“You planning to keep that robe on all night?” Nash murmured.
“There’s barely a few hours left of the night. And I’m cold.”
“You’re afraid. Of me.”
Yes. So, about that scale. “Maybe a two.” A whisper. But, she’d lied. “Or…maybe a nine.” Still not true. “Ten,” she confessed, miserable.
“Fuck.” Anger pulsed in the word.
She flipped toward him because he was beside her in bed. “Well, what do you expect? How do you expect me to feel? You are putting your life on the line! You are fighting men who want to kill you!” He was mere inches away. It would be far too easy to touch him. “You don’t seem to care about the risk to yourself. You act like the danger doesn’t matter. Or, worse, that you like it. So, yes, that terrifies me! You shouldn’t like danger. You should run from danger the way a normal person does. The way I want to run!”
“No, Delaney. No. I mean—you’re terrified of me. Of. Me. Not for me.”
She had a death grip on the covers.
“I saw the way you looked at me when I was taking those intruders down.” Gruff.
“You were relentless.” She would never get those images out of her head. The way he’d just launched at Jacob. The way he’d tossed Lowell through the window. “You attacked brutally.”
“And you’re afraid. Of me.”
Was she? “Yes.” A stark truth that hung in the air between them.
Nash cursed.
She sprang toward him, and Delaney kissed him.
Super huge, super terrible mistake, but she did it. Because while she might fear him, the fear didn’t stop her from wanting him. Nothing had ever stopped her from wanting him. She’d wanted him when she was a lovesick teen. She’d wanted him when she’d been an impassioned college student. She wanted him now, when she was a desperate and afraid adult.
There just had always been something about Nash.
Her lips pressed to his. It was a quick, clumsy kiss. Exceptionally low on the skill and seduction level. She’d just done it to prove a point. Fear didn’t stop her. But he…
His hand curled around her hip. “Do it right,” he growled against her mouth.
Her lips parted.
His tongue thrust inside. A hungry, desperate moan pulled from her lips even as wildfire seemed to ignite in her veins. Her breasts ached, her sex yearned, and she could all too easily imagine stripping off the too hot robe and ditching all the clothes she wore beneath it. Climbing on top of him. Feeling that long, hard dick of his pushing between her legs.
Nash had been the one to teach her all about pleasure. To set her expectations so high in the bedroom that no one else had been able to match him. No one else had come close.
Unfortunately, Nash had also been the one to teach her about pain. As he’d shattered her heart into a million, itty-bitty pieces.
His hand grabbed the belt of her robe. He yanked it loose, and then his fingers slid inside the robe. He caught the edge of her t-shirt. His hand slid under the t-shirt. His warm, callused fingertips touched her skin.
She jerked at the contact.
“That’s gonna be a fucking problem,” he rasped against her mouth. “You kiss me and you fear me and you flinch when I touch you.” Nash began to withdraw his hand.
She caught his wrist. She pushed his hand back against her. “I flinched,” a whisper against his mouth, “because when you touch me, I feel it in every cell of my body. Heat surges all the way through me. When we are skin to skin, I want to forget the years between us and just give in to the need that burns inside of me. A need for you that just won’t stop.” A stark, painful truth.
But…
They shouldn’t. They should not have sex right then.
They. Should. Not. There were a million reasons not to go too far. And…
So much need. Craving. Wanting. Longing.
