Chapter 16 #2
I started toward her, closing the distance slowly, giving her every chance to tell me to stop, but she didn’t. She just tracked my every move with those eyes, her back finding the doorframe like she needed something solid behind her.
I stopped close enough that I could smell the warm scent of cherries beneath the smoke from the fire, and the memory of chasing that scent across her skin with my tongue hit me so hard I had to clench my jaw against it.
“Sunshine,” I said, and my eyes dropped to her mouth and stayed there.
“What are you doing?” she breathed.
“You know what I’m doing.” I brought my hand up slowly and dragged my thumb across her bottom lip, feeling her breath catch against my skin.
Her hands found my hips, fingers knotting in my T-shirt before she could think the better of it. The porch was quiet but for the muffled voices and laughter drifting up from the firepit. In here, it was just me and her and the way her breath scorched between us.
I pressed my thumb firmer at her lip, dragging it down until her mouth parted for me. I needed to taste her again, needed to remind myself it could be this easy if I just let it. But nothing about her had ever been easy.
I let my thumb fall down her neck, and her pulse kicked under my touch, a fast little flutter I felt through my whole damn body. I didn’t say a word, not when she was looking at me like that, all spitfire and challenge but so full of want it nearly knocked the air from my lungs.
All the tension from the past four days, the wanting and the way she’d shut me out except for the memory of her body under my hands, it all crashed through me at once. I couldn’t have stopped myself if I tried.
She was backlit by the spill of moonlight down my hallway, her hair spilling wild over her shoulders. She bit down on her lip, and it detonated something reckless in my chest.
My body crowded against hers, and the challenge in her gaze collided with the want, a collision I’d barely survived the first time.
But now, I was starving for it. I leaned in slow, dragging it out until I felt her shiver, until her breath grazed my lips.
Her lashes fluttered, desperate not to give me the satisfaction, but I caught the tremor in her breath.
She could act indifferent out there, pretend every inch of my land was neutral ground, but in this hallway, just me and her and four days’ worth of frustration simmering between us, there wasn’t a shot in hell she was going to keep pretending.
I heard the muffled sound of laughter drifting through the screen door, but it faded out the instant her eyes met mine.
Green and reckless and so much fucking fear.
“I’ve missed you,” I murmured, letting my eyes drop to her mouth before coming back up.
Something shifted in her expression, and her fingers tightened in my shirt. “You can’t say things like that.”
“Four days.” My lips brushed hers when I said it, close enough that she could feel the shape of my words. “Four days of replaying exactly how you sound when you come in my mind.” My hand slid up to the back of her neck and tightened there. “So don’t tell me what I can’t say.”
I didn’t wait for her to protest. I dipped my mouth and kissed her with a brutal kind of slowness that stripped us both bare.
My hand knotted in her hair, wrenching her head back just enough to give me more of her, and she gasped against my mouth.
I pressed my body in until she was pinned between the doorframe, the weight of me, and every goddamn thing I hadn’t said in four days.
She kissed me back like it hurt, like she was punishing me for making her want this, but I didn’t care. I wanted her fight. I wanted every fucking thing she’d give me.
My other hand bracketed her face, tightening against her jaw, and I couldn’t bring myself to be gentle. She opened for me, mouth soft and desperate, and I kissed her deeper, every flick of my tongue a reminder of everything I couldn’t say out loud.
She tried to twist away, even as she kissed me back, and the way she fought me was poison and fucking oxygen at once. I fed on it, tightening my hold on her, and refusing to let her slip out from under this.
“Tell me you haven’t thought about me,” I whispered against her mouth.
I felt the tremor in her jaw through my palm, but she didn’t say a damn thing.
Instead, she caught my bottom lip between her teeth, biting down hard enough to send a pulse of pain straight to my cock.
She pulled back just enough to glare up at me, her hands twisting in my shirt, crumpling the fabric.
The memory of her spread out and needy in my hands flashed behind my eyes. The way she’d begged, the way she’d shattered around my touch, it was all I fucking thought about, and the need to know she’d been thinking about me too was overwhelming.
“Have you, Mags?” I pressed my lips against her jaw. “Because I can’t breathe without remembering how you taste.”
