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“Yeah, that happens. I’ll be fine in a few days. I’m tougher than I look. She lifted the antiseptic cloth to the cut at the corner of his mouth. “This is gonna hurt like a mother.”
She screwed up her face, twisting her lips and flaring her nostrils like her skin was made of Silly Putty. The goofy action broke the tension and he laughed, clearing away the darkness fogging his thoughts.
How she managed to shake the ground beneath him, he couldn’t understand. But she did. And it scared him more than the biggest, baddest fighter he’d ever stared down.
“I’m tougher than I look, too,” he assured her.
She sat back and cocked her head, giving him a playful up and down appraisal. “I don’t know how that’s possible, you look like a total badass.”
“Don’t all carnival kissing booth champions?” He waggled his eyebrows, making her giggle.
The cloth stung when she pressed it to his skin, but only for a moment. Seeing the way she sucked on her bottom lip as she contemplated treating his other bruises distracted him from the pain. Ryder was beautiful and sexy, but that wasn’t why she’d haunted him since their first night together.
That night should have been a few hours of anonymous sex, a simple release between two consenting adults. But he couldn’t deny what he’d known on an instinctual level the moment he’d rolled over that morning and found her side of the bed empty.
They fit.
That explained the follow-up calls he’d made and why her rebuff had made him react like a wounded bear, snarling and swiping at her every chance he got. The epiphany crashed against his thick skull so hard he couldn’t deny it any longer. She challenged him, pushed every one of his buttons, and egged him on with her accept-no-bullshit attitude.
When he was with her, he didn’t want to be a better man.
He already was.
Her gaze caught his and in a heartbeat, the teasing look in them faded, overpowered by the hunger that must have been reflected in his own.
The cloth slipped from her grasp, a white flash in his periphery vision.
Neither of them moved. It was as if the earth stopped circling the sun and the moon let loose its hold on the tides. In one breath, anything could happen. Whether she leaned in or he moved toward her, he couldn’t tell. All he knew was that in the next second his lips were on hers. She tasted of honey lip balm, mangoes, and endless possibilities.
God, she took his breath away.
Chapter Twelve
“Fashion is all about eventually becoming naked.”
— Rene Konig
Amazed and in awe, Devin held his breath as his fingertips grazed Ryder’s silky smooth skin, soft as hummingbird’s wings. His touch slipped down her throat as she arched her head back, drawing him deeper into the kiss, surrendering and demanding at the same time as only she did. Soft and hard. Giving and taking. Everywhere and nowhere. Intoxicated on the conflicting combinations that made up Ryder, he tugged the band holding her hair in place until her long waves fell down her back. He weaved his fingers through the lush, dark- chocolate strands, letting the glossy river pour through his hands.
She pulled back, bracing a palm gently against his shoulder, concern and desire warring in her dark eyes. “Your ribs.”
“Are fine.” In truth, his ribs hurt like a bitch, but he’d dealt with more pain for a whole lot less pleasure than being with Ryder. Touching her was worth a hell of a lot more severe injuries than a few bruised ribs. Hooking his fingers into her belt loops, he tugged her down until her knees were on either side of his hips.
“But you’re—”
Devin cut off her unneeded concern by sliding his hands up her thighs, the pads of his thumbs following the seam of her pants, stopping just short of the juncture of her thighs. So fucking close to the promised land, yet so far away. Desperate to feel her, he stroked the center seam where it nestled against her heated center.
“Devin—” She sucked in a sharp breath and scraped her teeth against her cherry-stained bottom lip.
“A few aches are nothing compared to how badly I want to be inside you right now.” He trailed his lips down her throat, nipping her sensitive flesh as he slid his hands around to her ass. Squeezing the round flesh through her pants, he slid her forward until she rocked against his hard cock. Her heat seeped through the material separating them and he had to fight the caveman impulse to rip her clothes off and sink himself into her depths in one long stroke.
She hesitated, considering him with a heavy-lidded gaze as his heart hammered against his bruised ribs. Then she dropped her fingers to the tiny onyx-colored buttons on her shirt.
This time it was his breath that caught as she revealed inch after inch of olive-toned skin.
With each button she slipped open, Devin’s cock hardened, until he worried he would come in his pants just from seeing a few inches of soft skin. Anticipation vibrated up from his balls, hot, demanding, and unwilling to be denied. In the past, he’d always enjoyed a good strip tease, but if Ryder didn’t get naked soon, he wasn’t sure he’d make it without exploding.
Her eyes alight with seduction, she feathered her fingertips down the length of her open shirt, the edges of which had snagged on the hard tips of her dusky rose-colored nipples. Sucking on her bottom lip, she slid her thumb over the flimsy black fabric and circled the hard peaks while swaying against his rock hard dick. The damp heat of her pussy permeated through the layers between them, taunting him with its closeness. It was the best lap dance he’d ever gotten, and it was going to kill him if she didn’t end it soon.
