My thoughts rush to a stop.Everythingseems to stop as his gaze drops to my mouth and lingers there for a moment.
“Yes,” I whisper.
He lifts his eyes back to mine, and the look shining in them sends one final, massive crack splitting through the wall between us.
A soft curse slips out of him—a declaration of defeat—before he gives in and presses his mouth against mine.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Shock overtakes me at first—the cold, disorienting rush that comes after finally diving in. A feeling of falling in place, of tumbling, of not knowing which way is up.
It passes quickly.
I throw my arms around his neck and pull him deeper into the kiss. He moans against my mouth and picks me up, wrapping my legs around his waist and shoving me against the nearest wall, pinning me to it with dizzying strength. Heat and desire overwhelm me and I feel like I’m floating and I never, ever want to come down from this high.
I’m dazed when he tears his mouth from mine with obvious effort.
“I don’t want to pretend with you anymore,” he rasps. “I can’t. If you don’t want?—”
“I’m not pretending,” I reply, just as breathlessly.
I don’t realize it until I say it out loud, but it’s the truth. I’m tired of trying to fool myself. I still don’t fully trust this feeling growing between us, but Iwantto.
Desperately.
He studies me for a moment, as if to make sure I’m not lying. Whatever he sees must convince him, because he doesn’t waste another second before carrying me to his bed, laying me against the mountain of pillows at the headboard.
He crawls in after me, caging me underneath him and lowering his lips to mine.
The kisses come slowly at first. Tantalizing little tastes, each soft brush sending another jolt of electricity twisting through me. But it turns quickly to devouring—to a messy tangling of tongues as I take his face in my hands and press my legs against him, holding him in as tightly as he’s holding me down until we’re a single, breathless creature with no clear beginning or end, each of us trying to kiss the other one harder.
Minutes pass before we come up for air.
Heart pounding, I settle back into the pillows, closing my eyes and catching my breath.
He leans in, sinking against me until our bodies are touching in more places than not. My thigh rests between his legs, feeling the hard, thick length of him as it throbs, each twitch of movement sending another delicious shiver cascading through me. He’s not resting fully on me, but it still creates a heady feeling of being trapped, yet safe and warm, under his weight.
A little smile crosses my lips. “This certainly feels like an attempt to conquer and claim me.”
He buries his face in the crook of my neck, breathing me in for a moment before answering. “I only have so much restraint, it turns out. Trust me, though, when I tell you I’m using all that I possess at the moment.”
“So am I,” I say.
It’s more of a quiet confession to myself than to him, but his lips press against the pulse of my throat in response. The fluttering gasp I exhale is involuntary.
He lifts his gaze to my face again. It stays there even as his mouth moves to the swell of my breasts, teasing the hardened peaks through the fabric of the shirt he gave me; even as he kisses lower, pausing just beneath my navel while his hands smooth over my hips and take a possessive, commanding grip on the backs of my thighs.
Every touch, every taste, every move he makes…he watches my reaction to it all with an intensity that only heightens those reactions.
I twist and tremble with want, with anticipation, withneed,and his eyes shine with a mixture of lust and teasing mischief as he dips his head even lower, finding the bare stretch of skin just beneath the hem of my shirt. His fingers flirt with the edge of the fabric as he continues to kiss me.
My back arches. One of his hands slides under it, pulling my aching center tantalizingly close to his mouth—then he seems to catch himself. He lets out another soft curse, but instead of giving in to the hunger between us, this time he merely rests his head against me and goes still.
“This…is probably not a good idea,” he says.
“Yet another thing we disagree on,” I breathe.
He laughs softly. The sound only arouses me further; I can’t remember the last time I was this close to losing myself over a man.
