Page 114 of Taken Away

“You’re doing it again,” she whispered, her voice trembling as her fingers instinctively curled into the hem of her white sleeveless blouse.

Bennett’s head dipped a fraction of an inch, his breathing turning ragged, the solid warmth of his chest radiating through the thin fabric of her shirt. “Doing what, Princess?”

“Commanding the room,” she breathed, her lips so close to his they brushed with the syllable. “Provoking the management.”

“The management is wound too tight,” he growled low in his throat, his gaze burning into her mouth. “Somebody needs to remind you that you’re not in Philly anymore.”

“And you think you’re the man for the job?”

“I know I am.”

The arrogant tilt of his mouth was the absolute final straw.

Aubrey didn’t back down. She lunged forward, her hands slamming against the solid plane of his chest, meaning to shove him away. His eyes held hers for one charged heartbeat. Then he moved with startling, lethal speed, his hands locking onto her waist, his fingers digging into her skin through her trousers.

He yanked her forward until her pelvis compressed flush against his—the hard, unyielding weight of his frame, even softened by the fleece of his sweatpants, sending a dizzying spike of heat straight down her thighs.

“Bennett—“

She tried to twist away, her bare feet skidding on the polished concrete, but he didn’t let her go. He drove her backward, his body crowding her out of the kitchen, tracking her step for step through the dark, open living room toward the glass wall. Aubrey fought him the whole way, her hands holding onto his white T-shirt, half-shoving, half-pulling him closer as her defenses fractured into absolute dust. She didn’t want him to stop. She wanted the collision.

Her calves hit the edge of the deep leather sofa.

They fell together, slamming into the heavy leather cushions in a tangle of limbs and breathless fury. Bennett followed her down, his six-foot-two frame instantly enveloping her, pinning her beneath the solid weight of his body.

His mouth crashed over hers—hard, demanding, a total throw-down of a kiss that tasted of pure survival.

Aubrey went entirely liquid beneath him. She let out a soft, ragged moan into his mouth, her lips parting instantly as his tongue tangled with hers in a fierce, reckless exploration. Her hands flew up, burying themselves deep into his damp hair, pulling him down, crushing his mouth harder against hers until her lips felt swollen and raw.

She wanted the weight. She wanted the dominance. She wanted the force of a man who didn’t care that she was Aubrey Langford, owner of Blackwood Estate.

Bennett growled against her lips. His large hands moved like wildfire, pinning her wrists to the leather for one desperate second before sliding up the line of her arms to catch the hem of her white blouse. He yanked the fabric up and over her head in one impatient, tearing motion, tossing it into the darkness of the floor.

The cool air hit her bare skin for half a second before Bennett’s chest covered her again, his skin hot and damp against hers.

He broke the kiss, his mouth trailing a wet, burning path down the column of her throat to the sensitive dip of her collarbone. Aubrey arched off the cushions, a soft gasp escaping her lungs as his hands slid down to catch the hem of her trousers, stripping them down her legs with rough, single-minded urgency. His hand found the clasp at her back. He stripped away the last thin barrier between them.

As her hands clawed at his shoulders, desperate to strip the white T-shirt from his frame, her fingers twisted into the fabric, pulling it up and over his powerful frame. He tossed it aside, his dark, ink-carved ribs gleaming in the dim amber wash of the kitchen light as he came back down over her.

His bare skin slid against hers, stealing the last of her control.

Before she could even catch her breath, Bennett’s mouth came back down, not to her lips, but to the sensitive curve where her neck met her shoulder. He bit down—enough to make her gasp before his mouth moved lower. His touch was heavy, possessive, and entirely untamed as his lips found the swell of her breast. He sucked her skin hard, his tongue swirling against her until Aubrey’s fingers clawed frantically into his back, her hips instinctively bucking upward against him in a desperate plea for more. She was entirely on fire, every inch of her wound tight and aching for the weight of him.

He groaned against her skin, the vibration dragging a ragged sob from her throat. He parted her thighs with his knee, his large hands locking onto her hips, lifting her off the heavy cushions to meet him. There was no hesitation left, no room for thought—only the heavy, demanding rhythm of a reckoning that had been building since the night they met.

And then the thinking stopped entirely.

Afterward, the quiet of the ridge house returned, heavy and still.

The moon outside the massive glass wall was bright, throwing pale silver rectangles across the tangled blankets, the dark shape of the leather sofa, and the endless, quiet silhouette of the valley below.

Aubrey lay on her side, her chest rising and falling in shallow, exhausted swells, the skin of her bare shoulders cooling in the mountain air. Her heart was still thumping a steady, heavy rhythm against her ribs.

For tonight, everything else could wait until morning.

Movement stirred beside her.

Bennett reached down, his large, calloused hand sliding gently over the bare curve of her waist. Without a word, he pulled her backward against him, tucking her spine securely into the solid, radiating warmth of his chest. He pulled a thick throw over both of them, burying her beneath the blanket until she was completely swaddled in his heat.