"You're pretty." I turned to find him standing right there, forced to tilt my head to look in his eyes. The startling strength of him was not lost on me. "You are, even right now when you're flustered that I've caught you in sweatpants and a hoodie."
"I don't believe you," I whispered. I'd lost my voice again, but for an entirely different reason than the previous times I couldn't speak to him.
"What do you want from me?" He pressed closer, and I sucked in a breath.
"I could easily ask the same of you."
"I want to know you. I want to spend time with you. Fuck me, I want to kiss you so badly right now."
There was no air in the room at all. My throat burned and my chest ached at his words. There would be no turning back. I would be ruined.
He would ruin me.
"Then kiss me."
The words were scarcely out of my mouth before he claimed me. Pressing me into the counter, his long, lean body molded to my short curves. And it didn't matter that I had never felt pretty. It didn't matter that I knew he would leave me when all was said and done. Chester couldn't hold him; I couldn't hold him.
I relished in his unleashed power when he swept his tongue along my lips before stroking it inside my mouth. When I felt myself falling slowly, I didn't know what to grab onto, so I settled for his shoulders. His suit was cold from the air outside, but it warmed quickly under my hands. I couldn't think of what to do other than let him take control, but he didn't seem to mind that I was unsure. He swept his arms around me, holding me closer yet, and I moaned at the sensation building in my body.
He had to know I was inexperienced. It would be written all over my face, etched in my skin as surely as his name would be in the next few minutes. I didn't want him to stop, didn't want to tell him to leave. I didn't want to say he could only have a kiss and then would have to go. With surprising desperation, I wanted it all before he left.
I wanted to be whatever it was he saw when he looked at me, and I would deal with the consequences later.
He pulled away, his breathing as ragged as mine, and ran his thumb over my bottom lip. "Tell me to leave."
I shook my head.
"Kinsley, I'm begging you. If you don't tell me to leave, I don't think I can stop myself."
"Don't leave."
An agonized expression remained on his face for a long minute, and then he moved. With his hands on my hips, he picked me up and headed out of the kitchen.
Instinct had me wrapping my legs around his waist, and my eyes went wide as I felt the effects of our kiss against me.
"Where the hell is your bedroom?"
"Up the stairs to the left."
With a grunt of acknowledgment, he took the stairs as fast as he could and banged open the door. The innocent decor of my bedroom made me cringe. My childhood desk remained in the corner, a pink floral comforter pulled up to my headboard, and the fairy lights my mother had given me when I was four were still strung along one wall.
Burke either didn't notice or didn't care. Gently, he laid me on the bed before removing his jacket and lowering down on top of me. He kissed me again and again, his mouth never leaving mine as he worked his shoes off and freed his tie from its knot. He fused his mouth to mine, and I knew I'd lost my mind.
While his hands roamed, his mouth stayed in place. He caressed my lips with his, easing me into a cloud of pleasure. Need and want raced within me, things I never expected to experience, let alone with him. He groaned when I touched his face, when I trailed my hands down his corded neck and to his broad shoulders. When I unbuttoned his shirt and worked my hands inside, he moaned and broke the never-ending kiss.
Burke gazed down at me with such passion that I felt wanted for the first time in my life. Wanted as a man desires a woman, as a partner lusts for their mate. I pulled him back to me, planted my mouth on his, and arched my back. I couldn't breathe without inhaling his scent; it was all around me, surrounding me, inside me. I needed him inside me.
"Please," was all I said.
Burke tugged at my hoodie until I sat up and he pulled it away. I wasn't wearing a bra, and my small breasts embarrassed me until he put his mouth on them and I forgot my own name. With trembling hands, I pushed his shirt off his shoulders. His skin was warm, and it was mine. I touched, stroked, possessed as he reciprocated. My taut nipples ached with each tug of his lips, at every twist between his fingers. Tentatively, I brushed against the monster nestled between his powerful thighs, and he hissed a breath.
Quickly, he stood long enough to unfasten his pants, and I worried I would lose my nerve. Instead, I inhaled deeply and pushed my sweats down, kicking them off and hesitating with my hands on the waistband of my underwear.
In my own mind, I was already past the point of no return. There was no going back to Kinsley the boring, Kinsley the virgin, the lonely island. Burke wanted me, and he would have me.
"Mine," I said out loud, and he grinned.
That boyish look was what it took for me to drum up the courage to take off my underwear. I was naked in front of a man for the first time, but not just any man; the one I'd desired all throughout high school despite his disregard for me.