She let out the smallest whimper, and her nails dug through my T-shirt to the skin beneath.
“Our friends are outside,” she whispered.
“I don’t fucking care.” I dragged my nose along the curve of her jaw until my mouth was at her ear. “You can act like I don’t wreck you.” I rolled my hips into hers, pinning her hard beneath them, and felt her breath leave her in a rush. “But your body’s a goddamn liar, Sunshine.”
Her gasp tore through the dark, and I didn’t give a damn about anyone outside of the two of us. All I could think about was her mouth, the shape of her body pressed so tight to mine, and how fucking badly I wanted her.
“You want me to stop?” My voice was rough, dragging every bit of need I’d buried the last four days.
My body caged hers in the doorway, and this time I didn’t pretend I was strong enough to step back. I needed to hear her beg for me. Needed to crack open that careful, stubborn composure and see her come apart just for me.
I let my knuckles drag down her side, grazing the curve of her breast just enough to make her breath catch, and stopped at the waistband of her shorts.
“Tell me what you want.” I hooked a finger into the denim and tugged, just once.
She made a sound low in her throat, and her hips rolled toward me before she could stop them, chasing the pressure I hadn’t given her yet. I kept my hand exactly where it was and waited, feeling her tremble against my knuckles.
“Come on, Mags.” I slid my hand beneath the denim, slow enough to feel the shift in her breathing, until my palm found the lace and the heat bleeding through it.
“If I pulled these aside right now,” I said against her temple, “I’d find you soaking wet and desperate for my cock.
Wouldn’t I?” I curled my fingers just slightly and felt her hips stutter forward, chasing it.
Her forehead dropped against my shoulder. “Yes.”
The word barely left her lips before I was backing her into the bathroom without a single thought for anything except the way her body fit against mine. She let me push her, arms curling around my neck as her breath came wild and uneven. I caught the door with my foot, slamming it shut behind us.
“Look at you,” I bit out, my hands already dragging up the sides of her neck, burying in that wild mess of blonde hair.
She trembled, and it did something to my self-control. I couldn’t fucking breathe unless it was her, unless she was right here, squirming to get closer to me. I dragged her mouth to my own, needing to taste her, needing to chase every last ounce of fight out of her.
Her hips rolled hard against mine, and the sound she made when she felt how badly I wanted her was almost enough to make me lose my mind right there.
I spun her to face the mirror, one hand splayed flat against her stomach, pulling her back into me, making sure she felt every inch of what she’d done to me.
Her palms hit the counter and her head dropped forward, hair curtaining her face.
I gathered her hair in my fist and tipped her head back up.
“Watch,” I said against her ear.
Her eyes found mine in the mirror, dark and blown out and so fucking perfect. I held her gaze and popped the button on her shorts.
For a second, I just looked at her, and the wanting twisted into something that felt a hell of a lot like coming home. It wasn’t just her body I ached for. It was every version of her. Every messy, stubborn, mesmerizing part.
“Not a sound,” I said, sliding my hand beneath the denim, “unless you want every single one of them knowing exactly what you’ve been begging for.”
I dragged my fingers over the lace, slow at first, letting her feel how close I was to touching her bare. She shook but didn’t look away from our reflection. Her knuckles whitened on the counter, and I made damn sure she could see every bit of want in my face.
I grazed her clit through the thin scrap of lace, watching her eyelids flutter. She pressed her lips together like she could will herself not to make a sound. It only made me rougher.
Fuck, watching her fight to keep quiet might have been the hottest thing I’d ever seen.
I dragged my fingers over the lace again, rough this time, and she clamped her hand over her own mouth as she moaned.
We fit together so perfectly. Her ass pressed tight to my hips, my whole body strained with how badly I wanted her, and every muscle in her body was tense, waiting for what I’d do next.
“You think you can hide it, Sunshine?” I let my teeth scrape over the shell of her ear.
I let my hand slide lower, dragging knuckles along the inside of her thigh, then finally slipped my fingers under the lace that barely covered her.
She was so fucking wet, and she clenched when I touched her bare.
I bit a curse into her shoulder, grinding my hips into her so she could feel the thick, aching proof of what she did to me.