Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
IRIS
The chunk of plaster hit the pile in the center of the third-floor bedroom after I tossed it, sending up a puff of golden dust in the late-afternoon light. It was a pointless task, tossing debris from one spot to another, but it kept my hands busy. My mind, however, was a different story.
The last few days had been an exercise in exquisite torment.
A low-grade, pulsing tension followed me from room to room.
A constant awareness of Austin, just a stone’s throw away in his fortress of solitude.
His brief yet frequent visits had only made me want him more.
Each brush of his skin against mine, every shared, increasingly loaded look wound the spring between us tighter and tighter.
The way his eyes would catch on my mouth when he thought I wasn’t looking, how his entire body would tighten when I got too close. The two of us were a storm building just offshore, the air growing staticky and electric before the first drop of rain.
A heavy thump from the doorway made me jump, my heart leaping into my throat.
I whipped around.
Austin stood framed in the empty doorframe, looking… undone. His hair was a mess, as if he’d been dragging his hands through it. His face was tight, his jaw locked, and his gray eyes burned with a raw, intense emotion I’d never seen before.
Not anger. Not annoyance.
Something else. Something elemental.
“Austin?” My voice came out as a shaky murmur. “What are you doing up here?”
“I saw your shadow in the window. The kitchen door was unlocked.”
He took a step into the room, then another, closing the distance between us until he was only a few feet away.
The sheer heat radiating from him was a physical force, changing the atmosphere of the dusty room.
My body responded instantly with a deep, primal clench low in my belly, a current of pure awareness that made the fine hairs on my arms stand on end.
He wasn’t here to talk about contractors. He wasn’t here to check on loose siding.
He was here for me.
“I can’t stop thinking about you.” His words were low and strained, as if they’d been torn from him against his will. “I try to work, I try to sleep. It doesn’t matter. You’re just… everywhere. All I can think about is more.”
The storm had made landfall. This wasn’t the grumpy, guarded neighbor. This was a man whose cement walls were completely demolished. All my carefully rehearsed witticisms, my G-rated swear substitutes, evaporated into the dusty air.
There was only this.
Him. Here. Now.
The torture was clear in his expression, the battle he was losing with himself. What had happened to this man to make him fight so hard against something he clearly wanted so much?
“What about me being your peace-wrecking neighbor?” My voice, when I found it, was strong.
I needed to be sure, to understand this sudden reversal.
“The prize-winning hibiscus destroyer?” I used his own accusations against him, needing to hear him deny them.
Needing to know that he saw me, not just the mess I’d made.
His expression tightened, a flicker of self-reproach crossing his features.
He took a half-step closer, his gaze so searing it was like a physical touch.
“You are. You’re all of those goddamn things.
You’ve turned my life upside down.” He paused, his eyes dropping to my mouth for a fraction of a second.
“And none of that matters. Because you’re so much more. ”
That was the confirmation. The unvarnished, utterly Austin-like admission. It was an acknowledgment that, despite all the reasons he shouldn’t, emotion was overriding everything else.
He crossed the remaining distance between us in two urgent strides, his hands framing my face. His trembling thumbs traced my cheekbones.
“If you don’t want this, you need to say so.” His voice came out in a low, choking growl. “Now. Because I’m at my breaking point here, Iris. I’m dying.”
There was no more awkward dancing around. He was laying it all on the line, giving me the final choice. The power in that moment, the sheer force of his need mirroring my unspoken want, was euphoric.
I managed a single, jerky nod. “You’re not wrong. I want this. You’ve been living in my head for weeks, Austin. I can’t… I can’t get you out either.”
He surged forward and slammed his lips to mine.
It was deep, hungry. A kiss that said yes, that said don’t you dare even think about stopping.
He groaned into my mouth, a sound of surrender and victory all at once, and the charged atmosphere between us ignited.
His hands plunged into my hair and yanked me closer, deeper, as if he could consume me entirely.
I could taste his desperation, his weeks of pent-up need as I plunged my tongue into his mouth, and it made me wild.
We were a tangle of frantic hands and desperate mouths in the stifling room, tearing at the barriers of clothing between us.
Urgent. Primal. A button popped off my shirt as he tore it open, skittering away into the plaster dust, forgotten.
