“And I wound up telling you something I had sworn to take to my grave. Heightened emotions don’t help any situation.”
“What does that mean?” With a niggling premonition, she began unpinning her hair, not wanting to remove the gaping dress and be naked when she was beginning to feel defenseless. “I want to fit in, Rico. I want to be a team player and know what to say about decor and houses and all those different people she was talking about. But along with not being prepared to live at this level of wealth, I’m wired for emotion. Don’t expect me never to get angry. Or to stop feeling.”
His cheek ticked and she could hear the thoughts behind that stiff mask. Don’t expect me to start.
Which made her angry. Furious that she’d spent every minute since he’d shown up on her doorstep having her emotions bombarded until they were right there, under the thin surface of her skin, tender and raw, while he had somehow used tonight’s endurance event of a dinner to shore up his shields so he was more withdrawn than ever.
“That’s what you want, though, isn’t it?” she realized, appalled to see her shimmering nascent hopes for deeper intimacy disappearing faster than she could conjure them. “You want me to learn not to care. To feel nothing. Certainly I shouldn’t aspire to happiness, should I?”
“Happiness is achieved by keeping your expectations realistic. That’s a proven fact.”
It was such a cynical thing to say, it physically hurt her to hear it.
“What about desire?” In a small stab at getting through to him, she let the dress fall off her arms. She stepped out of it before tossing it onto the foot of the bed. “Do you want me to quit feeling that?”
“That’s physical.” He let his gaze rake slowly down her pale form from shoulder to thighs, jaw hardening along with his voice. “And you’re starting a fight for no reason.”
“I’m sorry you feel that way,” she said facetiously. “I’m going to shower. Would you like to join me? Yesterday it was one of your many fantasies, but maybe you feel different today.”
His eye ticked and she knew he was sorry he had ever told her that. Did she feel guilty for using it? Not one bit.
She slid her panties down and left them on the floor.
It was a bold move, one far beyond her experience level. If he left her to shower alone, she would probably drown herself in there, but she desperately wanted to prove to both of them that she had some kind of effect on him. Some means of reaching through that armor of his.
She moved into the bathroom and stepped into the marble-tiled stall, bigger than the porch on Gran’s bungalow.
He came into the bathroom as the steam began to gather around her. He dimmed the light so the gilded space became golden and moody and he stripped off his pants.
She watched him, reacting with an internal clench when she saw he was aroused.
When he came into the shower, she lost some of her moxie and turned her face into the rain of warm water from the sunflower head above her.
His cool hands settled on her hips and his thumbs dug lightly into the tops of her butt cheeks. “You have a gorgeous ass.”
“Even with the dimples?” Her heartbeat was unsteady.
“Especially with.” He took hold of the wet mass of her hair, holding her head tipped back while he scraped his teeth against the side of her neck. “I will always accept this invitation, Poppy. But you had better know what you’re inviting.”
She gasped. The sensations he was causing were cataclysmic. All her senses came alive. He settled his cool body against her back, his chest hair lightly brushing before the warm water sealed them together. His hard shaft pressed into the small of her back and her buttocks tightened in excited reaction. Her breasts grew heavy, her loins tingled. The humid air became too heavy to breathe and her bones melted like wax in the sun.
Blindly she shot a hand out to the slick wall and wound up leaning both hands there while her hips instinctively tipped with invitation.
“What are you trying to prove?” he growled, slapping one hand beside her own on the wall.
Nothing. She was reacting, pure and simple.
He briefly covered her like any male mounting his mate and his teeth sank lightly against her nape again. His free hand splayed across her abdomen, then roamed her wet skin to cup her breast.
In a sudden move, he pulled her upright and spun her so the world tilted around her. She found the hard tiles against her shoulders. His knees nudged between hers and his thighs pinned hers. He bracketed her head between his forearms and touched his nose to hers before he claimed the kiss she was starving for.
He held nothing back, wet mouth sliding across hers with carnal greed, slaking her thirst after this arid day. She flowered. She opened and ran with dewy nectar. She unfurled her arms around him and twined them across his back, lifted her knee up to his hip and invited him into her center. Rocked and tried to make him lose control the way she continued to abandon hers.
“Let’s talk about your fantasies, hmm?” His hands caught her wrists and pinned them beside her head while his tongue slithered down her neck and licked into the hollow at the base of her throat. “What do you want?”
He drew back slightly and gazed down on her with unabashed hunger.
“Rico.” She turned her wrist in his grasp and shifted with self-consciousness. Her nipples stood up with blatant, stinging arousal. She brought her foot back down to the floor, but his feet were still between hers.