“That hardly seems fair,” I whispered, the words wisps and tendrils that got hung up on his seduction that spun around us.
He gently plucked the pad of his thumb across my bottom lip. “Just getting to touch you feels like the best thing in the world.”
My heart shivered.
In affection.
In want.
In something that almost felt like despair.
“Kale.” It was a murmur.
Praise.
A spark.
Because his mouth crashed against mine.
His arms wound around my waist, and he pulled me into his apartment.
He kicked the door shut behind us without breaking the kiss.
Hot hands explored. Gliding down my back. Palming my bottom. Roaming up my sides.
A moan rippled up my throat, and his tongue swept into my mouth, tangling with mine.
Needy and desperate.
Overpowering.
Overwhelming.
My head spun, and I was suddenly in his arms.
My legs wrapped around his narrow waist.
Second nature.
Exactly where I belonged.
“Hope,” he mumbled at my mouth as he carried me through his massive, open loft.
The floors echoed with his heavy footsteps as they thudded across the worn, dark planks and toward the massive leather couch set up in the middle of the living space.
Pure masculine style and impeccable taste with the need for comfort at the root of it all.
Just like the man.
Setting me down on the dark cushions, he dropped to his knees on the plush white rug.
Expression predatory.
No doubt, he was preparing to devour and destroy.
He palmed my knees. The simple contact made me arch and gasp.
“It’s getting harder and harder to resist you,” he murmured, voice scraping and raw.
“Then why are you trying?”
Because I was already so far beyond that point. The second I stepped through his door, I knew it was over. That there was no longer any resisting.
I was tumbling.
Plunging.
Falling.
He groaned, as if my statement caused him physical pain, his blond hair striking in the late afternoon light, the curves and lines and definition of his striking face bold.
His expression enough to tear through me.
Flames licked across my skin, and just the sight of him had need coiling inside me so tightly I could barely see.
“Fuck, Hope. I want to give. You make me want to fucking give.” He blinked, sucking in a breath. “Let me make you feel good. Please. I want to make you feel good.”
I arched. “Nothing feels better than you.”
That smirk resurfaced, whatever reservations that had lingered in his eyes eradicated, that brazen confidence riding back.
Taking hold.
“This dress. What are you wearing, baby?” He ran his hands up the outside of my thighs, under my flimsy, beige dress, the material loose but the skirt short. “God, you are the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen. What do you think you’re trying to do to me?”
He dipped down and ran his lips along the inside of my thigh as he whispered the words. “Showing up at my house looking like this?”
I whimpered, threaded my fingers through his hair while I sank back into his couch, head rocking on the cushions as he made a delirium-inducing path upward.
Kissing up my bare thigh.
Shivers.
His mouth continued its assault, traipsing over the top of the material while his hands moved under it. He grabbed me by the outside of the thighs and dragged my bottom to the edge of the couch as he edged up, kissing higher and higher.
Over my belly that shuddered and shook.
Nose running across the top of one of my breasts.
Dipping between.
He kissed a path over my heart, which thundered and roared, until he buried his face in my neck and carved out a spot for himself between my knees at the same time.
I could feel his heat where he pressed eagerly at me.
The outline of his cock where he nestled between my legs.
Desire tumbled.
A violent twist.
Because I had never wanted a man the way I wanted him. I wanted to beg him to put me out of my misery. To release the ache. Wholly trusting in him that he would.
He leaned back down on his knees, taking me by surprise when he kissed across my belly.
Something about it so erotic that desire flooded, the feel of his mouth moving over the material driving me wild.
Both of my hands were in his hair, tugging lightly and caressing gently.
A whimper tumbled from my mouth.
“I don’t know what this is, Hope.” His mouth kept moving higher, whispering into the thin fabric.
My heart kicked. Bucked against its confines.
“What’s happening between us. All I know is that you’re making me feel things I haven’t felt in a long, long time, and it terrifies me.”
He pulled back and looked at me. His expression grim.
As if saying it brought him some kind of physical torment.
I wanted to ask him to show me what was hidden in his eyes. Trust me with it. Why this flirty, easygoing guy would suddenly lose himself to a place where it was dark and dismal.
I traced my fingers along the prominent curve of his powerful jaw. “Take me, Kale. Show me.”