Cruz (Dark and Dirty Sinners' MC #5) - Serena Akeroyd Page 0,14

my lungs.

Maybe it was the artist in me. Maybe that was it.

Taking comfort in that reasoning, I’d moved closer to get a better look, and then I’d smelled him.

Sweet fuck, what a scent. I couldn’t even describe what it was, had no real idea, but he just smelled clean and manly and warm. So fucking warm. Then I’d had to touch him. And I’d seen his visceral response, and knowing he was affected too, made this strange swirling sensation inside me seem normal.

Because this was how arousal felt.

This was what lust felt like.

I wasn’t a coward, so rather than hide from it and deny myself, I wanted to explore it. Maybe Cruz would help me fix myself. If I could just have sex once where I liked it, maybe that would give me what I needed to feel normal. To feel like a regular woman, instead of one always chasing sex, trying to fit in, trying to force myself to feel things that everyone felt.

So I kissed him.

And he tasted better than I could have imagined. His taste reminded me of whisky—without the alcohol. Peaty and earthy, warm and musky. I could drown in his flavor, suffocate in it. I thrust my tongue against his, unsurprised when his met mine, but he didn’t drag me into him.

Didn’t pull me into his arms.

Didn’t he want me?

The way his tongue was moving told me yes, but why didn’t he haul me closer?

Unsure of myself, because that was what men usually did, I moved into him, sliding my arms around his firm waist, appreciating the hardened stack of muscles against my belly. My hands moved to his back, running up and down the strong ropes that bisected his spine into two halves, and still, he didn’t move to hold me.

He was kissing me. Actively. If anything, he was leading the way now, my tongue no longer in his mouth, his in mine, and God, what he could do with that tongue was enough to have stars floating behind my eyes and doing a little dance. This was, I registered, the first kiss where I wasn’t pondering the mechanics of the act, where I wasn’t making an internal grocery list. Instead, I’d dived headfirst into this, like it was a pool and I was more than happy to do some synchronized swimming.

My hands moved, going higher, up to the corded strength of his shoulders, before I tucked myself tighter into him, needing to feel him, needing him to be as close to me as physically possible. Wanting him. Actually. Fucking. Wanting. Him.

Astonished and overwhelmed and turned the hell on, I felt the impossible.

A burn in my core.

Not like a UTI.

Not like after sex.

This came before. And it felt molten. It felt like I was molten.

The sensation stole my breath from me, and I lifted my leg, hitching it onto his hip, uncaring if he thought I was being forward, uncaring if I was acting like a slut. I was chasing this feeling. Chasing this sensation that I’d never experienced before.

Finally, he helped. He reached down and hauled me into him so that I was cupping his thighs and his hands were on my ass. He pulled back, and I whimpered, chasing his mouth, chasing his kiss, before he rumbled, “Where?”

I blinked, utterly dazed, and the question took too damn long to figure out and I loathed the jarring sensation that came as I started to disconnect.

“Upstairs.”

He strode over to the side door marked ‘Private,’ which told me he knew I lived here, and I reached into my back pocket, the tiny zipper there that housed my key in the waistband of my yoga pants. He took it, unlocked the door, and peered around the corner. A light flashed on, further jarring me from the moment, and doubts began to creep in.

That molten feeling wasn’t real, was it?

The way his kiss had made me want to crawl into his skin, I’d been over-imagining it, surely?

Then, we moved upstairs, slowly, slowly because his mouth was back on mine, but it was different now he was touching me. Different and I felt out-of-focus, uncertain like always, those distinct memories of being connected to him feeling as far away as France.

Inside, I wanted to weep. My head warred with my body, trying to get me back into the zone, but I just—I just couldn’t do it.

Fuck, what was wrong with me?

Why was this so hard?

His tongue drove into my mouth at the same time as his boner rubbed