Page 30

The entrance to a graveyard numbed my fingers. Glared at me, inviting me into its heartless compound. Straightening, I pushed it open, and it creaked as it moved, clanging shut behind me.

Walking aimlessly, my boots left a trail of footprints through the snow-covered gravestones. I ran my hands down my face, eventually coming to a stop in front of one my own height. I tried to make out the engraved scripture carved into the stone, but it was unreadable, covered in moss and grit.

I laced my fingers together at the nape of my neck as I tried to calm my breathing. Tried to contain the desire coursing through my bloodstream. I closed my eyes, willing it to leave me. But I’d felt nothing like it in my life, and it was all Red. Her eyes, her smile, her smart mouth. I lost myself in thoughts of her. Every inch of her gorgeous face embedded in my mind like she’d paid to be there. A SOLD sign slapped on my heart.

I’d be lying if I said it didn’t terrify me. Because I wasn’t expecting this, to feel this way about her.

I didn’t hear footsteps approaching, too lost in my thoughts, my feelings. When a hand landed on my shoulder, I instinctively went into defense mode, pinning the person behind me to my front against the gravestone. It took a few seconds to comprehend that the cry that echoed through the graveyard was a woman’s.

“Reid!”

“Red?” I couldn’t hold in the groan that tore from me when I realized the predicament I’d found myself in. I had her alone, my front to her back, and pinned hard against someone’s gravestone. “You followed me,” I croaked, but, even as I spoke the words, my hips melted into her perfectly round ass covered in a leather-look mini skirt.

What in all fuck was I doing?

My dick went rock hard, registering the situation.

“Had to check on you,” she gasped, stilling, her hands splayed wide on stone.

Her voice hit my every nerve, igniting my insides like a flare. I couldn’t comprehend why I couldn’t move. Why my nose was buried in her hair.

My hands landed on the gravestone, inches from her own. I wanted to curl my fingers into hers, have her skin under mine, and had no clue why these feelings, which I’d suppressed for so long, now punched into me in full force, leaving me holding on by a thread so fine that I worried it would snap at any moment. I slammed my eyes shut. “You shouldn’t be here,” I warned.

Her reply was instant. No hesitation. “But I am.” And there was no mistaking the tone of her voice. The scent of her desire.

She arched against me, and I clawed at the concrete. The scrape of ancient stone under the tips of my fingers made me shudder. “This is a bad idea…” I rasped, holding on to any sense of rationale I could. My breath matched hers, curling in front of us until it dissolved. I wished this thing between us would do the same.

Her head turned to the side, the gravestone kissing her cheek. “Why?”

A long pause dragged out the moment. I had to hold on. To save us both. Gods, I couldn’t tell her the truth. Yet another confession came from me instead. “Because I’ve heard my name on your lips when you come, and I want to hear it again, and then some more.”

Silence.

“You heard…” She didn’t finish her sentence. “That’s your reason for this not to happen?”

No, that wasn’t the reason. It was one reason.

Pure lust drove my hand to her hip, pulling her back against me. The whimper that left her scattered every rational thought left in my head. Could I do it? Touch her like any other woman and keep it casual? It was a huge risk. If my dick had a voice, it screamed “fuck yes.”

“You know I can’t kiss you,” I stated, fully aware of how selfish that sounded.

Her whisper scraped against the stone, cutting through the icy air. “I know.”

I didn’t expect her to say that. Not at all. Her unexpected words roused something deep inside me, and I couldn’t fight it any longer. I was done for.

Senses overloaded, I craved her more than the air in my lungs. My hand tightened on the curve of her hip. “What do you need?”

She drew in an unsteady breath. “I want…”

“Need,” I demanded. I’d never wanted to please a woman like this before.

Every word slowed.

“What. Do. You. Need?”

My lips grazed her earlobe, my hand moving to her front, inside her coat. My fingers found the slice of skin between her top and her skirt, and, when my flesh touched hers, I doubted if I could keep it casual. Because something inside me longed to leave my hands there. To feel the warmth of her skin beneath mine like a permanent fixture.

Her whimper sounded in my ear. “I need you to touch me.”