“It would turn you on if I admitted that I have a stick up my ass?” I managed to say it without hesitating, and even felt a little burst of pride at myself, which was just embarrassingly stupid.
His hand squeezed my bottom again, his thumb teasing the seam between the globes of my buttocks, tracing it as if contemplating doing something I couldn’t fathom, didn’t dare conceive. “Yes, that turns me on.” He pressed his hips against mine. “Can’t you feel it?”
“I thought that was more to do with what you’re doing to my bottom.”
He nipped the side of my neck. “What…this?” He let go of my hair and grabbed my bottom with both hands now, and I gasped at the feel of both big hands on me, not quite able to fully clutch the entirety of my somewhat generous backside. “Yeah, gettin’ a nice double handful of this big, beautiful ass of yours is definitely a fuckin’ turn-on.”
“Big?” I breathed, trying not to sound upset. “You think my ass is…big?”
He let go with one hand, and tipped my chin up so I was looking at him. “Evangeline. You arenotfor real right now, are you?”
I frowned up at him. “What? What do you mean?”
He jiggled one globe, and then the other. “Gonna give this to you straight, Eva. Yes, you got a big ass. Not huge, not like you need a whole zip code or anything, but it ain’t exactly a dainty little thing either. It’s big and juicy. And Eva, babe—that shit is adamngood thing. Maybe some assholes out there would say different, and I’d beat ’em to a drooling, bloody pulp. You gotcurves, honey. You got flesh to hold on to, curves to grab. You’re a woman, arealwoman. And this is just my opinion, but you got what a man wants on that goddamn gorgeous frame of yours…and that’scurve. Okay? So don’t take it as an insult—take what I said the way I meant it: as a compliment.”
“It’s hard to, though. I work myself ragged in the gym and doing yoga, trying to make my butt smaller, and then you come along and tell me it’sbig?—and I—it’s hard to shrug off a lifetime of conditioning. Just because you say it is a compliment doesn’t mean I can just snap my fingers and stop feeling the way I feel.”
His hands resumed their double-handful massaging and petting and patting. “In that case I apologize, Eva. I didn’t mean to upset you or hurt your feelings. I meant to compliment you, but if me sayin’ shit like that is gonna upset you, I can find other ways to tell you you’re sexy. Okay?”
I nodded, not quite trusting myself to talk, feeling far more upset and emotional than I should for such a relatively innocent exchange. “Okay.”
He frowned down at me. “You’re still upset.”
I shrugged and nodded. “I guess so. Being hurt doesn’t vanish just because you apologized.”
He brushed my cheekbone like he did so often. “Hey, I didn’t mean to hurt you, Eva, seriously.”
I shrugged, trying to laugh and not quite managing it. “I know, and it’s…it’s complicated, and it’s not entirely because of you. I don’t want to talk about that right now, though.” I gazed up at him, blinking through the emotions. “Can you just…can you kiss me?” I swallowed hard past the lump. “I need to be distracted.”
His return stare was fierce and penetrating and hot. “I think I can manage that.”
He brought both hands up to frame my face, and his palms were rough and sandpapery and enormous, and his thumbs brushed the ridges of my cheekbones in a soothing, comforting, yet arousing gesture of affection that made my heart thump and my stomach twist with flutters. His fingertips pressed into my hair at the back of my head, gently but firmly tugging my face closer to his.
And I went, so willingly I went, closing the space between his mouth and mine, desperate to feel, desperate to taste, frantic to devour every last scrap of this once-and-only-once experience. I pressed myself against his huge hard body, his hip bones bumping against mine, the thick bulge of his erection pressing into my lower belly and against the upper swell of my core. His biceps obscured my view to either side, and his shoulders rippled and swelled like mountain ranges. He breathed in slowly, a frown of concentration furrowing his forehead, and then he tilted his head to one side and slanted his lips across mine.
And this time, I was ready for it. Eager for it. I gasped at the first blush of the kiss, and my eyes fluttered closed as he softly feathered his lips over mine. It was a tease of a kiss at first, just lips ghosting against lips.
“Baxter,” I murmured. “Stop teasing me.”
He rumbled. “Teasing you? I’d never tease you.” Yet he punctuated this ridiculous statement by escaping my attempt to deepen the kiss, evading my lips and then darting in to slide his lips on mine.
“It sure does feel like you’re teasing me.”
“I’m just…makin’ sure you really want it,” he said, a smile curving his mouth.
“I want it, Baxter. I really,reallywant it.”
He backed away so our eyes met, his hands framing and clutching my face. “Then prove it. Take what you want.”
Ah, so that was his game. Fine, then. He wanted me to prove my desire, to take what I wanted? I would. Oh, I would.
I reached up and wrapped my hands around his head, cupping the smooth-shaven skin of his scalp just beneath the tied-back hair. Pulled him down to me—no, not just pulled, Iyanked.I jerked him down more roughly than I’ve ever handled anyone in my entire life. Our mouths clashed with such force our teeth clicked together and our lips mashed and I tasted the iron-sweet tang of blood. There was a pang of pain, but it only served to deepen my desire, and seemed to do the same for him. Indeed, I felt as much as heard the rumble of his laugh, a sound of amused heat.
I devoured his kiss. Took it from him and demanded more. I shoved my tongue into his mouth without finesse or gentility, and he met me fervor for fervor, clutching my face fiercely and growling in his chest, taking the fire of my kiss and returning it tenfold, kissing me harder than I’d ever been kissed. I moaned into the kiss and tasted his tongue and the tang of blood from a split lip—his or mine, I didn’t know and didn’t care.
But the kiss wasn’t enough.
I wanted more.
