She couldn’t help but think about the electricity she felt between them, or the fact that she felt so warm, so freaking hot she thought she’d pass out. Was he feeling this intensity and connection as well? Surely it wasn’t one way. It couldn’t be, not after all these years. But he’d never given her any indication that he ever wanted more, and she’d been too much of a coward to tell him how she felt.
What was bad was that even in his current state she had this intense need to just be with him in every way, to thrust everything aside and throw herself in his arms. It was maybe not logical after what happened to him tonight, or maybe, just maybe, it was the most rational thing she’d ever decided on doing with him?
“You know why I did what I did,” he said in a hard, yet soft, toned voice.
She nodded and continued cleaning his skin to rid it of the dried blood. “I guess I do, but I hate that you let yourself get to that point where you can’t control yourself.”
“I may not be able to control myself with others, but I always have control with you. You have so much power over me, Poppy.”
She looked up, stopping what she was doing, her heart thundering hard in her chest. “Ace…” She didn’t know what she was supposed to say to that. Hell, she didn’t know what to think about that.
“What are you thinking about?” he asked in this deep voice. He looked at her eyes and held her gaze for a moment with his own.
She licked her suddenly dry lips, looked down at his lip, and started dabbing the ointment on the part that was cut. She could see the way his breathing changed, the way he swallowed, and she wondered what he was thinking.
“I’m not thinking about anything,” she said just as softly.
“I don’t believe you,” he said.
She didn’t respond, just started cleaning up her mess of the first aid supplies. He leaned back on the couch, stared at her, and she couldn’t help but look at his chest, at the way his t-shirt, even with the droplets of blood on it, made him look so powerful and in charge. And his tattoos, the ink that covered his arms and chest, even the majority of his back…God, he was a work of art.
He was art, but deadly, violent and dangerous.
God, he always looked so full of authority, so controlling, and she wanted all of that masculinity that poured from him, all of that control and dominance that seeped from his pores covering her. Lauren wanted him all over her.
“What are you thinking about?” she asked him this time, not sure if she really wanted to know, but wanting him to talk to her regardless, and, she hoped, take her mind off things she shouldn’t be thinking about.
He didn’t respond right away, just stared at her for a few moments. He reached out, surprising her, and touched a strand of her hair that brushed her cheek. His touch was gentle, soft.
“A part of me is thinking how I’d like to go back to that motherfucker in the alley and kick his ass until he’s unconscious.”
She swallowed at the darkness in his words.
“Even for just thinking he could touch you, he deserves that, and so much more, Lauren.” The violence and menace in his voice had a cold chill moving through her.
She clenched her hands into fists on her lap, licked her lips slowly, and knew that although this man tended to her, protected her like no other, he was dangerous on every level. He’d been brought up that way because of the abuse he’d endured, wrought to be the deadly machine that had hate and violence inside of him.
He’d probably never get rid of it, but she knew that going into all of this, and accepted it.
“But another part of me, a selfish part, and the part that loves you so damn much, thinks something totally different.”
Oh. God.
The way he looked at her right now, leaned in closer, and how his pupils dilated, told her that this situation had gone to a totally different level. It was a level she’d been dreaming of, thinking about since the moment she realized she loved Ace … was in love with Ace.
“And what is that? What are you thinking?”
Did she even want to know?
Yes. God, yes, she wanted to know.
He leaned forward another inch, and the scent of him made her drunk. “It’s the part that wants to kiss you right now, really fucking badly.”
And then he leaned in and did just that, and the world moved out from underneath her.
7
Ace grabbed Lauren’s hair behind her head, pulled her closer so that she fell forward and had to brace her hands on his thighs, and groaned against her mouth. God, she was really doing this, really letting Ace kiss her. No, she wasn’t letting him kiss her, because she was kissing him back just as powerfully.