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And the minute she says my name, her voice is like silk on the sandpaper of my nerves, and I know that if she’s dangerous, I’m fucking high on the danger. And if that is what she is, I want that danger on my tongue, in my hands, in my bed.
I rotate and press my hand to the doorframe over my head, shutting my eyes. What the hell am I doing? Either I have a killer in my bed, which I reject as an option, or I have a woman I’m falling in love with who has to hate me for lying to her.Love. Damn it to hell, where did that come from? I don’t do love. I don’t do commitment, and once again, I have to remind myself that you don’t prove guilt when you’re looking for innocence. And yet, I know this woman is not a killer.
Dangerous, though. That word just won’t let go of me. Why the fuck did my father use that word?
“I just finished up some work,” I say, lifting my face to the ceiling, lashes lowered. “I’m going to shower, and I’ll be there in a few minutes.” I haven’t said the words before Faith is not only slipping between me and the wall, but resting against the doorframe under my hand. My gaze is riveted to her moon-kissed naked skin. My body arches in such a way that she can’t easily touch me, and I don’t touch her, but I want to, and I don’t even remember in this moment why I resisted doing so before now.
“What’s wrong?” she asks.
Aside from the fact that my dead father called you dangerous, I think,or that your stunning, naked breasts should not be in my hands, I need time to think. But since she doesn’t know about my father,can’tknow about my father—not yet—I offer her the expected answer of, “Nothing is wrong.”
“Liar,” she whispers.
“Work is on my mind,” I supply, and that’s not wholly untrue. I was working on the mystery of two murders when I found that note.
“Liar,” she repeats, her tone sharp, some unidentifiable jagged-edged emotions radiating off of her, or maybe I’m wrong. Maybe it’s my jagged-edged emotions that are crashing into her and then slamming right back into me.
“I’ve been watching you sleep,” I say, embracing every honest word I can speak to Faith when so much,toomuch, has been lies.
Her eyes open, and even in the shroud of shadows, I feel the punch of her gaze colliding with mine. “That’s not an answer,” she says. “That’s a deflection, and deflection doesn’t suit you any more than fear.” It’s a reference to the night that she’d pulled a knife on me and used it to remove my shirt buttons, and I understand the message: we feel like we did then—uncertain; incomplete in some way.
“I wonder,” she continues, pushing off the wall, her hands pressed to my chest, the slight but firm heft of her body weight knocking me backward, against the wall, “if I held a knife in my hand now, if you would trust me to cut the buttons off your shirt, or if you would wonder if I’d cut you instead?”
I’m not sure if she’s daring me to trust her or pushing me to do the opposite. Pushing me away. Pulling me closer. It’s all the same with her. With one always comes the other. “We aren’t where we were then,” I say, but I don’t touch her. Once I touch her, I won’t stop, though I’m really fucking trying to figure out why the fuck that feels important right now.
“And yet I feel the same now as then,” she says, “and so do you. And don’t lie again. You know I’m right.”
“It’s not the same.”
“It is. And we are. And that leaves only one of the possibilities you had us proclaim earlier tonight. Me making us both forget all the rest. Whatever the rest actually is, since you won’t tell me what’s wrong.”
Suddenly, she’s peeling away her panties, the only garment she’d worn when she’d gone to bed. The next moment, she’s kneeling, her hands on my knees, her head tilted down. I know exactly where this is going, and if I intend to keep my head clear, I should stop it now. Only the head on my shoulders isn’t the one doing the thinking. Not when Faith’s hand strokes the one between my legs that has been hard as a rock since she and all her naked curves slid in front of me. Hell, since practically the moment I met this woman. She tugs my shirt out of my pants and starts unbuttoning it, her gaze reaching mine as she says, “If I only had that knife.”
I don’t laugh. She doesn’t laugh. The edge between us is as jagged as those emotions beating through me and obviously into her. I reach up and undo several buttons on my shirt, just enough to then pull it over my head, tossing it into the bedroom. It’s not even hit the ground, and Faith has not only unbuckled my belt, she’s pulling it free of my pants.
It hits the floor, and she reaches for my zipper, wasting no time freeing my cock. She grips it, her hold firm and confident. Her eyes boldly find mine as she licks the end of my erection and then draws it into her mouth, her message clear: right now, she demands control, a response I strongly believe to be a reaction to the questions I’ve allowed to stir between us. She needs to own me right now. And while I don’t let anyone own me, even if they do have their mouth on my cock, I’m oddly at peace with this woman’s power. There’s a message in that regard, which I’ll analyze when I’m not hyper-focused on the silk of her tongue and the sweet suction of her mouth.
And damn, if she’s not licking every last inch of me.
And damn, if I’m not at her mercy.
Heat and adrenaline pulse through me, and my hand finds her head, fingers slipping into her hair, but I don’t even need to guide her. She’s exactly where I need her,howI need her. There is something about this woman’s mouth, her tongue, that is quite possibly heaven on earth. It’s a bliss that I welcome, and yet, suddenly, I’m not in this heavenly moment. I’m flashing back to right before she fell asleep. To me helping her undress.
In my mind’s eye, I see us standing next to the bed, her in the dress she wore to the Chris and Sara Merit gallery event, me in the same blue suit I have yet to fully remove. She’d just kicked off her shoes, finally coming down from the high of selling her art, her body calming. Me, I’d been reveling in her in my bed and in our vow that “possibilities” were the new hard rule we’d follow.“I’m completely wiped out,” she’d confessed. “I think you are going to wish I was someone else tonight.”
Those words had jolted me, and I cupped her head and pulled her to me.“What did you say?” I’d demanded, but I didn’t give her time to reply. “That came from someplace I’d most likely name as Macom,” I’d said of her ex, whom I already knew used sex as a weapon against her. “I’m not him,” I’d continued. “And we are more than the sum of how many times we manage to fuck each other. And for the record. To repeat what I’ve already said. I don’t want anyone else.”
Her lashes lowered. “I think that was possibly the most perfect thing you could say to me right now.”
And in that moment, I’d remembered her comment about Macom competing with her, and I’d decided that Faith thinks her success comes with punishment. A problem I needed to fix. Ineedto fix. I had intentionally put her to bed without touching her. I come back to the present, to her mouth on my cock, pleasure with every stroke, pump, and lick, and I am so damn hard and close to release. I want it. Holy hell, I want it so fucking badly, and I have no doubt that she would take me to absolute completion and rock my world. But this—what we are doing right now, and why we are doing it—is exactly what Ididn’twant tonight to be for her or us.
Suddenly, my orgasm doesn’t matter, no matter how close I am to heaven or, sweet Jesus, how damn good it would be. “Faith,” I say, and despite my determination and intention to end this, her name comes out a pained near-growl. “Stop.” I slip my fingers from her hair and cup the sides of her head. “Stop, Faith. Sweetheart. Stop.” She stills, as if the words and my touch finally penetrate her brain, and pulls her mouth slowly back until it’s no longer on my cock. But her hand still grips my erection, and I swear just the idea of removing it is torture.
Confusion flits across her beautiful, desire-laden expression, and I pull her to her feet and to me, my hand at the back of her head. “I’ve decided that your mouth on my cock is the best thing in this world, outside of my mouth on you while you come for me and because of me.”
“Then why did you stop me?”
“Because you were on your knees for all the wrong reasons, sweetheart. I don’t need this to be with you, and that’s what you thought, wasn’t it?”
