Page 34 of Captivated By You
He must have sensed the desperation in my voice because the weight of him at my back vanished. Cool air replaced the heat from his chest currently covered in a gray T-shirt with Fender in bright yellow scrawled across the front.
I turned, holding myself up at the counter with my hands curled around the edges of cool, gray marble. When the sun hit it just right, it sparkled like it contained a hint of glitter and something about knowing his sister somehow added glitter to the design of an otherwise masculine and comfortable home always made me grin.
It didn’t now. Now, my heart sank to my knees as Liam backed away from me. His hands tugged at his hair and his head was tipped back, revealing a hint of his black hair above his waistband. And his arousal was clearly evident. Large and bulky at the top of his thigh.
I could barely look away. I stared at the refrigerator behind him and blinked harshly, mentally cooling myself.
“I’m sorry,” I choked.
His expression pained, his lips twisted as he turned and tugged at what I knew was him adjusting himself. “Just give me a minute.” He all but growled the words and my heart sank further. I had been leading him on, knowing every single time he touched me I didn’t know if I could go further.
Yet I hadn’t been honest with him about why. If I were him, I’d be all scowling and growly too, just like he was.
But perhaps there was something I could do to ease his pain, at least the one I’d physically brought on.
I walked toward him, knees trembling and thighs shaking. My nipples were still hard and my fingertips tingled at what I was about to do.
I stopped behind him and slid my hand up the length of his back, to his shoulder and back down to his hip. He shivered and jolted at my unexpected touch and his head turned to look at me over his shoulder. “I told you to give me a minute, Claudia.”
Not sweetheart or princess, the two nicknames he’d donned me with the last couple of weeks.
“I was wondering if I could help you.” My voice shook and my fingertips buzzed like live wires were growing from my nail beds. A thick lump grew in my throat as his brows arched high on his head and then narrowed.
He shook his head. “No.”
“I want to,” I said, already running my hand at his hip toward his stomach.
His hand clasped over mine when I reached the string of his board shorts, tightening my fist beneath his until my knuckles ached. “What the fuck are you doing?”
For two weeks, he’d been nothing but honest. For two weeks, I’d lied to him. It felt shitty. The least I could have done was spurned his advances but I didn’t because I just liked them—and him—so darn much.
My forehead fell to his back, his shoulder too high to take the fall and I shrugged. Tears were already pooling in my eyes because everything was crashing down on me. Life. Him. Desire. Morals. Ethics. Lust for a man who knew how to touch me, multiple times every day, to bring me to this boiling point where I might not have been offering myself to him, but offering to help him instead.
“I’m helping you,” I whispered, straggled words torn from my throat. “I want to.”
I wiggled my hand beneath his. The scratch of his callused palms and fingertips scraped against the back of my hand. And never in my life would I thinkthatwould send shivers up my arm to my chest.
“Fucking hell. Why?”
I spilled the truth before I could stop myself. “Because I’m scared of you touching me, but I want to touch you.”
He tightened like I’d slammed him into a wall. Yanking my hand off his, he twisted and grasped me by the shoulders. “Scared?” Ice blue eyes were narrowed, shooting fire and disgust in that way and I realized what I said.
“Not of you. God, no, I’m not scared like that.”
He threw his hands to his sides, dragging my gaze to his erection, still jammed inside loose fitting shorts and God, it looked beautiful.
Is this what he felt like? The unstoppable desire to have his hands on all my hidden places. Every time I fell asleep I still envisioned seeing him in the shower, and dreams would pull me under until sometimes he was standing inches front of me, like he was now, wearing nothing but a thick leather cuff on his wrist and a hand over his dick as he stroked himself in front of me.
And other times the dreams morphed to the day he saw me staring at him and instead of finishing, watching me watch him, he yanked me into the shower with him uncaring and clueless about getting the cover-up I was wearing wet, and he dropped to his knees, threw my legs over his shoulders while pushing me against the glass walls and placed his mouth exactly where I was currently soaking wet.
“Crap on a cracker.” I pressed my palms to my cheeks. Was I that hot? Maybe I had a fever. Maybe I was becoming delirious. It would explain so much.
“I would give you a million dollars to know what just flashed through your mind while you were staring at my dick like you could already taste it.”
I huffed, shook my head and tried to move but he reached out and grabbed me.
“God, we’ve made a mess of today.”
