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His nose skimmed across my jaw and over my neck to the spot just below my ear. When he spoke, his low, rough voice sent a flash of heat through me. “I’m a fucking bloodhound, baby.”
Any other moment, any other man, I might’ve laughed.
But there was something about the way he claimed the words that made my heart race. There was something about the way they rumbled up his throat and fell from his lips, dripping with sex and sin, that made me ache with need.
Grabbing my hand from his side, he shifted back to bring my wrist to his face. But just when I thought he might kiss it, his eyelids shut as he drew the tip of his nose across the sensitive flesh. The touch was feather soft and incredibly sensual and made me tremble when he nipped at the same spot.
Curling his body over mine again, he leaned in close enough that his lips brushed against mine when he rumbled, “Now I can find you.” The words sounded like a warning wrapped up in wicked, wicked promises.
And maybe it was the whiskey...but the blood pounding through my veins whispered that, when the night ended, I’d want him to.
WILLOW
He was lingering...
My heart raced this unforgiving beat as I watched him, waiting to see what he would decide, because I wanted him to stay.
This man who preferred ridiculous nicknames and tattoos. This man with a wicked smirk that made me weak. This man whose presence was a complicated combination of power and ease—danger and safety.
Diggs.
What was supposed to have been a drunken, never-to-be-repeated night had turned into something I still couldn’t quite wrap my head around. Maybe because there was a part of me that knew the world outside my apartment would never understand this unconventional arrangement I’d somehow found myself in.
And yet, I’d quickly become addicted.
Because nearly every night in the three weeks since we’d first met, Diggs had somehow found ways into my apartment. Drawing me out of sleep as he knelt on my bed and pulled me into his arms, whispering Found you just before his mouth fell onto mine. The current of excitement and need and longing that raced across my body and clashed with his own effectively silenced all rational thought each time I let myself get swept away in this enigma of a man.
Maybe because, from that very first night, I’d wanted Diggs to find me. I’d wanted him to stay.
Not that he’d ever done the latter.
Every night with him had been filled with an intensity and passion I’d never known. Every night had been filled with carnal demands and body-numbing highs and veiled promises as he’d dressed to leave. Every night, he’d hesitated and glanced back at me before disappearing the way he’d come.
But tonight, he made it as far as putting his boxer briefs on before wavering at the edge of my bed, staring at his dark jeans.
I didn’t move or say a word, afraid that if I let him know how much I’d started craving this—these moments after—he would be gone before I could finish begging him to stay.
Then the pounding of my heart faltered when he turned and knelt on the bed, a flash of anguish creasing his expression before he could hide it as he moved closer and captured my lips.
And, somehow, in the way his mouth moved against mine, I felt Diggs begging me to understand the gravity of his decision.
“Don’t do this often?” I assumed when he sat back with a sigh that seemed to encompass the weight on his shoulders.
A dark laugh left him as a whisper of that smirk teased the corner of his mouth. Slanting his head just enough in answer, his gray eyes locked on mine when he said, “I need to leave.”
It felt like my lungs were burning as I waited for him to explain. When he didn’t, I asked, “Permanently or—”
“I just don’t stay, Tree,” he said, the nickname he continued using for me falling from him like a caress. “I don’t do this. I should leave.”
My chin dipped in the beginnings of a nod as I forced back the question gathering on my tongue.
Because I knew why he wasn’t.
That ever-present current that pulled and begged was stronger than ever as he lay there. Propped up on one elbow as the fingers of his other hand lazily trailed along my bare thigh.
“You just had to show up in my town,” he muttered, pulling a soft laugh from me.
“Your town, huh?”
