Page 14

"Tell me you don't want this," I say. "Actually tell me that."

He doesn't.

His hand comes up and his fingers find the angle of my jaw, tilting my face gently toward the light. He is looking at the bruise on my cheek, his thumb stopping just short of touching it.

"This one's going to be worse tomorrow," he says.

"I know." I reach up and take his wrist in my hand, not moving it away. Just holding. "I've had worse."

Something gives.

Not dramatically. More like a door that has been held shut by one hand and now neither of us is holding it anymore.

He kisses me without apology, taking his time with it like he is making sure I am certain before he lets himself be. His mouth is warm and slightly rough and he tastes bitter, and I make a sound against his lips.

His hands move to my hips and the grip is firm, fingers pressing deep into the curve of them, and when he walks me backward the two steps to the edge of the table and presses me against it, I feel his whole body in the movement, his hips closing the remaining distance until there is no remaining distance.

The table edge catches behind my thighs and he keeps coming and I feel the full weight of his intent through every point of contact.

He pulls back from my mouth and finds my neck, and the scrape of his beard against my jaw and then down my throat pulls a sharp sound from me before I can decide not to make it.

He takes his time there, mouth moving against the side of my neck, one hand splayed flat against the small of my back and the other still at my hip, holding me against the table. He is not in a hurry and somehow that makes every second of it worse.

His hands find the hem of my sweater and slide underneath it, palms warm and slightly rough against my bare waist, and when he touches skin he exhales against my neck in a way that is short and rough and I feel that sound go through me.

"Christ," he says, low and half to himself.

He spreads his hands wide against my sides, spanning the curve of my waist, thumbs moving slowly against my ribs, palms learning the flare of my hips through my jeans, and the thoroughness of his attention makes me grip his jacket and pull.

I get my hands up under his jacket, pushing it off his shoulders. It drops. He shrugs the rest of the way clear of it and comes back immediately, hands already at my sweater again, and this time he pulls it up and over and drops it behind him without pausing, and when he steps back half a step and looks at me I feel that look in my stomach.

His gaze moves over me and the muscle in his jaw works once and then he reaches forward and hooks a hand behind my thigh and lifts me back onto the table.

Now we are eye level, and the shift changes everything.

I can see his face clearly, the controlled tension still there in the line of his jaw, but his eyes have changed. Darker, the composure still visible in the form but not in the detail.

I put my hands in his hair and he lets me.

I kiss him this time and he comes forward immediately, hands at my hips, pulling me closer to the edge of the table and against him, and the contact makes me pull in a breath through my nose. He makes a low sound against my mouth and his grip tightens and I feel how much of the last hour he has spent not doing this.

He pulls back enough to get his shirt off. I put my hands against his chest before he comes back to me, just to feel it, and he watches my hands move against him.

Then he reaches for the button of my jeans and pops it open with a single motion, fingers at my zipper, and he looks up at me once, and I hold his gaze, and he pulls the denim down my legs and off and drops it somewhere behind him with the same economy of movement he applies to everything.

He keeps his eyes on my face when his hands come back up. Both palms flat against my thighs, sliding slowly from my knees up to my hips, and I feel the roughness of his hands against my skin, the weight of them, the heat, and I grip the edge of the table behind me.

His thumbs trace the inside of my thighs and I stop breathing evenly.

"Hansen." The word comes out rough.

"Still here," he says, and the corner of his mouth moves into a smirk.

He hooks his fingers into the fabric at my hips and pulls it down and off, and then his hand is against me and my grip on the table tightens hard enough to whiten my knuckles.

He finds his way without hesitation, two fingers pressing slow and certain against me, and the first touch makes my hips jerk forward and he puts his forearm across my thighs to hold me steady.

He is watching my face while he works and not looking away, and that eye contact does something to the already overwhelming input of his hand moving against me.