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“I’m sure you are.” She pressed her lips to his, her tone lowered, warm and husky, despite her sarcasm. “But maybe I am a coward.” Her voice wobbled almost imperceptibly, and she leaned back. “Maybe it’s not so easy to switch off the parts of me that want constant and total control.”
The pain in her words had him caving to his desire to pick her up, to lend her an ounce of his strength, so she could take a break from using her own. He shifted her into his lap and cupped her face, making sure her focus held him and only him, glad that someone in this world seemed to need him. “Do you remember that day by the side of the road? How I kissed you and you told me never to do that again?”
She gave a small nod, her breath stalling and her wide stare not leaving his.
“We’ve kissed and done just about everything else since then. We talk and see each other almost every day. All of that takes trust. Maybe not as much as either of us want, but you know how to give, Sarah, and—” an uncontrollable smile broke from him “—I bet I can get you to do it again.” He pulled her closer and kissed her now, soft and slow, but still all too fast for his liking. “And again. And again. And again…”
She laughed and slapped a hand at his shoulder, laughing some more. “I see how you turned my misery to your advantage there.”
“Very clever, right?”
Through her smile, she bit down on her lower lip and nodded.
He leaned in. “I’d prefer to call this taking mutual advantage.”
She groaned, his excitement growing as she captured his lips and initiated the next kiss, confirming his theory that she was nowhere near as unfeeling as she pretended, her long fingers raking through his hair as she made those feelings blatantly known.
No matter how much he wanted to, he couldn’t be honest about his past—or not-so-past—if Luciano and the syndicate still looked for him. Perhaps her courage did scamper away at times when it came to intimacy, but maybe he could help her there, give her the chance to find some freedom before she learned the truth and rightfully dumped his ass…
And one day, yet another man will benefit from my missing out…
He swallowed back the pain in that thought, of her moving on, and this thing between them ending.
“There’s something I want from you. Something you’ve never let me do.” He stroked a thumb over the curve of her hip, drawing light circles over the exposed skin there, aware he teased her with his words and his touch. A tease designed to softened her toward what he wanted to say next, making him the one to ask too much now.
“Let me love you, Sarah Overton.”
