“Yeah.” My voice cracked, and inside I winced at how pathetic I sounded.
Amusement lightened the gray in her eyes. Then, challenge darkened them. They hadn’t turned black when I’d kissed her, but right now the pupils were slowly dilating back and forth as she slowly looked over my body. Every single inch of skin smoldered beneath her glance, and gasoline flowed through my veins awaiting a struck match.
She lifted her gaze to blink back at me before asking softly. “Would you kneel before me?”
Without hesitation.
I dropped my gaze to the tips of those diminutive toes, running leisurely up toned legs to the scalloped trim of her panties that banded her hips and dipped between her thighs. White and plain and innocent. My favorite kind.
My mouth watered, and I swallowed hard. Right now, I didn’t know which one of us was the hunter and which was the prey.
My kiss-swollen lips still tingled and stung with the memory of her mouth on mine, delicious sunshine melting over my tongue like candy.
That kiss.
That godsdamned mind-obliterating kiss.
She’d branded me with her kiss.
Written poetry across my skin.
Bitten it into my flesh and scratched it in red sweeping lines.
Made me bleed and hurt and want and crave.
Fuck, I wanted her.
Her lush lips had imprinted themselves on mine with kisses that were savage, then soft. Brutal bites, then soothing licks. Her tongue had caressed mine in a slow, sensual rhythm, like she was fucking me already.
My hands roamed and clasped every inch of her body. I couldn’t get enough of her sunshine kisses. But there’d been something lingering beneath those golden rays, as if a cloud had passed overhead and cast cold shadows.
The raw edge of guilt sliced through my heart.
The last time I’d kissed her was the morning of my betrayal, on the rickety porch of the whitewashed cottage, sitting on a swing chair with her lying down, resting her head on my lap as the sun rose higher. In the background, insects buzzed, a gentle rustle of rushes and distant bird calls, while water gently lapped the rocky shore of the lake. I’d stroked my fingers gently through her tangled hair as she’d fallen into a waking dream and whispered what was in my heart and kissed her with the bleak sting of despair on my lips.
Movement brought me back to the present, snapping me out of melancholy and straight into excitement. Nelle moved her weight to one hip, casually bending one knee, the tips of her toes resting on stone.
She eased her thumbs beneath the waistband of her panties.
Get. Them. Off!
She stretched the fabric taut and away from the curve of her hips, taunting me with a wiggle. “How much do you want me? Want this?”
Pretty fucking badly.
But for some stupid reason, I couldn’t voice it.
Nelle slyly grinned back at me as if she had read the desperation in my mind.
She let the panties go with asnap.
My entire body jolted in response, and my godsdamned balls almost unleashed.
Holy hellsgate…
My fist wrapped around my cock’s angry length and pumped a slow stroke, one more, to stop myself from coming.
I blew out a long, unsteady breath.
