AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The thought all but tore bloody ribbons into his heart.
A rough sound came from her and he turned around, any hint of her suffering anathema to him.
She was on her feet, glaring at him, one fist all but bloodless as she gripped the beer bottle, her green eyes nearly black in the night.
“Stop saying that,” she said furiously. “Stop throwing that in my face.”
“I’m not. I’m just telling it like it is.” He took another sip of beer, more out of a need to cover his confusion and need than thirst this time. Damn but he couldn’t understand her. Didn’t shewanthim gone? She sure as hellshould. “I’d figure you couldn’t wait to see the back of me.”
“I already told you, I don’t know what I want.” Her chest heaved raggedly, drawing his attention to a fact he hadn’t noticed until that very moment—whatever she had on under that thin sweater ... it wasn’t a bra. Her nipples pressed hard and stiff against the sweater.
His tongue suddenly felt awkward in his mouth, his hands too big and clumsy, aching to feel the weight of her breasts in them, to toy with those plump buds and feel them against his palms, his chest.
Her breathing hitched and he dragged his gaze back up to meet a gaze gone foggy with want.
“Why don’t you want me gone?” he asked. His voice wasn’t steady.
But neither was he.
“I’m still figuring that out.” She licked her lips.
He groaned and closed his eyes. “Stop looking at me like that, Isabel. I’m already teetering on the brink as it is.”
There was a soft thud, then the whisper of bare feet on soft, sandy soil. He opened his eyes, expecting to see her walking away from him. But she was coming toward him, then stopping, now only a few bare inches away.
“I want your hands on me,” she told him, the words so quiet, the sound of the waves crashing into the beach threatened to steal them away.
“If I put them on you, I’m going to want a lot more than just a couple of kisses, Isabel.”
Her lids dipped low, then lifted and her lips curved in a smile. “Maybe I’ll give you more than a few kisses ... or at least let you take more than a few.”
Then she closed the distance and pressed her mouth to his.
And the control he’d cultivated over the years collapsed, like a sandcastle under the waves.
––––––––
The intensity thathad lived just under his skin as a teenager had only grown.
Isabel had caught glimpses of it in the days since she’d found out her temporary neighbor was none other than the boy she’d once loved—a boy who’d grown into a devastatingly handsome man with eyes so full of secrets and pain, it stole her breath.
Now, all that intensity was focused on her and she thought she might be terrified ... if he’d left any room for anything else to exist inside her head.
But he took over with that kiss, pushing his hands into her hair and craning her head back, adjusting the angle until he had her exactly as he wanted her.
And then he took.
He sampled.
He savored.
He devoured.
She didn’t know how he’d done it, but she was sprawled on his lap on the steps of the deck, lost in the shadows cast by the house. When she tore her mouth from his to gasp for breath, she shoved her hands to his shoulders. “Your side ... your wound.”
“I can’t even feel it,” he said, pushing his hands back into her hair and pulling her mouth back to his.
She couldn’t resist him. With a moan, she sank back into his kiss.
