Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
There were no words to describe what was happening to her. Well, there were four words to describe the action that was occurring.
Zane was kissing her.
But that didn’t explain what was happening to her. She didn’t think anything could. It was like being dipped in liquid fire that burned straight through every layer of skin but didn’t consume her. It was like touching the sun, so bright she couldn’t look directly at it.
She’d wanted this, and had been too afraid to even fantasize it, and now it was happening. Nothing could have prepared her for it.
She’d never been truly kissed before. A peck at a middle school dance and a very awkward, slightly-to-the-left attempt at her sophomore homecoming dance simply didn’t count. And yes, that was her whole dating history. Awkward, swaying dances in badly decorated school gyms.
They were nothing like this.
His mouth was hot, hardened, and insistent, and he had her pressed firmly up against his body.
He was like an inferno.
She’d known that he was hard. That he was all muscle, but being pressed up against him like this was totally different.
Different even than when he had held her last night while she slept.
Even then, he had been curved around her, protectively, she realized now, because this was an entirely different thing.
An entirely different experience. An entirely different Zane.
The sound he made as he parted from her lips for a moment and took a deep breath was almost tortured.
And then, he was back.
Devouring her.
He parted her lips with his tongue, delving deep, cupping her cheeks as he explored her mouth. Thoroughly.
She moaned, letting her head fall back, and he followed the movement. He wrapped one arm around her waist, the other hand still cupping her face as he kissed her and kissed her.
She felt a raindrop, and then another. Like they’d pulled the sky open with the relentless power of this thing between them. Was that why they kept on making it rain?
All this anguish and sorrow, and fury and need was too much for the world to hold, and it needed a release as badly as they did.
She arched against him, kissing him back for everything she was worth. Letting him know how much she wanted him. How much she wanted this.
She had never wanted anything half so badly as she wanted this moment.
It was terrifying. She had been trying to keep herself from jumping headfirst into this for months now, and he was the one who had just…
done it. She had been so sure that she was going to be the one…
that she was going to be the one to do something foolish.
To touch him wrong, to grab a hold of him and kiss him on the cheek, something.
That she would be the one to betray the attraction first, but it had been him.
And this wasn’t a sweet, tentative exploration of it. No. It was something deep and raw, feral.
It made her feel beautiful in a way that she had never felt before. Not like she was something sweet and delicate. But like she was made to be devoured.
The Big Bad Wolf.
They parted for a moment, and her eyes met his.
It was like she could see it, written there on his face.
All the better to eat you with…
Oh yes, he was the Big Bad Wolf.
But unlike Little Red Riding Hood, she’d known it from the first moment. He hadn’t tricked her into anything. He’d been nothing but openly this from the first moment she’d met him, and it hadn’t done a thing to stop her from wanting him.
This man was scarred. He had been completely wrecked by life, and anyone would be with a past like that. This couldn’t be about what he could offer her.
It had to be about what she wanted to take from him.
She had been clear on what she wanted from the beginning.
She wanted him to tear her apart and rebuild her.
She wanted him to dismantle her because she didn’t like the way that she had been built.
Too delicate, and too burdened at the same time.
Somehow sheltered, and yet having taken on too much responsibility all at the same time.
And she just wanted something that was for her.
Something wild and hedonistic, and maybe she could find it going out and howling at the moon, surviving in the wilderness, but she wanted to find it here, in his arms.
She wanted it more than she wanted her next breath.
He lifted her up off the ground, urging her to wrap her legs around his waist as he began to walk them both toward his front porch. He held her like she weighed nothing, propelling them up the stairs and into the house, the cool air inside making her shiver.
He didn’t set her down. Instead, he slammed the door shut behind him and pressed her up against the wall, kissing her like he was a dying man, and she was the elixir that could save him.
It was so… electrifying.
This was it. This was the adventure that she’d come to Oregon for. The rough and rugged that she wanted. Forget sleeping on the ground, she wanted to sleep on him.
This was what she wanted.
Those words just played over and over in her mind. She had never been so sure of anything.
