Chapter 12 #3
She approaches on bare feet, slowly, cautiously, across wooden floorboards over a century old that no woman has ever walked on before.
I can’t blame her for being guarded because I have been volatile. I’ve been aggressive toward her. I’ve been any number of things that should scare her off and keep her away forever, but she doesn’t really look afraid as she advances, more contemplative, if anything.
Raven stops between my spread legs, moving close enough that her thighs brush against the inside of mine, making my cock ache and start to grow, pressing against the confines of the denim.
Every muscle in my body tenses.
I keep my hands on the top of my legs, refusing to give in to the way I want to reach for her, want to touch her, want to pull her down onto my lap and feel that weight of her body on my own.
All I want is to devour her and do what I did last night again and again. But that would be a terrible idea. Because it was probably a huge fucking mistake. Something that I had hoped she had realized once she woke this morning, once I gave her the day to work and consider it.
I had hoped that both of us would understand that it can never happen again, but the look in her emerald eyes now isn’t one of regret.
There’s more of a question there, an uncertainty, and as she looks down at me, she cautiously reaches out and runs her fingers through my growing beard.
The scrape of her nails along my skin makes a groan slip from my chest that I can’t bite back, and I let my eyes drift closed, hating how badly I crave her touch after only experiencing it one time.
“Look at me, Connor.”
Her voice is soft, and it doesn’t sound like a command, despite the fact that I’ve never known this woman to ask for anything she wants.
I allow my lids to flutter open and gaze up at her again as she cups my cheek, then gently brushes her thumb across my lips. “What you’re doing is very dangerous, Raven.”
She slowly presses the tip of her thumb into my mouth. “I know.”
Christ.
My hard cock twitches as I bite down on the pad of her thumb gently. She sucks in a sharp breath but doesn’t jerk it away. She lets it linger there for a few seconds so the taste of her skin seeps onto my tongue, until all I want is to truly taste all of her.
She shifts even closer, pressing herself against me fully, and then lifts her legs across the top of mine on either side and loops her arms around my neck, straddling me in a way that has my entire body drawing up as tight as a bow string.
I don’t know if I’ve ever been this tense.
This primed.
This…barely restrained.
Maybe last night, and I remember how that ended.
With me acting like a goddamn feral animal, basically attacking her in the woods and fucking her without any regard for how dangerous it was to keep her out there in the storm, for how wrong it was when there were so many things left unsaid between us and when there were so many things that needed to be discussed.
I was unhinged.
Completely out of control.
And I took it out on her.
I swallow through my suddenly dry throat as I gaze up at her, and she runs her hands through my hair. “Then why are you still doing it?”
She shifts on my lap, grinding the apex of her thighs against my cock in a way that makes me see flashes of bright light in my vision. “Because I see you, Connor McBride, and I’m not afraid of you. I never have been.”
God, she’s fucking fearless.
“Believe me, Raven, I know you’re not, but you should be. For your own good. What happened last night—”
My apology and excuses are silenced by her kiss. It isn’t aggressive or harsh, just intended to shut me the fuck up. The way mine was on her last night that led to all of this. And when she pulls away, there’s an intent in her eyes, one that makes my stomach drop out.
“Last night was two consenting adults who are stuck up here on this mountain together having incredible sex. That’s all it was.”
Somehow, her reassurance only worries me more because it means she doesn’t see it.
How wrong it was…how I acted. How wrong it was that we so easily fell into that.
How wrong it is for her to be sitting like this, straddling me and rubbing herself against my cock in a way that’s sure to make me explode.
I drop my hands to her hips and pin her in place, preventing her from moving anymore. “Are you sure you want to play this game? Man is the most dangerous predator.”
And the way I’ve been acting and reacting to everything and everyone does not bode well for anything that happens with Raven while we’re stuck up here together.
She considers me for a moment, those nails of hers scraping along my beard again. Her eyes sparkle as she smiles softly. “I’ve never been afraid of anything on this mountain because I’ve always had someone watching my back. Usually a McBride.”
“I will always protect you, Firefly.”
I don’t know where the nickname comes from. It’s just this image I have of her in my head, of the blond hair in the darkness, a light in the pitch-black abyss that my life has become.
The corners of her mouth curve up. “What if I don’t want it?”
“Especially when you don’t want it.”