“Austin?” My voice came out as a shaky murmur. “What are you doing up here?”
“I saw your shadow in the window. The kitchen door was unlocked.”
He took a step into the room, then another, closing the distance between us until he was only a few feet away. The sheer heat radiating from him was a physical force, changing the atmosphere of the dusty room. My body responded instantly with a deep, primal clench low in my belly, a current of pure awareness that made the fine hairs on my arms stand on end.
He wasn’t here to talk about contractors. He wasn’t here to check on loose siding.
He was here for me.
“I can’t stop thinking about you.” His words were low and strained, as if they’d been torn from him against his will. “I try to work, I try to sleep. It doesn’t matter. You’re just… everywhere. All I can think about is more.”
The storm had made landfall. This wasn’t the grumpy, guarded neighbor. This was a man whose cement walls were completely demolished. All my carefully rehearsed witticisms, my G-rated swear substitutes, evaporated into the dusty air.
There was only this.
Him. Here. Now.
The torture was clear in his expression, the battle he was losing with himself. What had happened to this man to make him fight so hard against something he clearly wanted so much?
“What about me being your peace-wrecking neighbor?” My voice, when I found it, was strong. I needed to be sure, to understand this sudden reversal. “The prize-winning hibiscus destroyer?” I used his own accusations against him, needing to hear him deny them. Needing to know that he saw me, not just the mess I’d made.
His expression tightened, a flicker of self-reproach crossing his features. He took a half-step closer, his gaze so searing it was like a physical touch. “You are. You’re all of those goddamn things. You’ve turned my life upside down.” He paused, his eyes dropping to my mouth for a fraction of a second. “And none of that matters. Because you’re so much more.”
That was the confirmation. The unvarnished, utterly Austin-like admission. It was an acknowledgment that, despite all the reasons he shouldn’t, emotion was overriding everything else.
He crossed the remaining distance between us in two urgent strides, his hands framing my face. His trembling thumbs traced my cheekbones.
“If you don’t want this, you need to say so.” His voice came out in a low, choking growl. “Now. Because I’m at my breaking point here, Iris. I’m dying.”
There was no more awkward dancing around. He was laying it all on the line, giving me the final choice. The power in that moment, the sheer force of his need mirroring my unspoken want, was euphoric.
I managed a single, jerky nod. “You’re not wrong. Iwant this. You’ve been living in my head for weeks, Austin. I can’t… I can’t get you out either.”
He surged forward and slammed his lips to mine.
It was deep, hungry. A kiss that saidyes, that saiddon’t you dare even think about stopping.
He groaned into my mouth, a sound of surrender and victory all at once, and the charged atmosphere between us ignited. His hands plunged into my hair and yanked me closer, deeper, as if he could consume me entirely. I could taste his desperation, his weeks of pent-up need as I plunged my tongue into his mouth, and it made me wild.
We were a tangle of frantic hands and desperate mouths in the stifling room, tearing at the barriers of clothing between us. Urgent. Primal. A button popped off my shirt as he tore it open, skittering away into the plaster dust, forgotten. I yanked his shirt over his head with clumsy, desperate fingers, needing to feel his skin against mine like I needed air.
“Christ, Iris,” he rasped against my throat, his voice breaking. “I’ve wanted you so bad.”
His confession sent liquid fire straight to my core. I fumbled with his belt, and he groaned when my knuckles brushed against the hard ridge of his arousal straining against his jeans. I slid them down until they dropped to the floor. He was steel wrapped in denim, and knowing I did that to him made me dizzy with power.
“God, you turn me on,” I breathed.
He answered by gripping the waistband of my shorts and yanking them down my legs in one swift, possessive motion. I kicked them away, along with my underwear, suddenly desperate to be bare for him.
Our clothes were strewn over the dusty floor in a heap of denim and cotton. I inhaled the dusty air as my eyesdrank him in. His body was lean, corded with the hard, functional muscle of a man who worked with his hands and body. A light dusting of dark hair covered his chest, trailing down his abdomen. He was beautiful. Raw and real and overwhelmingly male.
The way he stared at me made my knees wobble. Like he was starving, and I was his salvation.
He backed me up against the wide windowsill of the demolished room, his hands sliding up my sides, leaving trails of fire in their wake. He lifted me onto the sill, the dusty wood cool under my heated skin. For a moment, he just looked at me, his eyes so dark they were almost black, his chest rising and falling with harsh breaths.
“Jesus, you’re beautiful,” he choked out. “I’ve imagined this… God, I’ve imagined this.”
Then his mouth was on me again, exploring, claiming. His lips traced a burning path down my throat, and I could feel his desperation in every kiss, every nip of his teeth. When he reached the sensitive spot where my neck met my shoulder, he bit down gently, and I cried out, my back arching.
