‘This is about you.’
I take her to the bed and lay her down softly.
‘You, Coco.’
Her eyes glisten and blaze all at once and my chest is fit to burst with the crazy swell of emotion spilling over. I kiss her until it eases, until I can breathe fully, but instead it grows, and she’s kissing me back now, pleading for release.
I force myself to slow down. ‘Patience...’
‘I don’t do—’
I silence her rebuke with another tongue-sinking kiss and she moans.
‘We’ve covered that one,’ I say, breaking away to sweep along the collarbone that had teased the hell out of me earlier to the curve of her shoulder.
She wriggles and rakes her nails down my back, demanding more. I nip at her skin in return. She tries to unfasten my jeans and I grab her hands, forking my fingers through hers as I press them back on either side of her head.
‘Stay.’
She looks like she’s going to argue, so I instruct her before she can.
‘Every time you move your hands, I’ll stop.’
She bites into her bottom lip.
‘Understand?’
She nods.
‘Let me...’
Let me love you was the shocking phrase that rode my tongue, ready to leap out, and I flick my gaze away in order to regain control.
This isn’t love. I hardly know her.
Not true. You’ve lived in her shadow for weeks...
But I am done with that emotion. I only care because of the part I’ve played to date, working for her brother’s money. It’s just my guilt, intensifying everything else.
* * *
I can’t breathe. The world halted with his words... Let me...
Let me...what?
I’m still trapped in the heat of his look. It doesn’t matter that his eyes have fallen away. He’s still got me. Immersed in the passion I can read. The passion and something more—something visceral that calls to a part of me I’ve never dared expose before. A part that makes me vulnerable.
He lifts his head and my lashes flutter as I search his depths, reaching for that same look, that same connection, waiting for his words to come.
‘Let me...have this.’
Have this?
It’s not the mammoth confession I’ve surprised myself into wanting. It’s simple. It’s all I should expect. And it’s enough. For all he’s done for me in the short space of time I’ve known him, helping me to feel real, to be me, I’d let him have anything.
I nod and raise my head to his, dutifully keeping my hands pinned, forked in his. He meets me halfway, his kiss soft, tender, and he doesn’t stop until I slacken beneath him, my fingers relaxing. He releases one hand to cup my thigh, his palm hot and searing against my skin as he bends my leg. He releases the other hand and does the same with my other leg, spreading me open beneath him, and then he rises.
‘Stay,’ he commands again, his eyes on fire as they trail down my body.