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He was kissing her to prove a point, Myles told himself fiercely. A point to himself. To her. It didn’t matter. All that mattered was that he understood that he wasn’t kissing her because he hadn’t been able to bear another second without doing so.
He wasn’t kissing her because his entire body had ached for him to do so ever since they’d walked into that ballroom.
No. It was ever since she’d walked into Rafe’s offices back in the UK last week.
He couldn’t acknowledge that the truth was altogether less complicated and more primal. He mustn’t. Because he didn’t want to give himself any reason to stop.
‘Myles...’ She murmured the objection against his lips even as her arms tightened around his body.
A better man would have listened to what she wasn’t able to say. A better man would have stopped. A better man would have walked away.
Up until tonight, Myles would have imagined himself to be that man. But right here, right now, he couldn’t tear himself away from the kiss. More to the point, he didn’t want to,
‘Tell me to stop,’ he ordered, his lips barely leaving hers. ‘Tell me, and I will.’
But it was a safe assurance, because they both knew she couldn’t do it. They both knew that she was as consumed by the kiss as he was. As powerless to put an end to it.
Myles’ skin prickled. What was it about this woman that allowed her to get under his skin the way she did? She was the epitome of everything he despised. Or at least, she had been. The woman he’d been watching these last few days was so different from the caricature he’d thought he’d known. And he certainly hadn’t allowed for the inconvenient chemistry that arced undeniably between them.
The chemistry that meant that he was now standing—and he had no idea when or how this had happened—right in front of her with his hands gripping her upper arms, his face dangerously close to hers. A delicate, faintly floral scent filled his nostrils, making his pulse race even faster.
‘What...are you doing?’
Her voice was altogether too hoarse, too raw, too...everything, but she didn’t pull away. He wondered if she could. Was she as helplessly trapped in her body as he was in his, right now? He could taste her on his lips the way he had back in that ballroom. God, but he wanted to taste her again. His body tightened painfully. His head pounded.
He pulled her closer. She didn’t exactly resist.
‘Myles...’ It was little more than a breathless whisper.
‘Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me you haven’t been looking at me like this, all night.’
It might sound like a command but it felt like a plea. As though, for the first time in his entire life, Myles didn’t feel in control of himself, and knew that he wasn’t going to be able to walk away from her this time.
‘I...’ She faltered, her gaze flicking from his eyes to his mouth and back again.
Her tongue darted out to wet her mouth and the last of his resolve began to crumble. Desperate need gripped him.
Without warning, Rae crested up onto her tiptoes and pressed her lips to his, the grudging mutter vibrating on his mouth.
‘You can pretend all you like, but you want me just as badly.’
And everything else tumbled. Need and desire ripped through him. As lethal an ambush as any he’d known out of the battlefield, almost dropping him where he stood.
He hauled her to him, revelling in the way every inch of her delicious body moulded itself to every inch of his, her hands reaching up to wind around his neck, her head angling to allow him better access.
He tasted her, plundered her mouth, losing himself in the maelstrom of desire that had been swirling inside him from the first moment they’d met again in the Rawlstone Group’s HQ, however much he’d tried to deny it.
Slowly, carefully, he ran his hands down her body, over the rough, metallic beads of her slinky, sexy dress, until he reached the high slit on her thigh. He should take it slower, take his time, but he couldn’t. He was driven by the primal need to divest her of her clothing and bury himself inside her, so deep, so tight, that neither of them would know where one ended and the other began.
So, instead, he slid his hand inside, easing the dress enough that when he lifted her up, she could wrap her legs around his waist, her perfect heat pressed against the very hardest part of himself. And then he released the clasps that kept the halter neck in place, letting them drop, and it felt as though the very air were sucked from his lungs as he took in the soft swell of gloriously creamy skin; the deliciously hard, brown buds that strained as if in a greeting meant only for him.
Briefly he recalled the images he’d seen of her, a lot more naked than this, a lot more compromised than this. With any other woman it would have been enough to stop him. To put him off. It should concern him more that it didn’t. But Rae was such a different woman from the girl in that sex tape. So far removed from the girl who’d been linked to more men than he’d had ration-packed army meals.
He desired her, ached for her, and there wasn’t a damned thing he seemed to be able to do about it. He looked into her eyes, all the longing and the need he felt reflected back at him. He shifted and her breath hitched, making him feel more powerful than he’d ever felt. So, for once in his life, Myles shut his brain off, stopped trying to tell himself that he should know better, and instead let his body do the thinking.
Why not? What harm could it do?