I yanked his shirt over his head with clumsy, desperate fingers, needing to feel his skin against mine like I needed air.
“Christ, Iris,” he rasped against my throat, his voice breaking. “I’ve wanted you so bad.”
His confession sent liquid fire straight to my core.
I fumbled with his belt, and he groaned when my knuckles brushed against the hard ridge of his arousal straining against his jeans.
I slid them down until they dropped to the floor.
He was steel wrapped in denim, and knowing I did that to him made me dizzy with power.
“God, you turn me on,” I breathed.
He answered by gripping the waistband of my shorts and yanking them down my legs in one swift, possessive motion. I kicked them away, along with my underwear, suddenly desperate to be bare for him.
Our clothes were strewn over the dusty floor in a heap of denim and cotton.
I inhaled the dusty air as my eyes drank him in.
His body was lean, corded with the hard, functional muscle of a man who worked with his hands and body.
A light dusting of dark hair covered his chest, trailing down his abdomen.
He was beautiful. Raw and real and overwhelmingly male.
The way he stared at me made my knees wobble. Like he was starving, and I was his salvation.
He backed me up against the wide windowsill of the demolished room, his hands sliding up my sides, leaving trails of fire in their wake.
He lifted me onto the sill, the dusty wood cool under my heated skin.
For a moment, he just looked at me, his eyes so dark they were almost black, his chest rising and falling with harsh breaths.
“Jesus, you’re beautiful,” he choked out. “I’ve imagined this… God, I’ve imagined this.”
Then his mouth was on me again, exploring, claiming. His lips traced a burning path down my throat, and I could feel his desperation in every kiss, every nip of his teeth. When he reached the sensitive spot where my neck met my shoulder, he bit down gently, and I cried out, my back arching.
“More,” I gasped, my hands fisting in his hair. “Austin, please.”
His mouth moved lower, his tongue flicking out to taste my skin. When he reached my breasts, he paused, his breath hot against my skin, and looked up at me with eyes so intense they burned.
“I need you,” he said simply, and then his mouth closed over one peak.
The sensation was a jolt of pure pleasure that shot straight to my center.
A sharp, ragged gasp escaped me. His scruff was a delicious abrasion against the sensitive skin, and his mouth was hot, wet, and demanding.
He licked and sucked, one hand coming up to cup my other breast, his calloused thumb stroking, teasing the peak into a tight, hard bud.
My head fell back against the cool, grimy windowpane, and my mind dissolved into pure sensation.
But I wasn’t content to simply receive. An answering need surged through me, a desperate hunger that demanded I touch him, claim him back.
I slid my hand down his sweat-slicked torso, over the hard ridges of his abdomen, feeling the muscles jump under my touch.
“Shit,” he hissed, his hips bucking forward involuntarily. “My G—”
His words cut off on a strangled groan as I wrapped my hand around his thick, hot length. He was heavy and hard, throbbing in my palm. I stroked him once, twice, learning the feel of him, and he shuddered against me.
“You’re killing me,” he gasped, his forehead dropping to rest against mine. “I won’t last if you keep doing that.”
“Then don’t,” I said, my voice bold despite the tremor in it. “I want you to lose control. I want to see you fall apart in front of me.”
Something wild flashed in his eyes, and suddenly his hand was sliding across my stomach, leaving a trail of fire in its wake.
His calloused fingers, so competent and sure, dipped lower, threading between my legs.
I gasped and opened them wider, my back arching against the windowpane as he found me slick.
“Jesus,” he muttered. “You are ready for this, aren’t you?”
I could only nod, beyond words, as his thumb found the sensitive bundle of nerves at my center and began to move in slow, deliberate circles. The coil of pleasure inside me, already tight from his mouth on my breast, wound impossibly tighter.
“Austin,” I breathed, my hips moving against his hand. “Please.”
His motions were relentless, his thumb never stopping its maddening circles. I cried out, my body clenching, and he cursed under his breath.
“You feel so good,” he said, his voice strained. “I need to be inside you. Now.”
The raw desperation in his voice made me clench harder. He was coming apart at the seams, and I loved it. I loved that I could reduce this controlled, careful man to base need and pleading.