He goes still, utterly still, and then he’s turning me to face him, his hands shackling my waist. “Resistant to what?”
“Me. Us. This.”
He tangles his fingers in my hair and kisses me, a wicked thrust of his tongue against my tongue before he demands, “Does that taste like resistance?”
“It tastes like you claiming control, like you need it.”
His hand slides under my sweats and he squeezes my bare backside. “I seem to remember you liking me in control.”
“I do,” I dare. “I like it a lot when I shouldn’t.”
“Why shouldn’t you, Harper?”
“It’s not what I do. I don’t let other people take control. That’s not what my father taught me, but this family, the Kingston family, takes and takes that from me.”
“I’m not a Kingston.”
He’s right. For the first time since he’s denied that birthright, I let him. I understand now that it’s not about what he deserves. It’s about who he is, who he’s become. Where he came from. My hand flattens on his chest. “No. You’re a Mitchell and I like that about you.”
He stares down at me, shadows in his eyes, a storm in their depths before he’s kissing me again and it’s wild, taut with emotion, demanding. He’s demanding, and when I’ve just lost myself to the passion, his mouth is gone, and he’s turning me to face the other way again. It’s the control thing once more. He needs it. He has to have it. It runs deeper than us. It’s about who he is at his core, who life has made him. And I like it. I do. It’s like I need to let him have control. Like I need things I didn’t know I needed and it’s all about him.
He leans in and I feel him pull off his shirt before he’s pressing his naked torso against me, reaching forward to grip my thighs before dragging his hands upward over my hips to cup my breasts again, his teeth scraping my shoulder before he whispers, “You do have control, Harper. All of the control and I don’t let anyone else have control.” He kneels and drags my pants down my legs. His teeth scraping my hip now, but he doesn’t stay on his knees, he doesn’t leave me where I’m at as I expect.
He rotates me and suddenly he’s kissing me and my palms are pressed to warm, taut skin over rippled, perfect muscle. The man is hard all over and I need that hardness next to me, inside me. “Eric,” I whisper, sliding my hands under his waistband. “I need—”
“Me too, sweetheart,” he says, kissing me again, and then he’s releasing me long enough to grab his wallet and hand me a condom. “I’ll put you in charge of this,” he says, heat radiating between us, but the condom hits a hotspot in my chest that I don’t like.
He undresses, and all that perfection is now exposed, his cock jutting forward, his ink on display in all its glorious, colored perfection, but still, the condom burns a hole in my hand. Eric’s hands come down on my shoulders and he drags me to him. “What just happened?”
What just happened?
There’s the question.
The one I now have to answer.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Harper
Eric cups my face, forcing my gaze to his, while his cock is thick at my hip, all that hard perfection of his tall, muscular body pressed next to me. “What just happened?” he repeats.
“Can you just kiss me again already?” I ask, his heart thundering beneath my palm, or maybe it’s mine radiating down my arm. I don’t know.
“Talk to me, Harper,” he prods softly and I know he’s not going to let this go. I want him to let this go. I need to get out of my own head right now.
“This is what happened,” I say, pushing to my toes and pressing my lips to his at the same moment that I wrap my hand around his cock.
One of his hands cups my head, the other gripping my backside as he gives me what I want. He kisses the hell out of me, drugging me with the taste of him, and driving away anything but him and now. He maneuvers us and sits down on the couch, pulling me onto his lap, his erection in between us and a condom burning a hole in my palm. I will not think about the past. I will not think about my secret.
I open the package and roll it down the hard length of him and by the time I’m done, he’s already kissing me again, molding me close; my breasts to his chest.
“Harper,” he says roughly against my lips and then he’s tangling his fingers in my hair, using an erotic tug to force my gaze to his. “I’m no virgin, sweetheart. I’m no angel and I’ve had my share of fucks, but the condoms are all about you and me and us. I bought them for us.”
“I didn’t ask,” I say, wishing that was all that was on my mind but still appreciating what he’s trying to do. The way he wants me to see just me and him.
“You wanted to ask,” he says. “You should have. I told you. We’re together now.” He seals those words with a kiss and then lifts me, pressing inside me, stretching me, and then I’m sliding down the hard length of him. My hands go to his shoulders and our eyes lock, my sex clenching around him with the impact of this connected moment.
His eyes rake over my pebbled nipples and lift to my face, lingering on my mouth and lifting to my eyes. “You’re beautiful,” he says, his tone somehow sandpaper and silk on my nerves. I’m affected by how he looks at me, by how he touches me. By how he murmurs, “Come here,” and tangles his fingers in my hair again, dragging my mouth to his. “I don’t want to fuck anyone else but you. I don’t want you to fuck anyone else but me.”