Ridiculous really because it was only a room away but such was the intensity of the moment that I forgot.
I forgot everything except the pressure of his hand and the urgency of his voice. The stark yearning in his eyes.
Icy water was dripping into my palm, sliding down my arm, my fingers turning numb.
But I didn’t care about that either.
Just his mouth, hot on mine, as he leaned over me and kissed my chilled lips. It was an awkward position, unbalancing, but I arched into his touch, letting desire shape me. I loved being unbalanced by him, controlled by him. It was its own power—its own freedom—and it made me feel so good. So good, so safe, and so marvelously claimed.
Next thing I knew he was bending me back, pushing me down onto that plush hotel carpet. He caught my other hand and pulled them both over my head. He seemed to like me that way, pinned, stretched, helpless, his.
Well. That made two of us.
Although there was part of me that ached to touch him back. To know what it would be like to tangle my fingers in his hair. Stroke the skin at the nape of his neck. Feel the muscles of his shoulders tighten like wings beneath my palms. I wanted him to have everything. All the pleasure it was in me to give.
His suit was rough against my skin and I expected his kiss to be rough as well.
But he didn’t kiss me. Only looked at me with lust-glittery eyes. Then groaned. “Oh God, how do you do this to me?”
Chapter 14
It was a reasonable question. And I was buggered if I knew the answer. As far as I could tell, there was nothing about me that would attract—let alone hold—the attention of someone like Caspian Hart.
Capacity for happiness notwithstanding.
And, yes, I did remember every nice thing he’d ever said to me. Squirreling them away like string and marbles in a kid’s keepsake box.
“I don’t know,” I told him. “But I like it.”
He frowned, the pained line I so wished to soothe away appearing between his brows. “I don’t like it. I don’t want to want this. But I can’t stop.”
Way to bring me back to earth with a bump. “Pro tip. When you’re attempting to negotiate a short-term, preapproved sexual encounter with somebody, maybe don’t tell them how much you’re resenting it?”
He released me and sprang to his feet, leaving me sprawled and disheveled on the carpet like a virgin sacrifice. Well, except for the virgin bit, obviously. I sat up, hugging my knees and trying to protect what little was left of my modesty while Caspian paced.
He looked irritatingly gorgeous. Those long, lean lines of his and his natural grace, the flow of muscles beneath fabric far too suggestive of the way they might shift and tighten against me when we moved together.
If.
If we ever moved together.
Which was looking unlikely if he continued with the sub-Darcy “in vain I have struggled” crap.
“I’m sorry, Arden.” He swept around and gazed at me with a kind of bewildered anguish that was as heartbreaking as it was frustrating. “I don’t mean to insult you. I’ve just never…”
He seemed to run out of steam, so I tried to help out. “You’ve never fancied someone before?”
“I’ve never been consumed by it before. Never taken beyond reason. Never allowed it to distract me.”
“Sometimes I don’t know whether I want to hug you or punch you.”
His lips curled into a wry, wary smile. “I wouldn’t advocate punching. Clearly there’s an art to it.”
Goddamn him. The gorgeous impossible contradictory bastard.
Refusing to smile back, though everything in me wanted to, I scrambled to my feet and curled up on the edge of the sofa. “Right. Well. We both want to shag. What are we negotiating here, exactly?”
After a second or two, he sat down next to me. It was probably the most normal moment of togetherness we’d ever had, and at first, I didn’t know how to handle it. It said something about your relationship with someone when you were more freaked out by sharing the same piece of furniture than wanking for them down the phone.
