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, his gorgeous shoulders and arms. I put a hand to the skin of his ribcage, and he obliged me by changing his position, lying on his side on the bed next to me, propped on an elbow.
So I touched him. I ran my palm over him, memorizing his skin, his tendons, the lines of his body. He was warm and firm, the hair on his stomach surprisingly soft. I had a brief flash of McMurphy, his big blunt body, and then McMurphy was gone.
Cavan was watching me, quietly intent. When I brushed my fingers over his nipple, I felt his breathing hitch, then start again. I liked it, that I’d done that to him. Then I realized something.
“You don’t have any ink,” I said.
The crease appeared briefly on his forehead, between his eyes, making me want to touch it. “No.”
“Why not?” I cupped his shoulder, moved my palm down his arm. I couldn’t seem to take my hands off him. “I never thought a tattoo artist would have no tattoos.”
“Lots of reasons,” he said. “The art is just a job for me, not a lifestyle like it is for some people. And being clean… I guess it was a way for me to differentiate from the Black Dog. To make it clear I’m not one of them.”
I nodded, but the only way for anyone to see that difference was to see him naked, and I didn’t want to think about any other woman seeing him naked. Just the thought was like a shard of glass in my throat. “Those aren’t the only reasons,” I said, looking into his eyes.
He shrugged his free shoulder, making the muscles move in a fascinating way under my hand. “I have nothing important enough to ink onto my skin. Nothing that matters to me that much.”
I moved my hand to his stomach again, feeling its hard, firm skin. I slid my hand down toward the buttons of his jeans. “I don’t believe you,” I said.
He caught my wrist as I undid the first button, stopping me. “Fuck,” he said, looking at my face. “How old are you, Dani?”
“Twenty-three.”
He swore again, breaking the eye contact and looking away.
“You’re not that much older than me,” I said.
“Twenty-nine.” That crease again. God, it frustrated me and made me hot at the same time. “You’re so fucking young.”
“Don’t you dare,” I said. I put my hand to his jaw and turned his head so he was looking down at me again. I kept my hand there, because I liked it. “Don’t start thinking I’m a girl,” I said to him. “I’m not. I haven’t been a girl in a very long time.”
He knew the truth of that. Robert Preston’s daughter, and McMurphy’s woman, did not have the luxury of being childish. I’d left the last of it behind the first time McMurphy had hurt me. “You don’t even know what you want,” Cavan said.
I swallowed. I didn’t know what I wanted—not exactly. I wanted him, on the bed with me, touching me. I wanted my hands on him. I thought I wanted him inside me, but I’d never been with anyone but McMurphy, and deep down I wasn’t entirely sure what it would be like. If I’d like it the way I thought I would. “What do you want?” I asked him instead.
He laughed briefly, his stomach muscles flexing beneath my hand, and then he leaned over me, boxing me in with his arms. His chest brushed my nipples, making my breathing hitch, and he bent his head to my neck, brushing his mouth over my skin. “You want to know what I want?” he asked in a hot, low voice, dragging his teeth up to the soft skin beneath my ear. “I want to fuck you, Dani.”
I closed my eyes as a rush of heat came over me.
“That’s what I want,” he said. “I want your legs wrapped around me. I want you pinned beneath me on this bed.” His hand circled my wrist, his thumb pressing into the soft skin with its blue veins. “I want to hold you down, if that’s what you like. I want to spread you open. And I want to be inside you so deep, so fucking deep you can’t feel anything but me.”
I couldn’t breathe. I arched my back, rubbing my breasts against him, needing the contact. “I want,” I breathed, forcing the words out. “I want that.”
“You do,” Cavan said, nipping my skin again, “and you don’t. Don’t think I can’t feel it. I can feel everything, sweetheart, especially when you’re like this. Everything.”
“I—” There was something I was going to say, but I couldn’t remember what it was, because his hand had left my wrist and gone into my panties instead. He curled his fingers and ran a devilish, graceful knuckle over me, its ridge abrading my swollen flesh. I cried out.
“You’re hot for me,” he said, his voice gravel. “Hotter even than last time. Tell me, can I make you come just like this?” He ran his knuckle over me again. I twisted beneath him, trying to press my hips upward, trying to get more.
“Relax,” he said, his hand leaving my panties and dragging up my body, over my stomach, between my breasts, landing gently on my throat, which he stroked with his thumb. “Take your panties off and spread your legs, Dani. You want me to take over, so I’m taking over.”
I had never seen him like this—demanding, dominating, a little hard. It was like I’d summoned him from a fantasy so deep inside myself that I’d never acknowledged it. He stroked my throat again and I moved beneath him, pulling the lacy fabric off my hips and down my legs. “Kiss me,” I begged him.
His hand moved from my throat and up to my mouth, where he stroked that talented, magical thumb over my bottom lip. “You want that?” he asked, moving so his mouth was close to mine, his breath on me, his thumb between us, still stroking me. “Soft or dirty, baby?” he asked.
My voice was a rasp. “Dirty,” I said.
The corner of his mouth turned in a smile, and then he moved his thumb away and put his mouth on me.
