After the last twenty-four hours, being cornered should’ve frightened me, but with David, I was exactly where I wanted to be.
Carefully, he reached down, encircled my wrists with each of his hands, then folded them behind my back, stilling my body with his.
“I’ve fought to get you here,” he said. “But at some point, you have to cross the line to me.”
“Choose me,” he’d said.
Letting David bring us to this point was not the same as choosing him. I yearned for the burn of his face on mine. I wanted this, I couldn’t deny it, but I also knew that it was irreversible. “I shouldn’t be here,” I whispered.
“So leave.”
Restrained by his grip, I moved against his hard body—but despite his words, he continued to fight against me.Forme.
My chin quivered, and I shook my head, lightly at first and then harder. If he kissed me, I’d give in. But I couldn’t be the one to make the final decision.
“Olivia,” he pleaded thickly in my ear, the hairs of his cheek tickling me. Nothing rivaled hearing my name on his lips.
I kept my head turned toward the door, knowing that one look into his eyes would be my undoing. After shifting my wrists into one firm hand at my lower back, he reached up with the other and dug his fingers into my hair. He slid out the bobby pins, each one chiming as it hit the floor. My hair tumbled around my face. He tucked a handful behind my ear, gripped my chin, and turned me to him.
With the gentleness of a saint, he kissed my wound.
And with the finesse of a caveman, he shoved his pelvis against me, eliciting my sharp gasp as desire spiraled all the way to my fingertips.
Leaning in, our mouths all hot air and desire, he was careful not to let our lips touch. I squirmed, but he waited, patiently asking me to make my final decision.
I twisted my hands to free them, and he let me.
It was time. Fall into him—or walk away.
Lifting my hand, I flattened it against his heart with a tenderness that surprised me.
I closed my eyes, feeling the hard buttons of his dress shirt through his downy sweater, his heartbeat strong under my palm. “I’m sorry,” I whispered, returning my gaze to him.
Agony crossed his face.
But the apology wasn’t for him.
I balled the fabric in my fist, pulled, and suddenly his mouth was on mine, his heat and arms enveloping me, his hands under my thighs, lifting me.
He kissed me hard as we moved. I furiously undid his tie before being thrown onto a bed. Our mouths crashed as I landed in fluffy down, and my shoe hit the floor with a loud thud. We ground into each other until he sat back to pull off his shirt.
The apartment’s floor-to-ceiling windows continued into his bedroom, and the city’s warm glow allowed me to take in, for the first time, perfectly formed muscles that pushed and pulled with every movement—a man both lean and muscled, hard but graceful.
He imprisoned me against the mattress, allowing me the freedom to run my shaking hands along a marble chest coarsened by hair. I leaned up into his earthiness, inhaling a heady pine scent a second before he reattached his mouth to mine. Greedily, I ran my hands over every inch of his warm, naked skin, relishing the firm muscles that detained me.
He yanked my dress up. With a quick glance down, he groaned at the white lace panties glowing against my skin. His fingertips hooked under the elastic, and I sucked in a breath as they dragged along the waistband, sending me into soft convulsions.
He reached beneath the lace to find me slick with longing. I bit my lip when he slid a finger along me. I pulled at his belt buckle, fighting with it until it gave, then threw it. Metal struck the wood floor, ringing through the room.
“You think since the moment I laid eyes on you,” he said hoarsely between kisses, taunting me with his finger, “that I haven’t wondered,”—he paused, rubbing me harder—“what it would feel like to be inside you?”
His words cut to my core. Scorching eyes fixed on me as he stood, unbuttoned his pants, and shed his clothing with quick but graceful movements. His erection seemed impossibly big. The thought of taking all of him inside me sent a ripple of heat up my aching body to my face.
He disappeared into his en suite bathroom and returned barefoot with a condom.
Disappointment flooded me. David’s skin on mine had revitalized me. I wanted nothing between us. “I’m on birth control.”
“Trust me, I want to feel you, more than you know . . .” He leaned over the bed and planted a kiss on my pout. “But we have to be extra careful.”
