Beau walked over to the console table, dropping his keys with a clatter before taking his wallet out of his back pocket.
Having been possessed by something wanton and possibly unhinged, I moved to where he had shrugged off his jacket. He didn’t realize how close I was until he turned around.
I could smell him. And her. Her perfume was cloying with its elegance and obvious expense.
I didn’t wear perfume. Couldn’t afford the indulgence. I used natural, vanilla-scented body cream. Although Beau didn’t explicitly police my personal care products, I cared about Clara being exposed to possible fragrance irritants.
“Hannah.” His voice was deeper, rougher, his eyes skirting over my tank top, my bare legs. “Go the fuck to bed.”
Beau always kept a certain control with me. Each word was measured, even if it was harsh. His glowers were calculated. Even his movements seemed almost robotic, like he thought carefully about where he’d put his body when I was around.
Yet there was no control in his voice then. I could hear it fraying, and not because he was irritated. Because he was turned on. Of that I was certain. The looks he’d given me, the intensity between us, the flicker of his eyes on my skin that flared in hunger for a split second. Where I’d previously been shy, self-deprecating, I was suddenly imbued with a confidence I hadn’t known I was capable of.
A confidence given to me by Beau.
The way he’d looked at me at the wedding gave me all the courage I needed.
“I’ll go to bed.” I gulped down my nerves. “If you tell me you didn’t have sex with her.” I stepped forward, my shaking fingers sliding down the buttons of his shirt. “If I can go toyourbed.”
I felt as if I were suspended on the ceiling, watching myself say these words.
Who was this person? I didn’t hate her, but she terrified me. She was giving in to all my desires. My heartbeat was becoming painful, my body shaking with fear. With need. A need I’d been suppressing, denying, no longer able to be stifled.
Beau let out a harsh breath, his body going stock-still as my fingers ascended the buttons of his shirt, brushing where it exposed the smooth column of his muscled neck, grazing over the rough hair of his beard. I smelled the oil he used in it tonight—vanilla and spice. Deep and pleasing.
I tilted my head upward, the TV flashing at the perfect moment to catch the twitch of his iron jaw beneath his beard, his wild stormy eyes, and a vein pulsing in his neck.
“I hope you didn’t fuck her,” I whispered, the harsh word tasting strange in my mouth. I didn’t curse because, again, it made me like my mother. Also, I worked with a small child whose brain was like a sponge.
But I liked the sharpness of the word. My hand crept up to the column of his neck, brushing his Adam’s apple as he visibly swallowed. “I want you to fuckme.”
The second I got the words out of my mouth, Beau clasped my shoulders tightly, though not enough to hurt me. A man with hands that large, with that much obvious strength, could bruise someone of my stature by accident. I knew all too well how easily a man could hurt a woman. And I also knew that Beau would never hurt me.
I thought he was gripping me like that to push me away, my stomach sinking in embarrassment and biting rejection.
But then my back hit the wall, his body pressing into mine. He lay his palms flat, caging me in.
His breath came in rough pants as his eyes consumed me with a hunger that had only been hinted at in the glances I’d caught. Clearly, I hadn’t experienced the pure breadth of it. It was like viewing an iceberg underneath the surface, seeing hisdesire stripped away from whatever barriers he’d created. It took my breath away. Never had anyone looked at me with such naked need.
“Hannah.” The way he uttered my name was a warning, a prayer, a term of endearment, a four-letter word, a threat … all in one.
My body sang in response to just seeing my name on his lips, his expression, the heat emanating from his body. From the power that pulsed through my veins at seeing Beau undone.
“Beau,” I whispered, my voice breathy with need, tipping my head back.
One of his hands left the wall, and his fingertips traced over my jaw, trailing down the column of my neck then between my breasts.
My thighs squeezed together as my pussy pulsed, my nipples pebbling against the thin fabric of my camisole.
I arched my back into his hands, aching for more than just the tip of his finger. But he didn’t give me that. His fingertip crept between my breasts then down, over the top of my camisole, missing my aching nipples, brushing over my navel, then down to the side of my hip where he palmed my ribs, grasping on to me with the same grip on my shoulder—tight enough to show his urgency, his need, but never enough to hurt.
I was barely able to hold myself up. Barely able to breathe with his hands on me. In my wildest dreams, I never thought I’d be here, pinned to the wall by Beau. My wanton advance had been a Hail Mary—a moment of madness. I hadn’t thought that it would result inthis,inBeaushowingme he wanted me. Wanted me a lot more than even I had dared to dream. I’d only let myself think he wanted me because he was a man, one who had denied himself pleasures of the flesh in the wake of his daughter’s terrible illness. And he wanted me because I was just … female, not hideous, and the closest, despite his dislike for me.
But his gaze, his energy, his reverent touch, the way the column of his neck tensed, veins protruding in restraint as he stared at me… all of that denoted a heck of a lot more than biological want. No, he’d been hiding this under glares, cruel words, and dismissals. The weight of his need for me almost brought me to my knees.
My head was buzzing from the rapid change in our dynamic, at the rush of feelings I’d been denying myself because I was embarrassed to want someone who treated me so badly. A magnetism toward Beau, his presence, his size, his brooding, hurt gaze. All of it had been catnip to me.
My lips parted, and my tongue darted out to lick them. But we were so close that my tongue brushed his lips too. The contact was a shock to my system. It was ecstasy, it was the promise of a kiss that would blow my mind.
