Chapter 6 #8
He traced every line of my face as his lips curled into a knowing smile. The smile of a predator sizing up his prey.
As his gaze moved to my lips, staring at them for seconds on end, a jolt of electricity passed from my chest to the bottom of my stomach. My heart turned to paper in an instant, and he could have crumpled it in his fist if that’s what he’d wanted to do.
What were we?
What had we been?
We weren’t a we, but we were something.
There was no category, no label, no definition that could be given to us.
We were what we were. Not everything, perhaps, but certainly not nothing.
I tried to think of a reasonable answer to give him. I needed to be careful because I didn’t want him to realize that Logan had talked to me. I didn’t want him getting mad at his brother for giving me a piece of Neil’s past.
“I asked you a question.” He wet his lower lip, and I quivered at his deep, authoritative voice.
Instead of answering him, I allowed myself to get lost in the flawless little details of his face, forgetting about everything else.
I was enchanted by the flickers of guile that lit up his eyes like fireworks. Neil knew he could make me vulnerable.
He could feel it.
He could also feel my desire for him, so he inched even closer to me, and I took one step back and then another until my back ran into the door behind me.
“I just want you to know that I want you. Just as much as you want me.” I tried to sound self-assured, but I was shaking.
Neil struggled to contain a laugh, digging his straight, white teeth into his lower lip and looking at me like I was deranged.
“You have no idea how it would be, being with someone like me. Do you?” He took another step forward, and his powerful scent was dizzying.
“Where would you be if you could be anywhere right now?” he asked me abruptly, breathing right against my face.
He rested an elbow on the wall beside my head and adopted a careless stance over me.
Then he examined me from top to bottom, going slow, like I was the most beautiful creature he had ever seen.
I could see the gleam of carnal desire in his eyes.
I barely came up to his chest, and my eyes moved from the outline of his pectoral muscles to his powerful throat. I wanted to put my lips there and taste his skin.
“Anywhere, as long as you’re there too,” I managed, staring up at him from under my eyelashes. Neil smiled smugly and stroked my right hip with his hand.
I gasped.
I wanted him to touch me, but I was afraid to give in to him again. For an endless moment, I looked at his hypnotic face and came to a familiar conclusion: Neil was dangerous.
And yet, I continued to take that risk because, deep down, I was attracted to the danger. I would have allowed his fire to burn every part of me.
“You are sickeningly sweet when you say shit like that.”
He wrinkled his nose in disappointment. “But more importantly…” His hand crept slowly up my rib cage, lingering under the curve of my right breast. He bent his face to my ear, and his warm breath brushed against the arc of my neck.
“That’s not the right answer, baby.” He stared into my eyes, and I drowned in his, now heavy with lust.
I tracked the way he licked his full lips, his muscular chest rising rapidly under the sweatshirt that hung from the sculpted edges of his body as he gently rubbed my breast.
My heart was hammering so hard in my chest that I feared he would hear it, and my breath was labored just from that light yet dominating touch. Neil began to stroke my throat with the tip of his nose. Tiny shivers ran down my arms and spine.
He was like a powerful storm breaking against me: His fingers were the lightning that accompanied the thunder, his gaze covered me like the darkened sky, and his every touch fell upon me like drops of rain.
He inhaled my perfume deeply before resting his forehead against mine, closing his eyes.
“Stop trembling,” he whispered. I tried to calm myself down, but all I wanted was for him to put his hands on me. That was why I was in his room, after all—to let him use me.
Neil apparently didn’t intend to do that, however.
“I’m not going to touch you,” he said reassuringly. He opened his eyes slowly until I could see his silent consideration.
Why not?
I was oddly disappointed and ashamed of myself for being disappointed. I—yes, I—had wanted him to…
“I feel it. You know that, right? I feel how you want me. I feel how aroused you are, but I also feel how scared you are,” he murmured under his breath, pressing warm lips to my forehead.
He gave me a soft kiss and then slowly ran his mouth along the bridge of my nose.
He paused at the tip and left another kiss there, followed by a tiny nip that made me smile.
“It’s always been this way between us, since the very beginning…
” he continued softly. His lips touched mine delicately, and I breathed in his smoke-flavored breath.
Neil was seducing me. He would make me crave that kiss with everything I had until I was even dreaming about it.
He was simply letting me know who was in charge between us.
“I’ve wanted you since day one. That has never changed, and it will never change.
I have no idea how I’m going to deal with this fucking situation.
” He hovered over my throat, and there too he allowed his lips to glide briefly over my skin.
A fiery current ran down my spine: the overwhelming desire to let him simply take whatever he wanted from me. I went stiff.
I felt like I was losing my mind, but I knew that Neil was going to torment me until he decided he was satisfied. Still, I couldn’t cope with the crescendoing sensations, caresses, and desires. I had to let him know how much I wanted him.
I leaned in instinctively, but Neil pulled back slightly with a smile of delight that had me pouting immediately.
“You want to kiss me? Is that what you want?”
I didn’t answer but just stared at his throat again, at the single sliver of naked skin that I could see above his sweatshirt.
Then he put his other elbow on the opposite side of my head and allowed his torso to press ever so slightly against my chest. When he leaned into me, I could feel his swollen erection against my lower abdomen, and I went red.
The thought of being trapped between his well-formed body and the cold surface of the flimsy door was thrilling.
“You’ve become such a wicked girl. Here you are, wanting to kiss a sicko…
But are you sure he wants to kiss you back?
” he whispered, laughing, and I swallowed hard, embarrassed.
The lusty, carnal sound of his voice did nothing but set fire to the good sense that I was trying to hold on to, the gulf between us that I was trying to avoid showing him.
But Neil wanted to annihilate me with his allure, seduce me with his expertise, enchant me with his voice.
“If you don’t want to kiss me, then you should walk away right now.”
In that moment, I found the strength to push back against him, to regain some semblance of clarity. Neil chewed his lip, more entertained than ever by my reaction, and I pressed a hand to the heart that would not stop thumping uncontrollably inside me.
“Selene! Neil! Where are you? Come on out to the fire!” Logan’s voice from the hallway interrupted that insane moment of…of… I didn’t even know how to define it. I jumped away from the door and glanced at Neil, who, from the look on his face, was not nearly as disturbed as I was.
This man had managed to set me off on a sensual journey without even undressing.
I stared at him, got lost roaming over the map of his body. Every contour was evidence of a life lived without limits. The defined edges made one hope for impossible things. Those golden eyes were an open road out onto a vast, undiscovered desert.
His face was a model of human perfection and I would have done anything to hold his soul.
Short of breath and feeling a familiar heat spreading throughout my body, I hurried out of the room and away from him.