“No?” Her heart sped up as she looked towards the rolling hills. All morning she’d been admiring how beautifully isolated this place was, but now that hit her in a wholly different way. She was virtually trapped here, at his whim.
“You’re saying I’m your prisoner.”
“Don’t be so dramatic,” he responded. “I’m not an asshole, Elodie. If you really want to leave, you can leave. But not now, not like this.”
“How dare you?” she demanded, lifting her hands to his chest and pushing hard. God, it felt good. So good. Anger fired through her veins and even though she didn’t shift him—it was like a butterfly trying to mow down a bear—just leaning into him and giving vent to her rioting emotions was a pressure valve release she desperately needed. “How dare you?” she shouted, pushing again. This time, it brought her body closer to his and the arms he had crossed unfolded, his hands curving around her upper arms.
“What choice do I have?” he said. “I didn’t lie to them. I do wish this hadn’t happened, but it did. You’re pregnant, and the baby is mine. Nothing you just heard changes a thing about what we agreed yesterday. I have not lied to you, Elodie, and believe me, I won’t. If nothing else, you can rely on me for my honesty.”
“I don’t want your honesty—I don’t want?—,”
“Yes?” he growled, his face somehow closer to hers. Had he dropped his head? Belatedly she realized that no, it was she who’d lifted onto the tips of her toes.
“I want—,” but her insides were twisting and shrieking, begging her to be sensible. To pull away from him and take a breath. Everything was too frantic, too overheated, including her emotions.
“What do you want?” he responded, but before she could answer, he was dropping his mouth and kissing her, with all his own pent-up feelings, his anger, his frustration, and the strength of passion that inevitably flared between them.
She swore into his mouth, she swore from deep in her soul, but his only response was to push her back against the cold stone wall of the corridor and wedge his knee between her legs, his body completely enfolding hers, just as she’d fantasised about it doing that first night they’d met.
“I think I might hate you,” she said, pulling her mouth away for the briefest moment, to suck some air into her lungs.
“That makes two of us.”
CHAPTER 7
MOLTEN LAVA WAS RUNNING through her veins. His every touch made her body burn with a need for him that was driving her wild. They worked as a team, flawlessly in unison. Her hands moved to push his shirt up as his arms lifted to release it. Her mouth dropped to his chest to tease and taste, to trace the lines of the tattoo, his hands returned to her body, roaming, feeling, touching, driving her wild so easily. She pushed down on the leg he had at her sex, needing the satisfaction he offered so damned much. She could hardly catch her breath, much less keep it.
The world was spinning; she was back on the carnival ride that was going too fast. She felt drunk, out of control, and for a moment, she didn’t think she cared. How could she, when it felt so good to be kissed by him like this? To have his mouth take hers, almost punishing in its intensity, because it showed that he was as desperate for her as she was for him.
But minds and memories were funny things, and just as Elodie was ready to beg him to take her, then and there, on the tiled floor, she heard his voice, as clear as if he were speaking again here, now:
It was a stupid, stupid mistake. If I could take it back, I would…
It wasn’t an unreasonable thing to say or think. He slept with lots of women, and now, someone had gotten pregnant. Of course he regretted that. She could perfectly understand how he might feel that no one night stand was worth the lifelong commitment of a child. But did he think just because ithadhappened, and she was pregnant, that she was available for sex?
With a burst of strength from deep inside her, she moved her hands to his chest and pushed them against the wall of muscles there, at the same time she angled her face away from his, breaking their kiss. Her breath was still hard to catch, her lungs burning with the effort, and her core was wet with desire. But she couldn’t give in to this. She wouldn’t let them make another mistake—not knowing how he already regretted the first time.
“Stop,” she said, needlessly, because the moment she’d pulled away, he’d done exactly that. She glanced at his face and saw a mask of cool control, a look that made her wonder if he’d been even remotely as affected as she’d thought. Had she been wrong about that?
How could she know?
She had barely any experience with men. A long-term relationship with Aaron, and then a one-night stand with Raf.
“That can’t happen,” she said, stiffly, finding it hard not to stare at his chest when it was right in front of her. Her head and body were at war. She knew she’d done the right thing, but her every fibre was screaming with need, furious at herself for putting a stop to things.
His eyes bore down on hers, his gaze unwavering, so her throat felt thick and her pulse jumped erratically. “Even when we both clearly want it to?” He arched a brow, his tone slightly mocking.
She ground her teeth. “I thought I was a mistake,” she reminded him, glad to have her fury to cling to, her hurt a salient reminder of why she had to be strong.
His jaw clenched visibly. “That does not mean I didn’t enjoy it.”
“Oh, I’m so glad to hear it,” she rolled her eyes.
“Listen to me, Elodie,” he said, and when he moved his hands to hold the tops of her arms, it wasn’t sexual, so much as it was a plea. “Youaredifferent to the women I usually sleep with.” Even his mention of ‘women’ made something twist inside of her. How ridiculous to be jealous when she knew what she was getting into from the first. Her boss in the bar hadtoldher that he had more notches on his bedpost than Elodie could imagine. “I knew that, and I knew I shouldn’t have done it. But I did. From the moment I saw you, I wanted you.”
“I bet you say that to all the girls,” she said with a roll of her eyes, hiding the way his words were doing something inside of her. Something that made her feel weak and vulnerable, like she wanted to believe him. Like she wanted to trust him.
“You were obviously inexperienced, no match for me, but I couldn’t get you out of my head. After that first night, when you turned me down, I told myself I’d go to the bar for a drink, to prove to myself that I was imagining the hold you had on me. That I was imagining how much I wanted you. And then you looked at me and your lips parted, and I knew that if you gave me even a hint of an opening, I would take it. I would take you.”
