Page 14

He lets me shove him down onto that ugly floral spread. Lets me. The words echo in my skull because Walker Creed doesn’t let anyone do anything. He chooses. He permits. He watches me with those grey-blue eyes gone dark with hunger and waits to see what I’ll do next.

I climb onto his lap, knees bracketing his hips, and the denim of his jeans drags against my covered inner thighs. He’s already hard beneath me, thick and unmistakable, and I grind down against him just to feel the way his body tightens, the way his hands fist at his sides like he’s forcing himself not to touch me.

“Hands flat on the bed,” I tell him, but he doesn’t move. “I said...”

“I heard you.” His voice is gravel and smoke. “Make me.”

I lean down until my mouth hovers over his, close enough to taste his breath, close enough to bite. “You want me to work for it?”

“I want to see what you’ll do.”

What I’ll do. As if I fucking know. As if anything about this moment follows the rules I’ve lived by. I was supposed to put a bullet in him hours ago. Instead, I’m straddling him in a roadside motel, drunk on the smell of him, desperate to feel him inside me before I lose my nerve.

I kiss him like I’m trying to consume him, like I can swallow down whatever goodness I saw in him days ago and make it part of myself. He meets me with equal ferocity, teeth catching my lower lip hard enough to sting, and I moan into his mouth because the pain grounds me.

“Fuck,” he breathes against my jaw. “Poppy...”

“Don’t.” I pull back enough to see his face, flushed and sharp and beautiful. “Don’t say my name like that. Not while you’re looking at me like you know me.”

“I don’t know you.” His hands finally move, gripping my hips hard enough to bruise. “But I want to. I want to know what makes you carry a blade and smile at death. I want to know why you walked into that warehouse like you had nothing to lose.”

“Maybe I don’t.”

“Bullshit.” He surges up, flipping us so fast my head spins, pinning me beneath him on the mattress. “You’re terrified. I can taste it on you.”

I buck against him, furious and aroused and hating how right he is. My voice shakes with more rage than I mean to show. “Get off me.”

“No.” He catches my wrists, pressing them into the bed above my head. “Not until you admit you’re running from something.”

“Fuck you.”

“Eventually.” He grinds his hips against mine, rougher and more insistent than before, frustration bleeding into every movement. “But first you’re going to tell me...”

I arch up and catch his ear between my teeth, biting hard enough to make him hiss. “I’m going to tell you to shut up and fuck me. That’s what I’m going to tell you.”

He goes still above me. For one heartbeat, two, we stare at each other, both breathing hard, both refusing to be the first to break.

Then he releases my wrists and sits back on his heels, reaching down to unbuckle his belt. “Take off your clothes.”

“Make me,” I throw his words back at him, but I’m already sitting up, already peeling my shirt over my head, already desperate for the feel of him against me.

He watches me with predatory focus as I strip, his hands going still on his zipper. I take my time, letting him look, letting him want. My bra follows my shirt, my pants, my underwear. I kneel naked on the bed in front of him and reach for his fly.

“Lie back,” I say, and this time he listens.

He stretches out on that terrible floral spread, fully clothed except for his open jeans, and the sight of him like that—powerful and patient and waiting for me—sends a fresh rush of heat between my legs. I crawl up his body, dragging my breasts against his still-covered chest, and capture his mouth in another kiss.

“You talk too much,” I murmur against his lips.

“You don’t talk enough,” he counters.

I bite his jaw, his throat, the hollow where his pulse beats visible and strong. He tastes like salt and leather and something uniquely him, something I already know I’ll crave when this is over. If I let it end.

My hands find the waistband of his jeans and push them down, freeing him completely. He’s thick and heavy in my palm, velvet over steel, and I stroke him once, twice, watching his face for every reaction. His eyes flutter shut. His hips buck into my touch. A low groan tears from his throat, raw and unguarded, and I feel it in my core like a physical touch.

“Look at me,” I demand.

His eyes open, hazy and dark, and hold mine as I slide down his body. I kiss his chest through his shirt, his stomach, the sharp jut of his hip bone. I lick a stripe up his side and feel him tense, feel his hand come down to tangle in my hair.