And whatever happened afterward, it didn’t really matter. This was what was happening right now. She wanted it. Wanted to rebel in it, wanted to live in the moment. Wanted to grab hold of it and cling to it tightly for all the time she could. She wanted it to go on forever.
He peeled her t-shirt up and over her head, casting it onto the floor where it landed in a sodden thunk. He moved his hands to cup her breasts, squeezing them tight, and she gasped. She was wearing a serviceable bra, one that couldn’t be called sexy, but he made her feel sexy.
“You’re so gorgeous,” he growled.
She forced herself to make eye contact with him.
Forced herself not to look away. Because this was it, this was everything.
And she wanted to experience all of it. She didn’t want to get nervous, didn’t want to soften whatever this was about to be by showing him that she was inexperienced, that she didn’t really know what she was doing.
So far, it hadn’t seemed to matter. It was instinctive.
Kissing him back felt as easy as breathing.
He reached behind her, where she was still pinned against the wall, and unhooked her bra, pulling it away.
The sound he made in the back of his throat was like a large, wounded beast.
Then, he was cupping her again, but it was his bare palms against her bare breasts, and it felt better than anything else ever had. His hands were so rough.
She had been dying to have them all over her.
Just like she had been dying to have her hands all over him.
It was almost absurd.
Had they really done this whole dance, this whole outdoor training exercise just so they could end up here?
Because it was what both of them wanted, she was sure of that now.
She had been a little bit tentative up until the point where he had grabbed her and kissed her. But then, it had been like a bomb of clarity had gone off inside her head. Of course, he wanted this.
He wasn’t just being nice when he came and helped with the shelves, when he came to get a pastry in the morning.
When he offered to help her with survival skills.
He wanted to get in her pants. Historically, something like that might be said as a negative.
He was doing all these things to be close to her because he wanted to sleep with her.
Well, she didn’t see it that way. Because she was sick to death of being a virgin.
She had felt very strongly that he was out of her league.
That this was batting above her average, swinging above her weight, and whatever other poor sports metaphor she could possibly conjure up in her sex addled brain.
But now she didn’t care. Why not get the number one man that she wanted the most, instead of settling for the one that seemed safe enough?
Dimly, she remembered that Jackson Carey had gotten her number a couple of weeks ago.
She was pretty sure she had missed some calls from him.
She just didn’t care. It was like he didn’t exist. And she felt so relieved that she hadn’t slept with him, because to be that apathetic about somebody that was interested in her…
That wasn’t what she wanted.
She wanted this. She wanted lightning, even if it was dangerous.
She wanted the landslide, even if it might bury her.
She wasn’t the brave one. Not historically.
But right now, she was being brave.
Then, he kissed her again, and her neck, down to her breast. He circled one nipple with the tip of his tongue, and she gasped. It was so… decadent and indulgent, and just the hottest goddamn thing she had ever experienced.
He moved his hands down her body, and she shivered at the way his rough palms felt against her stomach.
Then he pulled her away from the wall and carried her back down the hallway, into his bedroom.
He lifted her away from him and set her on the edge of the bed. Then, he moved away from her, gripped the back of his T-shirt, and pulled it up over his head, the movement fluid and fascinating.
She had seen his body before, but now she could touch him. Now, he was so close…
She reached out and put her hand on his stomach. He sucked in a sharp breath, his ab muscles shifting with the movement.
“Careful,” he said, warning.
His hands moved to his belt buckle, and she jerked her hand away.
He undid the belt, whipped it out, and threw it down onto the floor.
Then he kicked his boots off and stripped the rest of the way down.
Quickly, unselfconsciously. And hell, anyone who looked like him shouldn’t have an ounce of self-consciousness.
He was total masculine perfection. Hard-cut muscles, with dark hair sprinkled over his chest, thick, muscular thighs, and his…
Granted, she had nothing to compare it to. But he was the most beautiful, masculine sight she’d ever seen, and she would be shocked to learn that he wasn’t larger than average because he was so big he was giving her heart palpitations.