“Christ,” he hisses, tipping his head back to stare at the ceiling like he’s praying for patience. His chest rises and falls, steady but strained. “I always said you’d be the death of me, Tessa Pope.”
This time I move first, crawling over to him and closing the distance between us. I straddle his lap and place my hands on his shoulders. Feeling bold—reckless even, just like he says I am—and empowered by the way his breath catches, by the heat radiating off his body, I dare to ask, “Yeah, but can you think of a better way to go?”
His hands find my hips like they belonged there all along. His grip is firm, possessive, almost punishing. He exhales a shaky laugh that ghosts across my throat. “You never back down, do you?”
“Not when I find something I really want.” My voice is low, shaky for all of my bravado.
“Dangerous thing to say,” he mutters, his thumbs brushing under the hem of my shirt. His eyes meet mine—dark, warning, and wanting. “You don’t know what you’re asking for.”
“I think I do.”
Something in him snaps and he groans—quietly, like the sound of a match striking in the dark. His mouth crashes into mine again. His kiss is hungry, claiming, filled with all the things he’s been holding back. I taste every unsaid word, every moment of pretending I was still the kid he remembered instead of the woman sitting in his lap, asking for trouble.
His hands roam over the thin fabric of my shirt, stopping just below where he shouldn’t go. The restraint in him is palpable, his body trembling beneath my fingertips.
“Tell me to stop,” he breathes against my lips.
I shake my head. “I can’t. I won’t.”
He hums softly, a sound that vibrates through me, before dragging his mouth to the edge of my jaw, down to the place where my pulse stutters. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Maybe I enjoy a little pain.”
He stills, pressing a kiss against my collarbone, his breath hot against my skin. When he finally looks up at me again, there’s a war in his eyes—duty on one side, desire on the other—and I can’t tell which one is winning.
For a long moment, he just stares at me. Then, with a groan that sounds like surrender, he whispers, “I should go get some blankets and pillows before I forget who I’m supposed to be.”
I smile, shaky and breathless. “And who’s that exactly?”
“A man who doesn’t touch a girl who’s way too young for him.”
I lean in, close enough that my lips brush his ear. “I’m not a girl anymore, Nathan.”
His hands tighten, his jaw locking as he draws in a ragged breath. “Yeah,” he says finally. “That’s what scares me.”
“I won’t beg, Nathan. But,” I pause, grinding against him and smirking when he curses under his breath. “You should know that I want this. With you.”
And if he denied me right now? Well, I may just combust into flames.
six
. . .
Nathan
Those wordsin that voice break me. Make every last ounce of my resolve shatter.
Every thread of restraint I’m trying to hold onto, every careful wall I’ve built, collapses in an instant. I can’t look away. I can’t think. I can’tbreatheproperly.
My hands roam, gripping, holding, memorizing the curve of her back, the press of her body. She arches into me, matching my hunger, and I swear the world narrows to just this, just us, heat and friction and the fire crackling beside us.
And every damn reason why I shouldn’t be doing this disappears.
There’s only her.
Only now.
Onlythis.
