Page 10 of Beg for You

My eyes did a sweep of her before I could stop myself. She was in a suit. Dress pants, white, a pale pink jacket. All that soft looking white-blond hair pulled back in a long ponytail, enhancing her wide blue eyes. Her lips a deep pink.

Looking at her made me think of cotton candy. I wanted to sink my teeth into her.

A hesitant smile curved her lips and her cheeks flushed. “Hi.”

Not icy. Right then she was warm. My fingers itched to touch, slide my hands over that pale skin and see for myself. Christ. I stepped back, mind suddenly scrambled, vocal cords tight as fuck, and motioned her in.

She followed me to my room, and I shut the curtain behind us. When I turned to face her, I had to fight not to grit my teeth. I was feeling a lot of things: anger at her and her family for what they did to mine, and heat, so much fucking heat I didn’t know what to do with it. She was covered from ankle to neck, but that didn’t hide her gentle curves. That sweet, long-limbed body.

My gaze slid to her throat in an attempt to distract myself. It was slender, delicate looking, and yeah, not helping me cool down because I wanted to suck and kiss it. Bite. Mark it. I imagined wrapping my fingers around it and holding her down while I drilled the fuck out of her from behind.

I spun away, trying to get my shit under control, which was fucked up. Nothing, no one, affected me like this, not anymore. She’d said one damn word to me, and I was hard as iron, my cock trying to punch through the front of my jeans.

After sliding my sketch pad off my desk, I handed it to her. Why the fuck did I suddenly care so much what she thought of it? Probably because you’ve obsessed over every flower, every damned petal, doing and redoing it until it was perfect. I cleared my throat. “Came up with this.”

Her gaze moved over the pad, the sketch, her expression unreadable.

I watched her and waited. She said nothing, just stared down at it.

“If you don’t like it…” I reached for the pad, but she gripped it tighter.

Her blue gaze finally lifted, meeting mine. “Don’t like it?” She shook her head. “Cal…”

My cock pulsed at the sound of my name on her lips, the breathy way she’d said it. No one ever used my first name, but for some reason, I wanted to hear her call me Joel in that same voice while I fucked her hard and fast.

“We can change it,” I said.

“No.” Her hand uncurled almost hesitantly from the edge of the pad, and fingers trembling, she trailed them across the sketch, tracing the flowers. She bit her lip and shook her head again, gaze following her movements. “No,” she said again.

“No?” I couldn’t take my goddamn eyes off her. Shit, it wasn’t just her fingers trembling. She had curves, but she was delicately made, and I could see her small frame was shaking. Even that was perfect. Pretty. Whatever she was feeling, she couldn’t suppress it. The look on her face, the way she held her mouth, I thought it might be pain. She wasn’t with me right then. And wherever she was, it was affecting her deeply.

Christ, even in pain, she was beautiful. Flawless.

Fucking untouchable.

I couldn’t stand looking at her like that another second, not when guilt started to creep in. “No changes, then?”

She jolted and lifted her head. “No…I love it, Cal. It’s…God, it’s stunning.”

The fist in my gut tightened even more. “Right.” I had to clear my throat and tried to unscramble the words in my head, searching for the right thing to say. All I could manage was, “Good.”

She looked back down at it, tracing a rose petal with the tip of her finger, and I felt it across the head of my dick.

“It’s perfect.” Her eyes flicked back up to mine. “More than perfect.” A tear streaked down her cheek. Just one.

I couldn’t fucking move, boots nailed to the floor. My skin suddenly felt too tight for my body. No ice. Fuck. There was no ice there, not one damn trace.

She quickly swiped it away, a soft, forced-sounding laugh escaping her lips. “Sorry. I don’t know what came over me. You’re just so talented…and, um, I own a gallery—I’m not sure if I mentioned that? And your work, it’s as good as anything I’ve displayed there.” She shook her head, pulse fluttering madly at her throat. “God, I’ve…I’ve wanted to put the day I was injured behind me for so very long.” She glanced up, giving me a soft smile as she handed me back the pad. “I’d be proud to have your artwork on my body.”

What the fuck was this? Who the fuck was this?

“We’ll get started, then,” I said, voice wrecked, rough as hell.

Her lashes swept down and she fucking blushed. The woman in front of me was no goddamn ice queen. That blush threw me. So much so that when she started undoing the buttons of her jacket, I was close to bursting out of my fucking skin. She slipped it off her shoulders, revealing a silky camisole, thin straps, some lace. It was classy and sexy as fuck all at once.

I swallowed hard as she lifted it over her head, revealing a pale pink bra—nothing special, not sexy in an obvious way, but that just made the innocent article of clothing hotter.

She placed them on the small table by the door and turned to me expectantly, and I realized I’d just stood there watching her undress like a creeper. “Sit. Back to me,” I said, way too harshly. I hadn’t had this much trouble with my speech in a long time. But this woman made me feel like my head had been put through a fucking meat grinder.