Rosabelle 37 #3
I’m heating dangerously under the weight of his searing stare. Cool air glazes my feverish skin. My hair dances softly around my face and shoulders. I want to ask him why he opened the window. I want to know what he’s thinking. I’m ready to beg him to put his hands on me.
He seems to read my mind.
He moves toward me without warning and I gasp as he sweeps me off my feet, gathers me in his arms, and carries me to bed.
He puts me down on the sheets with the care it takes to set down a feather.
He follows me onto the mattress, his sweatpants still riding low on his hips, and climbs over me, skating an unsteady hand along my naked body.
I’m breathless, a flush blooming across my skin as heat pools low and deep inside me.
“You’re so beautiful,” he says, his voice ragged. He’s looking at me like he’s gotten lost, like he’s not fully in his head. “The first time I saw you I didn’t even—Fuck, I just need to—”
I feel the heat of his mouth on me like a shot of direct sun. I go white-hot with pleasure, turning my face into the pillow to muffle my choked moan.
He lifts his head, looking drunk.
When he kisses me again I dissolve on contact.
I try not to make a sound as I surrender, parting my lips for more of him, but I lose the fight along with my mind.
My back arches beneath him as I push my hands into his hair, fingers scraping against his scalp, and I feel the rumble in his chest as he groans into my mouth, but it’s not enough to cure this ache inside of me.
I drag my hands down his naked chest, luxuriating in the feel of his hot skin, the soft give of his solid body.
I want more of his heat, his touch, his breath.
I want to inhale him. I want to taste him like he tasted me.
I’ve never felt like this, out of my mind with need.
I never thought I could be stripped back to nothing and feel this safe.
I curl my fists into the waistband of his sweatpants and tug, but he won’t close the distance between us.
I want to pull him down on top of me. I want to feel the weight of him.
I have no plan, no finesse. I can feel his own desperation—the strain in his breath, the coiled tension in his muscles, the tremble of his limbs as he breaks away only to kiss my neck, my jaw, my gasping mouth.
I try to reach for him again but he pulls back to look at me, breathing hard, his eyes hot and soft. He blinks slowly, like he’s trying to burn off a dream. “Rosabelle, baby,” he whispers, still drawing his hands down my naked body. “We need to talk.”
I feel drugged. I’m seeing stars.
He dips his head into the crook of my neck, taking a deep, anguished breath before skating his face down my skin, his lips grazing me in the moonlight.
I’m almost afraid to touch him now, afraid to feed this addiction, but then I’m trailing my fingers down the sculpted lines of his torso, and I hear myself begging him for something, one word rising like a prayer to my lips.
“Please,” I gasp. “Please—”
He closes his eyes against my breasts, breathing me in, and says, “I need us to be clear on a few things.” He presses soft, searing kisses to my skin, his tongue hot, the air cold. I close a hand over my own mouth. I want to scream.
I feel more like crying.
“First of all,” he says roughly. “You’re mine.”
He glides his face down my body and groans against my ribs, pausing to press slow kisses to my stomach, my hips—
My head falls back.
He’s tasting me everywhere. I’m falling apart. I feel faint and feverish.
Delirious.
“I want to hear you say it,” he says, his mouth moving against me, his voice low.
He slides his hands under my thighs and pulls me closer, and I feel like I’m losing my mind.
He kisses the inside of my thigh, drawing his nose up my sensitive skin, and I bite my lip so hard I nearly draw blood. It’s embarrassing how much I’m shaking. I have no defenses. No experience. No armor.
“James,” I cry, my head spinning. “James—”
“Say it,” he says again. “Tell me you’re mine.”
“I’m yours,” I gasp. “I’m yours—”
He exhales, hard, and when I feel his mouth on me a moment later I nearly exit my body.
I go blind.
I bury my face in the pillow again, my muscles seizing as I try not to scream. My blood flashes hot and cold. I feel like I’m coming loose from my bones.
“Please,” I cry out. “I can’t—I think I’m going to faint—”
He lifts his head only to run his hands down my trembling legs, gently drawing them farther apart. He presses his face to the inside of my thigh and I hear the change in his breath, see the tension in his shoulders.
“Promise me,” he says against my skin, “that you won’t decide this is over and walk away without explaining why.”
My hands tighten in the sheets. “What? James—”
“Promise me,” he says, “that you will never intentionally put yourself in danger.”
I stiffen. My heart stops.
His words are an ice bath.
“Promise me,” he says.
Panic surges through me, escalating my heart rate, raising my blood pressure.
Shock floods my system.
“I—I don’t—”
What am I doing?