But she shook her head, vehemently. “You haven’t told me anything!”
“Well, you’ve successfully worn me down. Congratulations. Ten questions, Nadine, and I get to pick the venue. It’s the best you’re going to get out of me, so I suggest you take it.”
“What’s the catch?”
Cal closed what space remained between them, giving her ponytail a little tug that had her mouth dropping open in shocked outrage. So he did it again, smiling fiercely as he wound the silky auburn locks around his fingers like a lead. “This.”
Whether her mouth opened in invitation or protest, the effect on him was still the same. Her lips were just as plush as he’d imagined during all those restless nights, and the way she yielded to his brutal assault made him anticipate even sweeter surrenders.
She put her hands on him, pressing against his chest as if she were trying to move a boulder. Putting her weight into it. He pushed back, muscles flexing, and nearly growled at the sensation of her fingers spreading to touch him through his shirt with more boldness than he’d expected.
And when his fist tightened around her hair, winding her closer, shebithim.
Cal kissed her harder, abandoning any pretense of genteel courtship to claim her mouth in a thorough, desperate sweep. She jolted against him as his fingers traced over the soft, bare skin of her midriff, her breaths staggering against his face and throat. He slipped his hand beneath the hem of her shirt, strumming the lower bars of her ribs until he encountered the cotton band of her bra. The loosely tied sweatshirt fell to the ground, one less layer between their hips. He wondered absentlyif she could feel how hard he was. Probably, if her trembling was any indication.
Her breasts rose and fell against the hard wall of his chest, and she squeezed her eyes shut as if the sensations were far too much. She was like a small, trapped bird in his hands and gods help him, he wanted to take her.
Fuck her.
Breedher.
Cal exhaled sharply, moving his palms back to her hips, her round belly. A sound left her when his thumb grazed the downy skin around her navel before dipping to the straining button of her too-tight jeans. Watching her face with a predator’s intent, he took in her quivering lashes, every syncopated puff of air from her nose as she struggled to breathe.Look at me, he thought, running his thumbnail over the seam of her fly.I want to see your eyes while I touch you.
A bead of pre-come rolled down his shaft. The gouge of the zipper track against the sensitized flesh of his cockhead was verging into agony, but he didn’t adjust himself.
Her moan was barely audible as he traced the tops of her jeans, just grazing flesh. She was hot to the touch and he could imagine—that soft warmth giving away to slick, luxurious heat. There was no doubt in his mind she was wet. Her fucking legs were shaking.
“I could do this all day,” he whispered, giving her lower lip a final tug with his teeth before allowing it to snap back into place, “but perhaps—we should relocate.”
She looked at him like she was drunk. Her pupils were so dark that her pretty grey eyes were nearly black; he could see his own reflection in them like dark mirrors. “What?” she asked dazedly.
Cal tilted her head with his hand, and her limbs stiffened in his embrace as she took in the people who were now busily trying to pretend that they hadn’t all been staring. “Oh!” she cried out, yanking back from him as if burned. She rubbed her palms on her jeans in a way that might have caused offense if he hadn’t been touching him like she couldn’t bear to let go, either.
He touched his still-stinging lip with a smile and was pleased to see her eyes track the movement. “Funny,” he murmured. “You don’t kiss like a prude.”
She glared at him for that, tugging down her shirt. Molding it to her torso. It became imminently clear, even in this stifling heat, that her nipples were hard.
He looked at them with interest until she folded her arms, blocking his view. “Why did you do that?”
“Because I wanted to.” Cal picked up her sweatshirt and gave it a few shakes to get the grass and dirt off. She eyed it like it was a snake before freeing up a hand to snatch it back, hunching her shoulders as she knotted it back around her waist.
Soon you won’t want to hide from me, he thought.
Nadine dropped the sleeves, letting them dangle against her knees. Cal carefully schooled his expression as he popped on his sunglasses, throwing the town square back into comfortable sepia-shaded darkness.
For now, he could be patient. Civil.Gentlemanly. He could playact the lord of the manor until she realized it was a cage. Hers. His. Did it even really matter?
He was a raven and she was a sparrow.
Fate had already decided for them both.
C H A P T E R
F I V E
brutal honesty
Summers in Argentum were a veritable feast for the senses: riots of wildflowers unfurled across the hills in tongues of prismatic fire and the air itself became choked with the resinous notes of pine pollen. The early settlers had done their best to pare back the wilderness, but nature had a certain lawlessness that could be governed by no man; it always found a way back.
