AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“What are you doing?” she demanded.
He settled himself along her left side, singeing her with the scorching heat of his body crowding against her. He pressed his fingers against her lips to hush her, and his striking green eyes met and held hers. “I’m buying a little extra time to find out if I made my point or not,” he told her, and slowly let his fingers drift from her mouth, along her jaw, and down the column of her throat. “Do you believe the story I told you last night, about the possibility of someone assuming my identity?”
“You’re going to interrogate me?” she asked incredulously.
“For starters,” he drawled, and let her overactive imagination come to its own conclusions as to what would come after he had the information and answers sought. “Do you believe it’s possible that someone assumed my identity?”
She couldn’t lie, not when she’d seen so much evidence to back up his claim. “Yes, I do.”
Stark relief eased across his chiseled features. “Do you trust me?”
She rolled her eyes and pulled on her bound arms, doing her best to ignore that her T-shirt had ridden up a few inches and exposed too much bare skin. “Gee, considering my current predicament, I guess I’m going to have to.”
“Uh-uh. Not a good enough answer.” He shook his head and twirled a section of her hair around his long finger and gave it a playful tug. “I don’t want there to be any doubts in your mind about me, Jo. None whatsoever.” A slight, concerned frown formed between his brows. “Are you afraid I’m going to hurt you in any way?”
She didn’t fear him, but rather her own sexual response to him. Never had she been so attuned to a man as she was to Dean. Never could she remember wanting a man as much as she was beginning to crave him.
“No,” she whispered, wondering what that admission would eventually cost her, even if it was the truth. Nothing she didn’t already want to give him, she was certain.
“Good. Because you’re perfectly safe with me, in every way,” he promised.
She believed him. More than was prudent. More than was wise. In ways she’d never trusted another man, because Dean was straightforward and honest in his actions. He didn’t coddle and treat her like a helpless female in need of a man’s protection. And despite his dominant position at the moment, despite the provocative game he was playing, she felt safe with him. And ultimately, she was confident that if she called a halt to his intentions this very second, he’d back off and release her.
It was her own willingness that made her his captive, and her own enthusiasm that made her too eager to experience the kind of pleasure she’d denied herself for so long. Too long.
“So,” he murmured, tickling the side of her neck with long sweeps of her hair against her skin, causing gooseflesh to rise and her breasts to tingle. “If you’re not afraid of me, you must trust me more than you realize or want to admit out loud.”
The man was way too smart. Way too intuitive. Verbalizing that trust would break down any last barriers between them and leave her open to all kinds of tantalizing scenarios. She wasn’t ready to give him that power over her. Yet. “You’re very analytical.”
“Just trying to read all the signs accurately, especially when you’re being vague with your answers and skirting the issue.”
The silence grew as he waited patiently for her answer. Finally, she released a sigh and gave it to him, not out of obligation, but he deserved to know what she thought of him. “I trust you.”
An indulgent smile curved his full lips. “Now why do I get the impression that trust is a very hesitant one?”
It wasn’t. Not really. But playing hard to get, just a little bit, was better than relinquishing everything up front. “Vivid imagination?” she suggested with a bit of sass.
His irises darkened with smoky desire, and when he shifted one of his rock-hard thighs over hers, she felt the rigid length of his erection pressing against her hip. A throbbing, luxurious ache settled in her stomach, and lower, and she swallowed back the groan rising in her throat.
“Oh, I most definitely have a vivid imagination, Ms. Sommers,” he said, having proven as much with his body’s lustful response to her. “Especially when it comes to you and me. And us. Together.”
She touched her tongue to her upper lip, feeling her entire body hum with anticipation. “Us?”
“Uh-huh,” he said, nodding slowly, and let his gaze lower to her mouth. “Tell me, Jo, do you trust me enough to let me kiss you while you’re completely at my mercy like this?”
The wanting and excitement increased, coiling tighter within her. She laughed, the sound more nervous than the frivolous tone she’d been striving for. Yeah, she was uncertain…of where a kiss with him could lead…of where she yearned for it to lead. “What makes you think I want you to kiss me?”
He propped his palm against his temple. His face was inches from hers, nearly within kissing distance. “Oh, just an educated guess.”
The sensual secrets glimmering in his eyes, mixed in with the presumptuousness infusing his voice made her too curious. “Based on?”
“The way your breath catches when I touch you.”
He followed up that matter-of-fact statement by splaying his large hand on the strip of flesh between the hem of her T-shirt and the elastic waistband of her shorts, and she inhaled quickly at the incendiary heat that rippled through her, and the hard peak of her nipples against her top.
“Yeah, just like that,” he said, dark satisfaction etching his bold, masculine features, along with a good dose of gratification at the impulsive, brazen way she strained toward him.
“And then there’s the way your skin quivers with the lightest caress of my fingers,” he went on, toying and swirling his pinkie around her sensitive navel until she gasped and squirmed and trembled.
