Page 67 of The Agreement

Unafraid.

“Are you playing a game with me?” he asked.

The question was a fair one.

She had to admit it.

Still, she told him, “No.”

A girl like her ...

What games could she play?

Roman arched one dark brow. “I’m not sure if I should believe you.”

“So, don’t.”

Seemed simple enough to her.

What did it matter?

Easier said than done, she knew. Just standing there with his hands on her was enough to get Roman in a lot of trouble. He’d already taken one risk with her tonight, and Karine was feeling bold enough to push for two.

Maybe her stare urged him on.

Or her silence.

Whatever it was, Roman’s throat jumped with a swallow before he said, “Tell me what you want, Karine. I need to know what you want here.”

His words came out in heady whispers, right there, dark at her ear penetrating her oh, so deep whiles knots tightened in her gut. An intense desire washed over her; something she had never experienced before.

There was a lot she couldn’t pretend to understand about men. She wouldn’t even begin to try. There were a few things, however, that she could never forget, either. Men were supposed to be feared. Men hurt her. They took away everything and made her feel small and inferior. There hadn’t been one man in her life who didn’t take the time in one way or another to remind her that she was insignificant, and unwanted.

But not this man.

He asked her what she wanted. Karine wasn’t sure if he did that because of who her father was, or something else. Whatever the reason, it was the first time she had been given a real choice.

“Karine,” he pressed, voice softer than time.

It was that softness he offered her—again without her prompting—that urged her to answer him back. To find those words. The ones that she hadn’t really known how to use.

“Would you kiss me?” she asked, but he didn’t move. More words slipped out before she became too scared to say the truth. “I wonder what you taste like—your kiss on mine. Do you want to taste me, too?”

Even in the darkness with nothing but a streetlight at the far end of the alley—illuminating their faces dimly—she could see the way he reveled at that, pleasure lighting up in his eyes in the smirk of his tempting mouth. Maybe at the frankness of her words, or how she said them ... either way, it was clear he liked it.

His hand traveled up the side of her body until his palm found her left breast hard over the damp material of her dress. Under the trimmed, dark thickness of his beard, she enjoyed the way his jaw clenched, like he could barely control himself. She knew he was hard—the ridged length of his cock pushed into her thigh as they remained close together.

“Well?” she asked again. “Do you?”

The rumbling hum that answered her back was delicious. It started a fire inside her body that she hadn’t expected. But then he had to go ahead and speak, too.

That only made it worse.

“Are you fucking kidding me? I’ve wanted to taste you from the second you came out of that swimming pool.”

Oh?

Good.