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I wanted to study him. Pretend I had artistic talent so I could sketch this man before me. Capture the emotion on his face. Immortalize in a drawing the way his muscles were no doubt bunched and tense beneath his clothes.
“Maria?” he repeated. “So help me, I don’t know what’s in your head, but you’re walking a tightrope right now by being alone with me.”
I swallowed and tore my eyes back to his face. “Why?” I rolled my tongue along the seam of my mouth, and he tipped his head to the side and dragged his thumb along the line of his lips as if he were touching me instead.
“Because I don’t fuck virgins, and certainly not one I vowed to their father to protect.” His hands snapped into fists at his sides, and I stumbled back, hitting the wall. He lifted his hands as if realizing what he’d done, and it was the first time I saw the muscles in his face go lax. “I would never hurt you.” His Adam’s apple moved as he carried his attention back to my eyes. “I’m trying to refrain from giving you what you seem to want.”
Oh jeez, could he read me that well? I was supposed to be the reader, not be the one read. “What is it that I want?” For some reason, I needed to hear those words more than I needed anything right now.
His hands relaxed at his sides as he stalked toward me, eating up the space between us. He dipped his head to find my gaze as his palms went to the wall over my shoulders.
When he didn’t answer, I offered up the truth. “I—I want, um, a birthday kiss.” Damn the stammer betraying the confidence I wanted to pretend to have in this moment. “Or maybe for you to take my v-card so I can be done with it already.” There. I said it. The real “it” in my head.
“You’re sure as hell not kissing or screwing anyone out in that bar.” His words rippled through the air and slid under my clothes, hitting me right between the legs. Being told what to do shouldn’t have turned me on, and yet ...
“Does your order extend outside the bar? To all the boroughs of New York?” I shot back, unsure where that spitfire came from.
The side of his lip hitched, a devilish smirk appearing. “You really want me to break my rules, don’t you?”
“Would you do it if it meant stopping someone else from touching me?” I challenged, allowing my backbone to remain as stiff and tough as possible. But he wasn’t the villain he was trying to portray. I remembered him from our trips to the Hamptons. The sweet boy who’d throw paper airplanes across the room with funny jokes on them to make me laugh. Then that boy went to the army and became a man.
“If you think for one second I’m letting any guy near you tonight, you’re gravely mistaken,” he growled.
“Any man?” I rasped, unsure how long I could remain imprisoned by his hard body with his mouth so close to mine and not draw myself even closer. Not fist his shirt and arch into him. “That include you?”
His eyes fell to my lips, and his brows stitched together. “For a virgin, you like to play with fire. Why is that?” His voice was deep, thick with intent. But the intent to do what?
“I’m not a kid anymore, remember?”
“Trust me, I’m well aware of that fact.” He leaned in, his mouth nearly brushing my lips, and it took all my restraint not to kiss him. But like hell would I make the first move. “But I’m bad for you. You have no idea just how bad.”
My body had never responded to anyone like this before, and every nerve ending inside me was charged and ready to go. “I don’t believe you. The man you’re pretending to be right now is fake. The real you made dinner last night. You’re soft beneath this exterior.” I poked his chest. “I don’t know why you—” I cut myself off when he pinned his body to mine, letting me feel his rock-hard length, and my eyes widened.
“There’s nothing soft about me.” One hand left the wall, and he swept my long brown hair away from my face and palmed my cheek.
“You want me?” I murmured the question.
He skated his hand away from my face and along my bare arm, catching my fingers for a moment before he found my hip, and I gasped as he held me tighter. Unable to stop myself, I pressed up in my heels, closed my eyes, and shimmied against him, searching for relief between my legs.
“Open your eyes and look at me while you rub your pussy against my cock,” he roughly commanded, snatching my attention, and then my body went still at the realization I’d been doing what he’d said.
“I, um ...” My hand flattened over his heart, finding it pounding. “What do you really want?” Please say me.
“The things I want are impossible.”
“What else is impossible?” I was reaching, and I knew that—hoping this man would open up to me like he could with Natalia.
“What I want is for my sister not to be dead,” he said in a broken voice, and at that, he let go of me and backed away, and I felt so utterly cold and alone without his proximity. “And that’ll never happen.” His eyes journeyed over the length of my body before he added, “Just like you and I will never be together.”
I processed his pain. Took it in. Absorbed some of it. And then admitted, “She was the best of us all.” I closed my eyes, feeling the prick of unexpected tears, such a sharp contrast to the heat still burning between my legs.
I gasped when my back went to the wall again, and I tore my eyes open to find him slamming a hand over my shoulder. “Why are you doing this to me? Why the hell are you making me feel ...”
“Feel what?” I exhaled.
He lowered his chin, eyes moving down and to the side as if lost in thought. “You shouldn’t be in here with me.”
“I don’t see you backing away,” I challenged.
