Damn them for that!
Wincing, she ran her hand over the additional scars that fell in horrific lines across both of his sides. She couldn’t imagine what had caused those. “What did they do to you?”
His heart pounded under her fingertips as his hazel gaze burned into her. “They tried to make me confess to killing my family.”
And no one could make Bastien Cabarro say or do anything he didn’t want to. “You were ever the most aggravating man alive.”
He leaned his head back as she nibbled at his jaw.
Ember savored the taste of him and forced herself not to sink her teeth into his flesh and draw blood as she remembered him at his wedding.…
To her sister.
How could she be so angry and hungry for him at the same time?
But the truth was she hadn’t been near another man in so long she could barely recall the name of her last boyfriend. Most men fled the moment they heard she had a son.
The rest, the minute they met her insane family. Indeed, her sisters scared off everyone.
Bastien had taken their open hostility toward him as a personal challenge. One by one, he’d targeted her sisters until he made them like him.
She still didn’t know how he’d managed. Especially Brand. She hated everyone.
But not Bastien.
His hands trembled as he opened her jacket and shirt until he could touch her breasts. The heated look in his eyes stole her breath. The raw hunger there was tangible. And when he dipped his head down to taste her, she growled at how good his mouth felt against her flesh. She cupped his face in her hands, relishing the sensation of his prickly whiskers scraping her palms.
How she’d missed him. And when he dipped his hand down to gently finger her she cried out in bliss.
He pulled back to stare down at her. “You’re right. I hate this fighter, because right now, I really want to taste you.”
Laughing, she shrugged her top off, then the two of them struggled with her pants. “Agreed. Next time, a bigger ship. How did we do this before?”
“Like this.” He slid her pants down until she was naked in his lap.
“Just so you know, Bas, if you get a call, I’m going to kill you.”
He snorted at her threat. “Don’t worry. I can promise you there’s no way I’ll answer. Besides, I don’t have anyone who would bother.”
Those words saddened her because she knew he wasn’t joking. Bastien had always been a loner. That had been her greatest surprise about him when they first started dating. Because of the hatchet job reporters had done against him where they ran with unverified rumors, she’d thought him a monster party animal who had dozens of friends around him at all times.
But he’d been burned so many times by people cozying up to him due to his fame and money, just so that they could be in the papers or have stories to tell to others, he’d been highly cautious about so-called friendships. Very few got past his defenses and were allowed to see the side of him that she’d known.
And that she’d cherished most.
He’d been hers alone.
Bastien sucked his breath in at how good it felt to hold Ember again. To have her hands and body sliding against his. It’d been so long since he last had any sort of tenderness. Had the scent of a woman on his skin…
It took everything he had not to rush this. And at the same time, he wanted to take as long as possible to savor every bit of it. Her scent. Her touch. Her taste. He wanted to brand all of it into his memory so that if she threw him away again, he’d have something to hold on to. Fresh memories that weren’t faded by time.
Closing his eyes, he groaned as she nibbled her way down his throat. In all his life, no one had ever touched him the way she did. Not just his skin. She penetrated all the way to his soul.
And when she finally slid herself onto him, he almost came instantly. It took everything he had to stay in check.
“You okay, baby?”
Biting his lip, he nodded. “Seeing stars.”
