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“And you still are.”
“No,” I say. “I’m not. Me being there isn’t about them. I swear to you, Eric. It’s not.”
His fingers slide back under my hair, cupping my neck and dragging my mouth to his. “Tell me later.” I barely have time to inhale the warm breath on my lips and he’s kissing me again, a long stroke of his tongue against mine undoes me, weakens my knees.
“I need to tell you now,” I whisper when his teeth scrape my lip. “I need you to hear me.”
“Later,” he repeats softly, stroking the dampness from my lips. “I’ll listen.”
“You will?” I pull back to look at him. “Promise me you will because—”
“I will,” he says, his mouth closing down on mine and it’s pure heat and fire.He’spure heat and fire and I feel the shift in us, the need that pushes us past family and divide. There is no divide right here, right now. There is just me and him and a night that was never finished but needs completion. Every part of me is alive in a way it hasn’t been since I was last with this man. We are wild, hands touching and tongues tangling, but then suddenly there’s a shift between us again and his hand settles between my shoulder blades, molding my chest to his chest.
His lips part from mine and our foreheads come together, both of us breathing heavily, the past between us again, so many questions and unspoken words between us with it, but neither of us wants those things to matter. The silent understanding thatlateris, in fact, better, is there, between us. That word “later” complicates our already complicated connection, but there is nothing complicated about the fire between us now or the sense of understanding. We’re alike and yet we’re different. Both pulled into a world we didn’t ask to join, a world that is why we’re here now.
“Eric,” I whisper, and not because I want to break the silence, because I have this sense that he’s waiting on me, needing something I don’t understand.
His answer is instant, not in words, but actions. His mouth closes down on mine, and I feel the snap of tension in him; whatever hesitation was in him moments before is gone, and I welcome the deep thrust of his tongue, the press of his hand under my shirt, his touch caressing over my ribcage. My breasts are heavy, heat pooling low in my belly with anticipation of what comes next, and then his hand is on my naked breasts, fingers plucking my nipple.
He pulls back to look at me, the deep blue of his stare flecked with amber heat scorching me inside and out. He drags my tee over my head, tosses it away, and then that smoldering stare of his is raking over my breasts, devouring me in ways that inexplicably no other man ever has. Just him. My sex clenches and when I grab his sleeve, tugging him toward me, he doesn’t make me wait.
His gaze collides with mine, and the punch of awareness and attraction between us steals my breath even as his hand returns to my neck as he drags my mouth to his. “God, woman,” he says, hisvoice low, rough, almost guttural, “what the hell are you doing to me?” And this time when he kisses me, I sense the barely caged control, the edge of hunger clawing at him, and me with him.
I reach for the buttons of his shirt and he responds by backing me up until I’m against some wall. I don’t even know what wall, and then he releases me just long enough to unbutton his shirt and toss it. I don’t play shy. I’ve waited too long for this to hold back. My hands go to his hard, really perfect chest, my fingers twining in the light brown hair there. Especially that sexy line of it that runs from his belly button, beneath his waistband. I want to lick my way down that path, but there is so much with this man to explore, to experience, even as I contemplate that journey, I’m distracted by his tattoos and my hands move to his new ink, the right shoulder that is now a giant jaguar.
“I love your ink,” I dare, and how can I not. I’ve thought of his ink so many times in the past, wondered what it all means, wondered so much about this gifted, enigmatic man.
Shadows flicker in his eyes, an edge to his mood now that isn’t about sex, but that talk we haven’t had. “Do you now?”
“Yes,” I say, looking him in the eyes. “Why is that a problem? What just happened? Because I do love it. Very much, and I want to—”
I never finish that sentence, I never get to tell him how much I want my mouth on his ink and his body before his cheek is pressed to mine, his lips at my ear, breath warm on my neck as he declares, “I want you naked” his teeth scrape my earlobe, “in every way, Harper.”
My lips part on those words that I don’t fully understand and once again, just like six years before, he turns me to the wall and forces me to catch it with my hands. It’s a power thing, I know, and it should perhaps bother me. He wants to control me, heneedscontrol. It’s about him ruling over the royalty, and to him, I’m that royalty and there’s nothing I can do about it. He feels like I’m the girl on the throne who’s fucking beneath herself.
He yanks my pants down and in seconds they’re over my bare feet and I’m completely naked. His hands are all over me, and when he leans in, his lips at my ear, his hands on my breasts, my breath hitches in my throat. “You’re mine now, princess. All mine. You get that, right? There’s no turning back now.”
“I don’t want to turn back.”
“But will youregret this and me?”
“I regret you leaving. That was a bastard move.”
I feel him stiffen, and I don’t care. Itwasa bastard move. “Is that right?” He pinches my nipples as if punishing me for the truth, and I try to move my hands, but I’m trapped between that wall and his big body, the thick ridge of his erection at my backside.
He folds himself around me, one hand on my hip, the other on my breast. “You have me now, but you might regret it, because this bastard is going to own you before tonight is over.”
Chapter ten
Harper
This bastard is going to own you before tonight is over, Harper.
Those words, Eric’s words, are in the air between us, the implications of me against the wall and him at my back leaving no room to question his intent. He wants control. He has control. His hands go to my shoulders. “How do you feel about being owned?” he demands, and it’s clear we’re talking about a whole lot more than us, naked, tonight.
“They don’t own me,” I say. “They’ve never owned me.”
“You seem pretty damn owned to me, princess,” he says, squeezing my backside and then giving it a hard smack. I yelp at the unexpected sting that he squeezes away even as he steps to my side, caging my legs and cupping my sex. “But right now, you’re mine.”
