His hand stilled abruptly. On a low growl, he dropped the sanding block and shoved the headboard away from him, vaulting to his feet. Naomi stepped back, instantly questioning her own sanity for provoking him. It was hard for her to remember sometimes what he was, what this dangerous Breed male could do to her.
At the moment, though, he was simply Asher, the man who was turning her life upside down with a desire she didn’t want to feel. A longing that centered wholly on him, this dangerous, solitary man she wanted against everything sane and reasonable she knew.
She stood her ground as he prowled toward her, albeit with a slight tremble in her limbs.
His stare incinerated her, his eyes ablaze and glowing with hot amber light. Theglyphson his broad chest and powerful arms swirled and seethed with a riot of dark colors—indigo, wine, and gold. His jaw was rigid, but as he pulled a breath through his tight lips, she glimpsed the pointed tips of his fangs.
“Yes, Naomi,” he said, his deep voice as rough as gravel. “When I kissed you, it was because you were crying.”
She inhaled sharply, hating that it sounded so much like a catch in her throat. When she glanced away from his searing stare, he reached out. His large hand curved around the back of her neck, leaving her no choice but to look at him.
“I kissed you because your tears put an ache in me, too,” he murmured. He shook his head, piercing her with those otherworldly eyes that seemed to hold even more torment than what she felt churning inside her. “And because as much as I knew it would be a mistake to taste your lips, not even that was enough to make me want you any less.”
Before she could say a word, he lowered his head to hers and took her mouth again. Not the tender brush of his lips against hers like in the truck the other night, but deep and hungered and raw. His tongue invaded, scorching her from the inside with every fevered lick and thrust. He kissed her like he wanted to eat her alive.
Like he’d been starving to taste her again and now nothing would keep him from claiming all of her.
The desire that had been smoldering between them since she woke up for the first time in his bed, alive only because of him, now exploded into a heat neither of them seemed able to contain. Where their first kiss had been tentative and uncertain, this one left no doubt about what they both wanted—needed—from each other.
Asher put his hand under the long hem of the T-shirt she wore. He moaned against her mouth, his fingers stroking over the thin fabric of her panties.
“Seeing you in this last night was torture. Now I can’t ever wear it again without picturing you in it like this.” He cupped her sex, kneading the growing ache that bloomed there. “And then knowing you were in my shower, naked and wet . . .fuck.”
His caress grew more intense, his big hand spreading her legs wider, granting him better access to the drenched juncture between her thighs. She arched into his touch, clutching his shoulders as her head spun with pleasure. His fingers were hot as he swept aside her panties, then delved into her slick cleft. Sensation shot through her with each caress, each rhythmic plunge of his fingers into her quivering body.
“Thisis what I wanted to do,” he uttered between heated kisses, trailing his mouth down onto her throat as he brought her to the brink of madness with his hand. “It took all I had not to walk down that short hallway and join you in there.”
Naomi moaned, moving helplessly against his palm and fingers.“Asher.”
“That’s right,” he growled. “Now, maybe you understand why I kissed you. And last night as you showered in the next room, what I wanted more than anything was to feel you slippery and wet under my fingers, and then I wanted to fuck you, Naomi. I wanted to push you against the tiles and drive into you until I no longer felt this damnable need to be inside you.”
“Oh, God.” She was panting from his wicked touch, on the verge of climaxing right where she stood. “I wouldn’t have stopped you, Asher. I had all those same thoughts too. I wanted all those same things. It’s what I pictured as I touched myself in there. Imagining it was you touching me, stroking me the way you are now.”
He purred low in his throat and stared at her with fiery need. “Did you stand under the warm spray and come thinking about me, sweet little Narumi?”
The sound of her name—her real name—should have felt wrong, jarring even.
No one called her that now. She didn’t permit it. But hearing her given name on Asher’s lips, especially when he was looking at her as though she belonged to him and only him, untethered something deep inside her.
She felt freed.
She felt seen.
And she felt safe, truly safe, perhaps for the first time in her life.
“Yes,” she sighed against his lips when he came back for another kiss. “I did come thinking about you. Then I spent the rest of the night alone in your bed, wondering if you’d come in and join me. Wishing you would.”
He let out a rough curse, the sound punctuated by the rip of her panties being torn away. Asher pulled the T-shirt over her head, then ran his hands along every inch of her nakedness. His muscles bunched and flexed, hisglyphspulsing and alive with color and movement—like living art dancing on his golden skin.
She couldn’t bear the impatience to feel all of him too.
Skimming her hands down the sides of his torso, she shivered at the pure strength of him. There was no doubt he was more than mortal, no question that he was the most lethal, powerful man she’d ever been close to. But he was also flesh and bone, all of it pulsing and formidable and hot beneath her questing fingers.
He moaned low in his throat when she reached into the loose waistband of his jeans and took hold of his cock. Her breath stopped for a moment as she realized his size. But any hesitation she knew was burned away in the next instant as he thrust in her grasp, hissing when she gripped him tighter and began to stroke his length.
“I want to see you,” she whispered. “I need to feel all of you.”
When she fumbled a bit, he took over, unfastening the button and zipper and shoving the denim down. Naomi stared, marveling at the beautifulglyphsthat tracked around his lean hips and onto his groin, disappearing into the dark thatch at the root of his cock.
