When I draw back to catch my breath, he groans, his gaze hot with desire.
I run my fingers through his thick hair, on fire with need for him all over again. “If you were any better, Jared, I’d never want to leave your bed.”
His mouth curves. “That can be arranged.” Reaching down, he grabs my ass in both hands and grinds his erection into my abdomen. “In fact, let’s start that plan immediately. As I mentioned, there are twenty bedrooms in this house. I think you should see all of them.”
I laugh, despite the heaviness of everything he’s just shared with me. Neither one of us can change our pasts or the people who hurt us, but we’re here. We’ve both survived.
And, at least for now, we have each other.
He kisses me again, melting away what little resistance I have when it comes to him.
“I’m serious,” he murmurs against my lips. “I don’t want to let you go.”
“Rosa only works until five,” I remind him.
“I’ll pay her overtime. I’ll move her into your house.”
I smile and shake my head. “I have a class in the morning.”
“I have internet. You can take it online.”
Laughter bursts out of me as he holds me in the circle of his arms and the overwhelming intensity of his hungered gaze. Dipping his head to the side of my neck, he kisses a trail of fire from my ear to my shoulder.
A shivery sigh slips past my lips. “You’re very persuasive, Mr. Rush.”
“You have no idea.” A nip on the tender curve of my neck sends need spiraling through my veins. “I need you in my bed now, Ms. Laurent.”
I moan. “Persuasive and extremely bossy, too.”
He draws back, grinning as he shakes his head. “Confident.”
“Oh, that’s right.” I reach down, taking his erection in my hand. “Big difference.”
“Yes, it is.” One of his brows wings up over his blistering gaze.
It’s all the warning I get. In the next instant, my feet leave the ground and I’m suddenly tossed over his shoulder in a caveman hold and he carries back out to the waiting bed.
26
JARED
Eventually, I did have to let Melanie escape from my bed and take her home for the evening.
My hunger for her has hardly abated by the next day as I wait in the lobby of the university building to pick her up after her morning class. I’m earlier than I’d planned, having spent the first part of the morning at the house, meeting with Alyssa about her court documents and all the other things the teenage mother-to-be will need to consider when it comes to mapping out a future for her and her child.
Not that I’m anyone who should be offering advice on life. My own has been fucked up for so long, I’m not even sure I know what a normal, happy future would look like. All I know is, right now, I want my days and nights filled with a certain fiery-haired, stubborn beauty who makes me feel more alive than I have at any other time in my whole existence.
My chest constricts at the sight of Melanie walking into the lobby from her class. She’s dressed in white jeans and sandals and an off-the-shoulder top, her hair tumbling loose in a coppery cascade down her back. She looks fresh and innocent, but everything male in me flares hot when I think about all the deliciously dirty ways we enjoyed each other less than twenty-four hours ago.
A small group of classmates surround her as they approach the lobby exit, all of them chatting and laughing over something one of them said. While the other young women are attractive enough, I only have eyes for the beauty at the center of the small gaggle. As her friends break off to go their separate ways, Melanie spots me and her entire face lights up with a bright smile.
Christ, she’s gorgeous.
The power of all that joy aimed at me is almost too much to bear. Still, I greedily soak it up, reveling in the way this woman can make me feel like a fucking god just by looking at me.
The bigger miracle is that she can make me feel that way in spite of the reality that I’m nothing if not physically, pathetically, human. She’s seen the weakness I’ve hidden from nearly everyone close to me, yet it hasn’t seemed to dim how she views me.
The affection in her eyes wraps around me like silk bonds, a connection I haven’t truly earned. Guilt over that fact still claws at me after everything we shared yesterday. It was selfish and cowardly to keep the truth from her in the beginning. All the worse to keep it from her yesterday, too. But no matter how I tried to frame the explanation she needs to hear, the words stayed jammed in my throat.
