more than I had ever wanted anyone.
But as I took in her perfect skin, those hopeful eyes, and her beautiful body splayed out before me like a buffet waiting to be sampled, only one thing echoed through my head.
She deserves better.
So I pushed myself up. “No.” My voice was hoarse with want, but I said it again anyway. “No, Lea. I’m sorry, baby. We have to stop.”
FIFTEEN
WAY PAST TURNING BACK
Lea
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
Michael blinked. And I practically flew off the couch.
Shame. Two seconds ago, I had been hotter than a tea kettle and about ready to whistle, but now I only wanted to cover myself back up. This man had been all over me, and for the first time, I was ready, really ready, to lay myself bare for another person. Literally.
And as soon as I did, he didn’t want it.
“Shit. Fuck. Lea, Tess, don’t cry. Baby, please.”
“Don’t baby me, you asshole,” I snapped through the tears that were already welling up despite my best efforts to stop them. Somehow, my shirt had lost its opening. And sleeves. “And don’t use that stupid fucking nickname, either. My name is not Tess!”
Before I even managed to pull my shirt back over my head again, his arms were around me, pulling me back against his broad, warm chest. His breath was warm against my ear as he shushed away my tears.
It only made me fall apart more.
Gently, he turned me around, cocooning me with his body while he rocked me back and forth. One hand threaded into my hair as he cradled my head against his chest, the other wrapped securely about my waist.
“Don’t you get it?” His deep voice quavered. “I’m not stopping because I don’t want you, Lea. I’m stopping because I want you too fuckin’ much. I’m stopping because I know if I give in to this, I won’t be able to stop.”
His hand tightened in my hair, and I could practically feel the desperation vibrating through him. Fear and need flickered in his deep brown eyes, along with a fire that threatened to burn me alive if I let it.
I should have followed his lead. Let him call it off, run out of that room. Gone back to the life where I was the good girl, the older sister, the one everyone trusted but no one really loved.
Not all the way.
Not like this.
The thought made the tears threaten to spill over. I hadn’t even realized that’s how I felt until I was here with this man, in his arms, absorbing warmth, adoration, and what it meant to be truly desired for the first time in my life.
It was even more dangerous considering that I wanted him like that too.
This wasn’t me shucking my V-card at a party to catch up with my friends and sister. This was real. It meant something.
But apparently, it didn’t go both ways.
I swallowed hard. “Then why are you talking to me like a lover if you don’t want me that way?” My voice was barely above a choked whisper.
Michael exhaled a long breath, and his body relaxed slightly. “Because every time I’m with you, I feel alive, like maybe I’ve never been before. Not in this shitty life I’ve lived. But I also feel like I’m living on borrowed time. I don’t want to give you up, Lea. I can’t. But I also can’t give in and risk losing everything neither.”
His words hung, netted in a strange mixture of anger and longing. I wanted to slap him for his confusion, for his weakness, but I also wanted to pull him closer and let him know that I understood.
“Why?” I murmured. “What would you lose?”
He shook his head. And really, I didn’t need him to answer. I practically shouted that I was an adult, but I lived with his boss. He hadn’t explicitly said that Nonno had made me and my sisters off-limits to his employees, but I couldn’t imagine that my old-school grandpa would ever want any of them, much less one with a record getting into bed with his granddaughter.
