I hear it in his voice. But it’s wordless. It’s in the way he slants his mouth, the way he pulls back and ghosts back in for a new angle, the way his tongue sweeps across my lips, nudges against my tongue. It’s in the way his hand tightens in my hair and pulls me up against his mouth, as if I was trying to get away. If anything, I’m seconds from begging him for more.
I feel myself pressing up against him. On my toes, arms around his massive shoulders—I have to reachup, andaround. He’s so fucking huge holding on to him is like trying to put my arms around a refrigerator—albeit, a warm, soft-skinned, hard-muscled one.
I want more.
Goddammit, I do.
And I understand now why he made the promise he did—he must know damn well how good a kisser he is. Because I want him. I want to kiss him and I want to feel his hands on my body.
He’s got my number, goddammit, and I’m woman enough to admit—to myself, at the very least—that he knows damn well I’m lying when I say I don’t want him to touch me.
I do.
I want his hands on my skin. I want him above me. I want him beneath me. I want him inside me. I want to lose myself in him. Right now, Iwantit.
All from a kiss.
He’s awakening something inside me that I thought was, at minimum, in a coma, if not outright dead—that being my libido.
That was taken away from me along with everything else good in my life. I haven’twantedanyone in a long,longdamn time. Fact is, I don’t remember the last man I felt anything for at all—attraction, lust, or anything other than revulsion, really.
Mostly because for a long time, the only men in my life have been men like Alvin and his ilk.
Chance is different.
In every way there is.
And I fucking know it.
Chance breaks the kiss—pulls away, touches his forehead to mine. “Jesus, Annika.”
I’m gasping, breathless, chest swelling against his with my rapid breaths. “You stopped.”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
He does it again—his big, rough-padded thumb grazing softly over my lips. “You want more, mama?”
“I—I just—” I have no idea what I’m struggling and failing to say.
Yes, I want more. Am I willing to admit that to him when I’ve made such a show of pushing him away? No.
He huffs a laugh. “Not there yet, huh?”
He slides his hand from one hip to the other—around my back, low, teasingly low, to the opposite hip so I’m wrapped in his arm. Pulls tight, my body flush against his. I feel his reaction to the kiss—thick, hard, promising. My own reaction is surely just as noticeable—hard nipples, wetness between my thighs, shaky legs. I don’t have to shift my weight to spare my bad knee, because he’s supporting my weight easily. Just holding me one-handed, his other palm on my cheek, huge against my face—just his palm alone covers my entire cheek, his fingers splayed across my temple, into my hair, behind my ear, and down to my nape. Huge, powerful, yet still gentle.
“No,” he whispers. “Not yet.”
“Chance,” I murmur, but I have no idea what else to say.
He drifts his mouth across mine in a phantom kiss, a tease, a promise. “Not yet, mama. That was a damn good start, though.” He dips, bends, and scoops me up in his arms, one behind my shoulders and the other beneath my knees. Carrying my not-insignificant weight as easily as if I weighed no more than a puppy, he strides to the bed and climbs onto it. Keeping me tucked against his chest, he leans forward, nabs a pillow and shoves it behind his head, shifting downward until he’s lying with me fully on him, my head on his chest just beneath his chin. A matter of instinct has me twisting to my belly—I’m a belly sleeper anyway.
Fuck me if this isn’t the most comfortable I’ve ever been. He’s a firm, warm, solid presence beneath me. His arms are like twin weighted blankets banded around me, one at my shoulders and the other at my waist. He’s just holding me.
For a long time, I’m fighting myself. I’m tensed, waiting for his hands to drift, to grope.
They don’t.
