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“Sure. Possibility is everywhere.”
“But you wouldn’t risk the band,” she confirmed.
“No,” he answered decisively.
Anger reddened her cheeks. She’d been saying the same thing all along and he’d been arguing that they should try anyway. She narrowed her eyes at him and challenged, “So the band is more important than the shelter? The band is more important than having what we have with Rhys and Bex, Zale and Mara? You’d risk the shelter and our family but not the band?”
He shook his head. “No. The band is definitely not more important than the shelter, and our family, as you call it, is far and away more important. But you, Willa, you trump everything.”
Her mouth snapped shut and his eyes lit with humor.
“Don’t worry. Take time to regroup. I’m sure we’ll argue about this again.”
“I’m not worth the risk. I’m not a good bet,” she whispered.
He reached out his big hand and wrapped it around the back of her neck, pulling her gently, inexorably towards him. He dipped his face towards hers and spoke softly, his kaleidoscope eyes looking into her soul. “You’ve believed the lies for so long you don’t recognize the truth.”
Her eyes scanned his face, the thoughts spinning in her head broadcasting loudly over her pretty face, her longing for him plain.
“Please…”
“Ask me,” he demanded, his hand at her head pulling her closer.
“Kiss-”
She didn’t finish before he closed the remaining space between them and slammed his mouth over hers. She hung onto the sides of his t-shirt. This was no soft exploration like that first kiss months ago. This was a hunger left unfulfilled for far too long. This was a devouring, a claiming.
Her heart pounded out a staccato beat caught between panic and desire as he dipped his knees, slipped his hand between her arm and her ribs, wrapping his arm around her lower back and pulled her body flush against his broad chest. At the first shocking contact of her breasts against his hard chest she lost the edge of panic and caught fire.
She moaned into his kiss. He stood tall, pulling her to her toes. She smoothed her hands up his chest to grasp him around the back of his neck and held his mouth to hers.
He walked forward slowly, nipping and teasing her lips, until she was pressed up against the counter. He lifted her the half inch required to rest her butt on the edge and stepped between her thighs, rocking his pelvis hard against hers.
Her head fell back on a groan, breaking the kiss.
“Barrett,” she breathed, “take me to bed.”
Her words caused him to tighten his grip on her hair. He lowered his arm from her back to her ass and pulled her pelvis tighter against his. He’d dreamed of hearing those words from her sweet mouth, but not when she was tipsy. He could feel her heat on his cock through his jeans and the thin material of her shorts. He ground into her, feeling her thighs tighten around his hips, hearing the hitch in her breath.
He tipped her head back and kissed down the column of her throat, touching her pulse with his tongue, licking the dip at the notch in her collarbone, before traveling down to kiss the vee of exposed flesh between her breasts. He shifted his hands to the back of her ribs, forcing her back to arch, and held her steady for his mouth to explore. He dragged his mouth to tongue her nipple through the thin material of her blouse. She moaned and protested at once, locking her heels around his thighs to bring him back into contact with the place she needed him the most.
“Please, Barrett,” she whispered urgently. “I need you. Take me to bed.”
There was no way he would take her with her head still spinning from drink, but he wouldn’t leave her in this state either. They’d been headed in this direction for a long, long time.
He scooped her up in his arms and she looped her arms around his neck, her lips parted in surprise at being suddenly airborne. He held her eyes as he carried her to her room and flicked on the overhead light. In her eyes he read lustful anticipation mixed with fearful resignation. It was easy to see she was still afraid to take the leap with him, but every step forward was a stitch in the binding of their story.
He slipped her blouse down over her upper arms, binding them to her sides momentarily as he kissed her naked shoulder. He pulled her shirt off the rest of the way, lay her out on her bed and stretched out beside her leaning on his elbow. He took a moment to take her in, he wanted to savor the moment.
A hint of wariness entered her eyes. She was starting to think too much. He leaned over and kissed her softly. He explored her mouth gently, telling her with his lips the words he could not say. He held back even as she tried to deepen the kiss, and it had the desired effect of making her want. She urged him on with hands and tongue and soft little pants into his mouth.
He kept his kisses light, waiting for the moment her anxiety drove her to take over. Less than a minute later, her hands fluttered around his body, finally coming to rest on his shoulders. She tried to push him onto his back.
There it is, he thought, he would show her how it would be between them.
He broke the kiss and she tried to rise. With his free hand splayed over her chest he pressed her back into the bed. Staring into her eyes he lifted her hands, first one, then the other, over her head, lightly holding her wrists locked together in the hand he was bracing his weight on.
“Oh,” she breathed out and he smiled. She blushed and closed her eyes against the intimacy.
