“My brother Owen brought over a few things.” I moved in behind her and easily snagged two mugs from the top shelf. “Let me get that for you.”
“Thank you.” She froze with me pressed up against her.
I didn’t want to move, wasn’t sure I even could. The scent of lavender surrounded us. I’d smelled it the other day, too. Must have been her shampoo or lotion. Didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered in that moment was the way my front connected with her backside.
“Bess.” Her name drifted past my lips like an apology, yet I still couldn’t force myself to move away.
She turned slowly, her breasts full and heavy as they smashed against my bare pecs. “What’s supposed to happen next?”
The way she looked up at me, with such trust and longing in her eyes, sent my heart into a spiral. “I could back away and pour you a cup of coffee and we could go on about our day like this moment never happened,” I said, silently begging her not to shut this down.
“Or?” She tilted her head and skimmed her hands up my arms.
I shivered at her touch and what it implied. “Or I could kiss you.”
“That might complicate things, wouldn’t it?”
My hands went to her shoulders. “It could.”
Her eyelids drifted closed. “My dad wouldn’t like it, either.”
“No, he wouldn’t,” I agreed. That should have been enough to make me back away and promise myself to never touch her again. But there was something between us. Something I’d never felt before. Something that scared the shit out of me yet still drew me toward her like a bear to honey.
“But I would.” She rose up to her tiptoes and snaked her arms around my neck.
Knowing I shouldn’t, I leaned closer and brushed my lips against her mouth. At the contact, overwhelming need engulfed me. My heart beat in time to a desperate desire to make her mine. Mine. Mine. Mine.
I swept her up in my arms and carried her to the bedroom. “Tell me stop, Sugar Pie. I don’t want to take advantage of you. Just say the word, and I’ll set you down and never touch you again.”
She ran her hand over my beard and pulled my head down. “I can’t.”
Fuck. My self-control had been put to the test in some dangerous situations. I kept telling myself I could stop anytime.
That I should stop.
Now.
Before it was too late to turn back.
I gently laid her down on the bed and slowly pulled back. She was full of light, and I was drowning in darkness. Letting her go would be the right thing to do. She needed the kind of life her parents had probably promised her all along… a husband who adored her, a house in the country with plenty of room for their two-point-five kids, a minivan, and a slobbery dog.
“I can’t do this.” Shoving my hands into my hair, I wanted to scream. Every beat of my heart urged me to claim her, but I couldn’t.
She reached up and held out her arms. “Please, Triton.”
“You need kids and cats and dogs. You need someone with a heart that hasn’t been shattered into pieces by his past.”
“I needyou.” Her fingers toyed with the hem of her snug tee.
I’d have given anything in that moment to slip my hands under the edge of her shirt and trail my fingers up her belly until I could cup her full, round breasts in my hands.
She must have felt it—the way I wavered back and forth. Because she eased her shirt over her head, shedding it like a second skin. Then she laid back and rested her head on the pillow. Trailing her own hand between her breasts, she pulled her bottom lip into her mouth in a move worthy of a famous porn star.
My willpower shredded. I climbed onto the bed and hovered over her. Her nipples grazed my chest and sent blood rushing to my cock.
“Where did you come from, Bess, and who the hell are you?” With her beautiful face surrounded by a cloud of golden hair she could have been an angel sent straight down from heaven.
“I’m yours if you’ll have me.” The honesty in her eyes nearly did me in. We were from two different worlds, opposites on every level.
