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He stepped forward and banded his arm behind my back, drawing my body flush to his. “Fuck my safety.” He stared deep into my eyes. “You think I can just walk away from you after this? Forget about the only woman who’s made me feel like . . .” He paused, breathing hard, then he demanded, “Tell me you haven’t thought about me since Cape Town even after finding the gun and passport.”
I couldn’t tell him that, so I kept quiet.
In my silence, he angled his head and brought his mouth closer to mine. “And tell me it wasn’t me in your dream last night making you come.”
Talk about a subject change. “Just because I want you doesn’t mean I get to have you,” I spat out, unable to stop the words or the emotions behind them from flowing. I was in this man’s strong arms, feeling safe and secure for one of the first times in my life, and I didn’t even know how to make sense of the feeling. It was foreign and new.
“That’s bullshit and you know it.” The harsh snap of his words didn’t cut through the comfort of his embrace, though. “Your sister said she wants to stop running. Let me help you stop running.”
“No,” I cried, squirming from his embrace now.
“Fine,” he snapped out, but he didn’t let me go, and for whatever reason, I stopped resisting his hold.
“Fine,” I returned, a tremor shooting through my voice.
He was breathing as hard as I was, but we both didn’t budge . . . and then he lifted my wrist between us and smoothed his other thumb over my ink there that said, Never Let Go. And that’s what he appeared he didn’t want to do. Let me go. Lose me.
And for some reason, that loosened something inside me. Cracked my defenses, and I found myself pushing up on my toes, setting my lips to his.
He lost hold of my wrist and hiked my one leg to his side, and I drew my body against his. I needed to see if his cock was as hard as I was aroused.
He groaned against my lips in what sounded like both protest and surrender. The moment his mouth softened, and the shock wore off, I could feel the power shift as he backed me up against the wall.
With one hand, he held my wrists together above my head, taking full control. I tensed slightly; this was too close to being cuffed and incapacitated, and my flight mode began to kick in. But when his free hand cradled the back of my head while pressing into me, I groaned and relaxed into him, surrendering to the feelings this man evoked in me. It was at that moment I knew I’d let him do whatever the hell he pleased to me.
Still holding me gently but firmly in place, he broke the kiss and leaned back to find my eyes. “What are you doing to me?” he ground out.
“I don’t know.” Because you’re doing “it” to me, too.
I didn’t make rash decisions. I didn’t go to men’s hotel rooms and spend the night talking and making out. I didn’t do a lot of things that seemed to be happening with the son of a library director. The son of a mom who raised this man right. I knew it. Felt it. Yearned for everything he could give me, even knowing that after this trip he’d never be able to give me any of those things again.
His eyes fell shut, and he dropped his forehead to mine. “I think I might hate you for this later,” he whispered, emotion catching in his voice.
“But for now?” I asked, terrified he might release me and not keep me against him like I so desperately wanted him to do, even if it made no sense.
He lifted his head from mine and opened his eyes, tightening his hold on my wrists. “I guess we’re going to try and fuck whatever this is out of our systems and hope tomorrow we can move on and focus on the mission. If that’s what you really want?”
“Move on or sex?” I whispered.
“Both,” he grunted, his mouth close to dropping over mine again, an angry but hot kiss a mere breath away.
All I could do was nod. I did want sex, even if that was wild given the heavy conversation we’d just had about a serial kidnapper. But the moving-on part? No, I couldn’t say that out loud.
“Aren’t you worried sex might make you more attached?” My pulse quickened as his free hand traveled to the hem of my dress.
Slowly, he began skimming his palm under the dress and up my side where his thumb finally caught the side of my breast. I swallowed a moan, eager and hopeful he’d do more than that.
“I’ve been attached since Cape Town, sweetheart. You’ve been in my head every day since. So no, sex won’t change the fact I already . . . feel what I fucking feel.”
Ohhh. Guilt weighed me down. Buried me deep under a pile of emotions I wasn’t used to feeling. “Then maybe we shouldn’t? I don’t want to hurt you,” I choked out. “Even though I feel like I might die if you don’t take me, I just—”
“Charley?” He palmed my breast and squeezed, giving me what I wanted.
“Yeah?”
“Do you want me tonight?” He enunciated each word, needing a clear and explicit answer from me.
Even with everything he’d told me, including the danger, I couldn’t help but murmur, “Yes.”
