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She laughed. “Aw, crap. Here we go. Have you not been listening, Masters? I don’t do relaxed. It’s not on the menu.”
“Just try,” I coaxed. “Let’s slow way down, and—”
“No,” she blurted. “I can’t. I have to get out ahead of it, if I want to do this.”
“Ahead of what?’’ I asked, mystified.
She pushed me away, frustrated. “If you have to ask, it is not going work.”
“No, no, no.” I grabbed her hand, kissing it. “I just need for you to trust me.”
“Yeah, right,” she said. “You’re asking for the moon.” But she shivered, lips parted, as I kissed her knuckles. Her fingers. Every joint. “I wouldn’t even know where to begin.”
“I’ll show you,” I said gently. “Close your eyes.”
“You’re joking, right?”
“Not at all,” I said, my voice low and coaxing. “Just follow my lead, Kat. You’re going to love giving me the moon.”
CHAPTER10
Kat
Goddamn him. Why did he have to be so difficult? Why make this impossible for me when I wanted it so much?
Usually, with sex, I could take it or leave it. So if I crashed and burned, whatever. No biggie.
But with Ethan, it was huge. He’d snatched me up out of my normal life like a rapacious bird. Carried me off to his mountain stronghold. I cared, this time. I cared desperately. I wanted this to work. I deserved this. One night that somehow wasn’t ruined by what had happened that long-ago night, and what it had done to my life.
I’d had so much taken away. My mother, my sisters, my cat. My life, my town, my name, my identity. The trappings of a normal life. Parents to bitch about. Skinny dipping in the moonlight. A trip to Vegas with the girls, a first kiss, a first boyfriend. Romance. A family of my own. None of that stuff was in the cards for me, ever.
Besides, I wasn’t the kind of person who could be a mother, after what had happened to me. All my soft bits were burned away, leaving just the hard metal frame beneath.
The Petruzzis were going to find me eventually. When they did, I would die. But I was by God going to take my golden chance to get nailed properly by a big gorgeous guy who set my hormones ablaze before the inevitable happened.
Problem was, I couldn’t keep myself safe behind my shield. Ethan was smart, and hungry, and he craved surrender, yielding, opening. And I had no freaking clue how to give it to him. I didn’t even know where to begin.
I shook my head, helplessly. “I don’t know how.”
The truth sounded so stupid. Something that was so easy for other people, just relaxing and enjoying a good afternoon lay, letting someone else take the lead…for me that scenario was fraught with peril and confusion. I felt ignorant and clouded.
“You actually do,” he said. “Just remember what your body already knows.”
I gulped back my laughter. Such conviction in his voice. Hah. “You just met me a few hours ago,” I told him. “And I’ve already made you bleed twice. That’s an awfully confident statement for a guy who almost lost an earlobe.”
“I’m willing to risk it,” he said. “I want to make you come, and I want it to be deep. I want you floating on air. Soft, like your bones are made of rubber. Ready to have lemon profiteroles hand-fed to you, to give you the strength to do it all again.”
Wow. The guy had more self-confidence than I’d ever seen in one place before.
“Um.” I swallowed. “That sounds nice. But I’ve got this wall-of-thorns thing happening, and I don’t know the spell to let you through it. So you might just have to make do with me just like this. Tense, bitchy, and combative.”
“You’ve been that way from the moment I met you,” he said. “And my hard-on has not relented for one fucking instant. Don’t worry about me. I’m very tough. I have thick skin, and lots of stamina, and I want this. How about you just try trusting me?”
Goddammit. I wanted him. I would never get another opportunity like this. Sex with a guy who fascinated me, who wasn’t afraid of me. A guy I both respected and lusted for. Men like that were not thick on the ground. I certainly had never found one in the wild before.
I slowly exhaled. “How?” I whispered. “How do you do that? Trust can’t be chosen. You feel it, or you don’t. It’s not up to me.”
He considered that, his eyes thoughtful. “Maybe we can change that,” he said. “It’s not set in stone. I think the rules are different between us.”
