Page 19

With a step backwards, he led me to the leather couch. He stripped out of Ryan’s T-shirt. I swallowed the saliva in my mouth. His body was a tapestry of ink, muscle, and scars. Broad shoulders tapered to a trim waist. The ladder of his ribs connected to defined abdominals. He wasn’t built like the gym rats that looked for hookups at Holly’s club. Brett Steele was honed from a life lived on the edge.

He sat and pulled me down on top of him to straddle his lap. With my hands braced against his shoulders, I kissed him. This time, I plunged my tongue into his mouth. I’d kissed boys before Jeff but never had I kissed a man like this.

Brett held my hips, but he let me take the lead. I rocked my pelvis against his cock. The rigid shaft was barely contained beneath the fabric of the sweats. I’d tossed his clothes into the dryer, including his underwear, which had been sexy as hell boxer briefs. Now, everything I felt between my legs was hard and thick and unrestrained.

With a tug on the hem of my sweatshirt, he found his way under my shirt. His touch against my trembling flesh had me gasping. My breath hitched, and my core contracted. More. I needed so much more.

Seeming to understand, he grazed his fingertips along my belly. I broke the kiss and stared into his eyes as he trekked higher. Because I wasn’t wearing a bra, he gently cradled my breast in his palm. My nipple hardened, and I sank my teeth into my lip.

A deviant smile twisted his lips. “I want to see you.”

His voice was dark and sensual and slipped under my skin, coiled around my bones, and pooled heat low in my belly.

I fingered the edge of my hoodie and lifted it over my head. The warmth of the fire radiated into the room but had nothing to do with the whiskey-laced fire singing through my veins. I wasn’t ashamed of my body. I had hips and breasts.

Brett stared at me. His fingers tangled with the hair around my shoulders, then traced a delicate line from my collarbone to my breasts. Breath came fast and shallow as he brushed his knuckles over my nipple sending shivers across my skin.

I feathered my fingers through the hair at his temple. I didn’t know what to say. And I was hesitant to do what I wanted. To feel pleasure again. To feel desired. To feel anything but grief and anger.

Our gazes locked, and his throat flexed on a swallow. “You’re beautiful.” Leaning forward, he splayed his hands against my back and gently blew on my nipple. The tip puckered and tightened. “I’m going to make you feel so good.” Then he sucked my breast into his mouth.

A low moan rolled out of me. I clutched his head and anchored him to my breast as he swirled his tongue around my nipple. He laved one and then the other.

Brett reached between us, thrust his hand into the front of his sweats, and adjusted his cock. I stilled, staring at the blunt dome and two inches of length stretching above the waistband. Fluids glistened on the slit.

“Whatever you want,” he whispered.

I lifted my gaze to his, and my voice was quiet in the room. “I want you.” I didn’t want him to be anything but who he was. No hiding behind a fake smile. No telling me what he thought I wanted to hear. No game. Raw and unscripted. “What are you thinking right now?”

“Baby, you don’t want to know what I’m thinking.”

“I do. The truth. No filters. Tell me everything.”

A sexy tilt to his lips had my tummy tumbling. Brett pushed the sweats lower until he exposed his cock. He was huge and beautifully masculine. The shaft was thick and long with a deep flush. Veins roped the length. He fisted the base but kept his gaze locked on me. “Truth. I think you’re beautiful when you cry. Your eyes glow, and your lips tremble. But I want to see tears in your eyes because you’re choking on my cock.”

My breath caught, and I sucked in a sharp inhale.

“I’m hungry, baby, and I want you on my mouth, trembling, as you break apart.” He grazed his knuckled over my nipple again, lower across my navel, and then he traced the edge of my leggings. “And I want to strip you out of these, split your thighs, and fuck the shit out of you.”

Brett Steele was no one I should want, but tonight, he was everything I needed. I swallowed down my fear and scooted off his lap. Standing before him, with the fire behind me, I tucked my thumbs into my leggings, inched them over my hips, and pushed them down my legs. Once I stepped out of them, I moved to stand in front of him.

He braced his hands on my hips and pressed a kiss to my belly. My stomach was flat, but my body bore the scars of a girl too young to easily carry a baby. Stretch marks crisscrossed my lower abdomen. A pencil thin line marked the incision where they’d cut me open to make me a mother.

Brett ghosted kisses along the sensitive skin of my pelvis and coasted his hands around to my ass. I threaded my fingers through his soft hair and took a half step wider, silently inviting him where I ached the most. He reached between my legs, slid his finger along my soaked slit, and pushed inside me. After two plunges, he doubled up.

“Oh, god.” My knees weakened. My head tipped forward as Brett glanced up at me. I kissed him again, crushing my mouth to his as he sawed his fingers in and out of me. His tongue glided along mine, gently sucking and tasting.

This was me, kissing a man. His hands were on me—in me.

“Your pussy is so fucking soft and wet.” He slid his fingers deep inside. “You’re tight. If you’re going to ride my cock, I need you to come for me first.”

His filthy mouth did wicked things to me. The sound of the juices dripping out of me was nearly obscene. Fluids trickled onto my inner thigh. My pussy clenched around his fingers.

“I’m going to have you coming on my fingers, my mouth, and my cock.” He twisted and turned his hand, fucking me with his fingers.

I whimpered, clawing his shoulders. My thighs shook and my breaths came harder and faster.

“That’s it. Ride my fingers.”