No, what I see in those emerald eyes is a spark.
I knew it. She can’t leave me that easily, and I can read that all over her face, over the way her body has rotated to face me instead of trying to pull away.
“You’re not going anywhere.” With a careful force—assertive yet gentle—I grab her by the hips and lift her up, rotating her so I can press her up against the wall. “You’re mine, Rachel.”
And I show her just how much I mean it by pressing my mouth against hers.
Chapter 28
Rachel
Karan’s mouth on mine stokes the dying embers scattered all across my spine. Whatever was running through my head instants before—whatever was pushing me to leave—falls away to dust.
Before now, Karan has always been a gentle man. He knows how to get rough from time to time, but his kind, patient nature makes it so that he likes to take his time with me.
That patience is out the window now as he kisses me more fiercely than he ever has.
The way his tongue claims my mouth, how our teeth collide, the breathless gasps that escape both of our lips as he presses me up against the wall… It sweeps me up in a tornado of desire. Karan’s hand finds my hip and grips me, hard enough to elicit a whimper from me.
If this were our first time, I know he’d pause, back away, and ask if this is okay.
But this is far from our first time. He knows me, knows my sounds, knows what makes me tick. And he knows that whimper is begging him for more.
The long fingers of his free hand grab the back of my head and tilts me up to give him better access. I’m drowning in the clean taste of him, and as he moves closer up against me to pin me completely against the wall, I gasp at the delicious pressure of his hips and the rock-hard length between them. My lower belly coils, winding up tight.
“You’re mine,” he repeats, his voice husky and ragged as he pulls away from the kiss just long enough to press our foreheads together. “You hear that, Rach? You’re mine, and you’re worth fighting for. Let me show you just how much.”
He trails kisses down my jaw and into the hollow of my throat, and I revel in the soft yet prickly sensation of his beard scraping against my sensitive skin.
I didn’t expect this. Not at all. When I got up from that chair, ready to leave this place, I was certain Karan was going to let me go. I’d imagined that maybe he would argue with me, using his words and his words alone. Only in my wildest dreams did I imagine that he’d truly fight for me like this.
Now, I’ve never wanted him more.
My hands weave through his hair, loosening the bun holding it in place; an obscene sound escapes Karan’s lips when I run my nails along his scalp. As he kisses, sucks, and pulls his way down my shoulders and into my collarbone, his palms squeeze my hip on one side and my ass on the other.
I want to cry out in protest when the heat of his hands move away, but I resist when I feel him use those hands to lift the hem of my sweater.
“Karan,” I gasp against the scrape of his teeth between my breasts.
“Baby,” he sighs, right before wrapping his mouth around my left nipple, his thumb flicking the other in sync with the roll of his tongue.
The sensations pulse through me like shocks of electricity, zapping straight to my lower belly. My hips buck in a frantic effort to relieve the pressure there.
“God, your skin,” he whispers against my breast. “You drive me wild, Rach.”
He looks up at me, those warm eyes now hooded and darkened.
“But imagining you leaving, and someone else having you…”
I raise an eyebrow. “Jealous, are you?”
“Understatement of the century.”
He kisses his way down my belly, and the anticipation at knowing exactly where he’s going is killing me.
It’s been so long since he’s touched me like this, and every scrape of his beard, every flicker of his tongue against my skin, feels like heaven.
“I’m going to remind you how good I can make you feel; how loud I can make you scream my name, and no one else’s.”
