“After ...” His voice was serrated with the same ache burning in his lust-filled stare. “After, it was easier if you hated me.”
“What was easier?”
His palms framed my face. “To stop myself from doing this.”
And then his mouth sealed over mine.
Chapter 26
Calder
Rule #1: The essence of survival is preparation.
There would be no surviving this. No surviving Lara.
All night, I’d cursed myself for my weakness. My irrationality.My irresponsibility.Maybe it wouldn’t have changed anything, or maybe we would’ve gotten answers faster. Maybe we would’ve found Rachel already. Now I’d never know because I was too distracted by wanting her. Too hungry for her to realize where it would lead—to the past. To breaking all the rules I’d made to keep me from this very moment. TheFuck Itmoment where I gave in to everything we’d both been fighting.
“I don’t want you to stop,” she panted against my mouth.
There was nothing that could have prepared me for the way I wanted her, nor the way my body reacted to just one taste.
“I can’t stop,” I grunted, sinking my tongue into the depths of her mouth. “Not anymore.”
Lightning. Thunder. Rain.
Rules. Guilt. Danger.
There was no force of nature that could stop me from having her. Taking her.
My hands slid into her slick hair, angling her head as I stepped forward, my foot sinking and sliding in the mud. She inched back, both of us unsteady until I had her back against the RV.
I should’ve felt guilty to press her against the cold, wet metal, but she didn’t even shiver. If she burned even a fraction of the way I did, the cool shower was welcome.
“Calder,” she pleaded, her arms sliding around my waist.
Her kiss was heat and electricity. Sunshine and lightning. Satiation and starvation all at the same time. And for all the ways she stood her ground, nothing compared to the honor I felt when she held fast to me and melted into my arms.
Rain slicked her mouth, my lips moving at an angle so my tongue could tangle and slide along hers. And she gave it right back, moaning and stroking her tongue to mine as her fingers clawed at my soaked shirt. Our kiss became as wild as the storm. Thrashing. Soaking. Striking.
She tugged at my shirt—yanked to drag it up my torso. The scratch of her nails made my skin tingle.
“Lara,” I growled, skating my teeth along her jawline.
“I don’t want to go inside,” she panted, her gaze swimming as it focused on mine. “I don’t want softness or a bed.” She pressed her fingertips to my cheeks. “I don’t want you to fuck me by the rules, Calder.”
Goddamn if that didn’t turn my cock to instant stone.
I grabbed her chin, holding her face hardly a breath in front of mine. “Then how do you want me to fuck you, Tomb Raider?”
I wanted her so damn bad, it came like a hurricane through my system, flooding and destroying every sense for its own satisfaction.
Her bruised lips parted on a sudden breath.
“Like the way you’re looking at me now, Wild Man. Like it’s the only thing that’s going to keep you alive.”
Fuck me.
Fuck my rules.
