Chapter 5
Chapter Five
~Her~
She was still ranting to herself when he stepped close and whispered over her shoulder, “So, you think I'm handsome?”
She shrieked and whirled away from him. “How in the hell did you—”
He cut her off with a kiss, one that had sparks igniting in her belly and her toes curling in her waterlogged boots.
Halo’s rigid posture melted into his embrace, and she wrapped her arms around his broad, bare shoulders.
Pulling him close, she sighed into his mouth as intense pleasure coursed through her.
Time lost meaning as they explored the need between them; tongues intertwining and hands searching to learn every curve and plane.
Each breath brought new sensation. Ever so gentle, his touch raised the tiny hairs on her arms and coaxed a shiver from the base of her spine.
Her body slowly went boneless in his embrace, and when his teeth clamped down on her earlobe, the shudder overtaking Halo threatened to be her undoing.
He sucked the very same lobe into his mouth, laving slowly with his tongue.
A tingle started behind her knees, worked its way up to her navel, and blasted her eyes wide open.
Halo pushed him away once more and glared at the smirk gracing his thoroughly kissable lips. Damn if he didn’t know the effect he had on her.
“You,” she ordered while pointing her finger at the far wall. “Stay over there!”
He studied her for a moment, causing butterflies to erupt into frantic beating in her stomach. His frosty blue eyes twinkled with mischief, but he followed her command nonetheless. Gracefully, he retreated and leaned against the bedpost, smiling in a way that screamed of all things carnal.
He ran his tongue slowly across his lips; her insides squirmed in immediate response.
Halo sucked in a labored breath and bit down on the inside of her cheek. “Keep the bed between us,” she squeaked as he shifted his weight.
“I’d rather keep it beneath us, love.” His voice lowered, the timbre of it resounding in her core.
She shivered with desire, but clenched her thighs together and narrowed her eyes at him.
Halo Brandt wasn’t afraid of anything, but she had to consciously stop herself from stepping back.
His presence was somehow both celestial and salacious, overbearing and inviting.
It left her wanting to simultaneously worship him in church and in bed.
“Stop. That.” Her words were sharp and meant just as much for her out of control thoughts as they were for him.
She hadn’t intended the huskiness in her voice, and his smile grew with victory.
She was just as affected as he, and he knew it.
“I’m not that girl! I've managed to live twenty-one years without hopping in the sack with sexy strangers, and I'm not about to start now!”
Damn it! Even she heard the lack of conviction in her words.
“Well, technically, love”—He shifted his gaze to the rumpled bedding—“You've already done so.”
His hand gently stroked the bedpost, and her mind tripped, remembering his chilly touch tracing icy patterns in her flesh. She shook her head and he smirked, knowing exactly what he was doing.
“No one will hold it against you.” His eyes lit up with innuendo, and suddenly all Halo could imagine was holding him against her. “After all, we were made for each other.”
Her embarrassment took control of her tongue, and she lashed out, “But it wasn't my fault! That was you, and your… your…”
She sputtered, unable to say it. She had an abundance of evidence surrounding her, and yet she couldn’t force the words past her lips.
Magic didn’t exist. It was nothing more than a fairy tale told to sad little girls who desperately missed their parents.
She still missed them, but she was neither sad nor little anymore.
Maybe she was dead?
Halo toyed with the idea of this being the afterlife.
The idea of spending an eternity with him, the sexy man of her dreams, definitely appealed to her.
The corners of his eyes crinkled with barely restrained mirth, and she wanted nothing more than to hear him laugh.
He was enjoying her discomfort, but she couldn’t bring herself to care.
Her mind was caught on the prospect of forever with him.