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Zeke knew kissing Rogue again was a damned bad idea. He had come to talk to her, to try to figure out a way to have her and to hold back that part of himself now slipping free.
There was no way to do it, he finally admitted to himself. As his lips covered hers, as he felt her gasp, tighten in his arms, he knew having her would mean breaking every damned rule he had lived his life by for years now.
Not having her wasn’t an option. Not when her kiss was like fuel to a fire. Not when touching her became as important as breathing. Not when the very act of possessing her mouth sent a surge of adrenaline racing through him.
Defiance raged in the air around him now. His tongue parted her lips, pressed forward, and felt her furious cry. But he also felt her need. She was shuddering in his arms despite her struggles, fighting not to capitulate, struggling not just against him but against the pleasure that he could have told her there was no way to resist.
This pleasure was addictive. Rogue’s kiss. Driven with challenge. Her teeth would have nipped at his tongue if he hadn’t controlled the graceful line of her jaw. Instead, her tongue pressed against his, fought against it, and he felt a surge of heat so blistering it burned away the remaining resistance he’d built against his need for it. He wanted her to fight. He wanted her to defy him. He wanted to tie her to his bed and spend hours fucking her into exhaustion. Until there was no defiance, until there was only pleasure.
No fear. No anger.
God, he had to rein back, just a little. She was a virgin. She had no idea what he could demand from her. He had to be gentle, he had to make sure she remembered this night with pleasure. The need for that was almost as sharp as the need for her touch. As sharp as the need to hear her screaming his name.
“Damn you,” she tried to scream as he lifted his lips and stared down at her swollen lips. “What are you trying to do to me, Zeke?”
“Taste you,” he murmured, those pouty lips holding his attention as he allowed his thumb to rake across the lower curve. “I’ve spent two days remembering the taste of your kiss, the feel of your lips against mine, then wrapped so snug around my cock. I didn’t get enough, Rogue. I need more. ”
Another shudder raked through her body. The tremor was hard, telling. Her thighs relaxed against him despite the anger in her eyes and the refusal he could see hovering on her lips.
“Tell me to leave again and I won’t return,” he warned her harshly, his lips lowering again to brush hers as he spoke. “Anything is negotiable but that. Tell me to leave, and it will be over before it begins. ”
Her breathing hitched. Shadows of indecision filled her eyes as she stared back at him.
“Don’t do this to me if you expect me to act like your other women in public, Zeke.
Pretending we’re not touching, that we’re nothing to each other. I can’t do that. I’m not some whore you’re buying and can just walk away from before the sun comes up. ”
It would be so much easier if that were the case. But he already knew it wasn’t. He had known as he stared down at her two days ago, his erection filling her mouth. She had never gone down on a man before. She had never taken his release and she had never known the stinging rejection he’d dealt her moments later. Or the regret that dug into his guts like a knife each time he thought of how he must have hurt her.
He doubted she had ever faced a relationship with a man who demanded as much from a woman as he knew he could demand from her. So much that his first wife had refused to sleep with him for years.
“I don’t have relationships,” he told her. “I’ve not had a relationship since I returned here from L. A. , Rogue, for a reason. ”
“Gossip?” she sneered.
He smiled at that. “I never gave a damn what anyone thought. I cared more about making certain I never allowed myself to be caught in a loveless relationship or that no other woman ever paid for my sins as my wife did. If no one knew who I was fucking or thought I cared about who I was fucking, then they were safe. ”
He watched her gaze flicker then, those beautiful violet eyes watching him intently as he held her hands against the wall.
“You’re involved in an investigation,” she whispered. “Joe and Jaime were mixed up in something, weren’t they?”
He couldn’t, he wouldn’t discuss this. Not here. Not yet. He shook his head instead. “I don’t know what they were involved in, Rogue. But being careful is a part of me.
Protecting you will always be a priority with me. You’ll have to accept that. There’s no other choice. ”
She stared up at him, her eyes wide, lips parted. “I make my own choices. ”
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“I’m not an easy lover,” he told her softly then. “I’m not the type of the man that will watch his woman flirt and laugh with other men, that will allow other men to touch her with anything approaching intimacy, with any semblance of grace. You’re a young woman, Rogue. Sweet and flirty and filled with life. ”
“And I know how to be a woman,” she informed him fiercely. “And I know the rules of the game, Zeke. You won’t own me any more than I expect to own you. ”
Zeke felt his stomach flex, his muscles tightening at the look in her eyes. Frustration and heated anger filled her gaze. She was a woman ready to explode in his hands, and how he touched her, how he treated her would decide if she exploded in pleasure, or in rage.
“There will be no other men. ” He leaned closer, letting her feel the determination, the arousal filling him. He couldn’t let her feel his hands shaking, he wouldn’t let her feel the adrenaline and need burning inside him. Touching her was like a shock of electricity that sang through his body, leaving every nerve on high alert.
“There are no other men now,” she argued back. “You can’t change who or what I am. I own a bar. I talk, I laugh, and I dance, and you won’t change that. ”
