He lay down next to me, the warmth of his naked body infusing through me. Tiny kisses rained over the shell of my ear.
“I’m burning for you, Melanie. I’m fucking burning.”
If he was indeed burning, why was he being so gentle with me? That was normally not a problem for Jonah Steel. Of course, I knew why. He was being a gentleman in the true sense of the word. I had been through hell, and he didn’t want to push too hard.
But right now I wanted him. All of him. Everything he could give to me, I wanted. I would take it without reservation. I needed to feel.
I turned to him and kissed him. Just like he’d kissed me before, taking everything I could from him, showing him what I wanted him to do to me.
When we both started panting, he pulled away. “You need to stop this. You don’t know what you’re doing to me.”
I turned his cheek, forcing him to look into my eyes. “I need you. I need everything from you, Jonah. Now.”
He pulled away again and sat on the edge of the bed. “No, you don’t.” He reached for his boxers on the floor.
“What are you doing?” I gasped. “You’re not thinking of leaving, are you?”
“I have to. Because if I don’t, and you ask me for that again, I might just give it to you.”
“Then give it to me.”
He turned and scorched me with his dark eyes. “You have no idea what I desire from you, Melanie. A little slap was just the beginning. And right now, after all you’ve just been through, you can’t take what I want from you.”
A sudden jolt of fear speared through me. This was the darkness that I had only glimpsed in Jonah before now—the darkness that burned within him, the darkness that I was not able to stay away from.
I wanted him. I wanted to give him everything I could. I was in love with him.
He had told me once that I would surrender to him eventually. At the time I had my doubts, but no longer.
But he had a point. I had just been through a traumatic experience, and this was my way of dealing with it at this moment. I wanted sex. I wanted orgasms. I wanted to shout to the rooftops that I was alive and well and had outsmarted the man who’d tried to kill me.
But was I ready for what Jonah wanted? I couldn’t even fathom what it was that he wanted. If it went beyond the occasional slap, could I truly surrender to him?
He was right.
Today was not the day to find out.
But I still needed him. Still needed him to make love to me.
I pulled him toward me. “I don’t want you to leave.”
“But if you ask me—”
I covered his lips up with two fingers. “I won’t. I won’t ask you for that. Not until I’m ready.”
“I’ve been ready, Melanie. I want you. It’s what I burn for. It’s what I desire more than anything. And one day maybe you’ll find out what I want. But not today.”
I nodded. “Would you still stay with me for a little while longer? Feeling you beside me gives me…comfort.”
He sighed then, his features softening, becoming less angular. “Yes, but I won’t be able to keep my hands off of you.”
“I don’t want you to.”
He lay back down beside me then and kissed me. Still a kiss of fire and passion, but slightly more tender this time. He was holding back. That much was obvious. But I didn’t force it this time. Because, as much as I knew that I wasn’t ready for what he had in mind, I had an inkling that he wasn’t ready for it either. At least not with me. This was something we would both have to grow into.
We kissed for a long time, and then he moved downward, kissing my breasts, sucking on my nipples hard, while he trailed his fingers over my vulva.
“You’re so wet for me, Melanie.” He smoothed his fingers through my slick folds. “So fucking wet. I want you so much right now.” He thrust two fingers inside my heat.