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Her heartbeat and breathing sped up as she found herself mesmerized by that seductive stare. He shifted his featherlight touch from her back, trailing his fingers to her waist, then walking them up over the shallow steps of her ribcage toward the underswell of one small breast. This time her breath stuttered to a halt as she waited to see where he would go next.
His hand remained where it was, palm cupped around her narrow torso, while his thumb stroked back and forth over the tender flesh at the bottom curve of her breast. He was nowhere near her nipple, but the heat of his hand, combined with the almost absent stroking of her skin, sent a wave of gooseflesh over her body, while simultaneously beading her nipples, and knotting her clit to a painfully hard point.
The breath she was holding shuddered from her lips on a gasped, “No.”
“I’m not doing anything.” The whiskey rasp of his voice scraped across her already sensitized nerve endings and she arched against him, not sure if she wanted to get away from, or push herself closer to, his big, hard body.
“You’re thinking about it.”
His lips stretched into a lazy grin. “So are you.”
He looked like a pirate with his mussed hair, dark morning stubble, and wicked smile.
“I’m not thinking of anything,” she squeaked unconvincingly and his piratical grin widened.
“Sure you are, Lilah,” he said, his somber tone at odds with the glint in his eyes. “You’re thinking about what would happen if I moved this hand just an inch to the north.” His dropped to his hand and the laughter died from his gaze as his eyes went smokey with desire. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed and when it emerged again, his voice was as fractured as crushed glass. “Or maybe you’re wondering how it would feel if my hand moved south, to where you’re scalding hot and soaking wet. Is that what you’re thinking, cupcake? Hmm? I can make that happen. I can show you exactly how it would feel to have me touch you there, stroke your aching pussy. I can do that for you. I can make you come. You can make me come. We can do that for each other…with just our hands. Our mouths. Do you want that?”
She wavered, for just a second—she was only human after all—aching for him to touch her, wanting to run her own hands down his broad chest, stroking and exploring until she could close her palm around the rigid length she felt straining against her thigh.
God, she was so tempted. But even though rationality was fast losing the battle to the hypnotic rasp of his voice and the distracting stroke of his fingers, she knew enough to understand that if she caved now, if she allowed this, he would never respect her. She would never respect herself. He would win and she would forever carry the humiliating knowledge that she’d left her spine in the Maldives.
“I don’t want that,” she said, her voice faint and unconvincing. A sharp intake of breath when that long, agile thumb oh-so-lightly brushed over her hard nipple. Her voice gained strength, despite the full body throb his brief touch had resulted in. “Stop touching me, Ben.”
His hand immediately retreated, and Lilah swallowed down her instant regret. This was for the best. Sex was the absolute last thing that Lilah wanted to happen between them right now.
Even though her clamoring body called her a filthy liar.
Ben’s alert gaze scrutinized her face but his expression was hard to read. Despite the proximity of his body, the cold calculation in his beautiful eyes made it feel like there was a million miles between them and instantly reinforced Lilah’s decision to call a halt to what she could now tell had been a cynical attempt at seduction on his part.
“Sex is just a tool to you, isn’t it?” She spoke without thinking. “A means to an end.”
He sighed, a long-suffering sound filled with frustration and impatience.
“It’s a means to an orgasm,” he corrected, shifting until there was no longer any contact between their bodies. It was a move that Lilah should have been grateful for, but instead she mourned the loss of his warmth and the deceptive sense of intimacy his closeness had created. He stretched, every muscle in his body tautening in an impressive display of sheer unbridled maleness, and then yawned while he pushed himself up until his back rested against the fan-shaped bamboo headboard.
She sat up as well, putting even more distance between them and he smirked at her pointed move.
He bent his knees, ignoring his still rampant hard-on, and watched her with a quizzical tilt to his head and that hateful little smirk still on his lips. “Let me guess, you want flowers and romance and violins whenever you fuck?”
