Hold Me Close - Talia Hibbert Page 0,298

you shouldn’t.” She crawled across the bed, rose up on her knees, and reached for him. When he came closer, she threaded her fingers through his hair and licked a hot, electric stripe up the side of his throat. “I like you like this. It’s how you look every morning on your break, when I come to see you.”

Possessiveness rolled off her in waves, whether she knew it or not, and he was more than happy to bask in the heat like an animal. He wrapped an arm around her waist, pinned her to him, and drank down her gasp-turned-moan. “When you come to see me, huh? Is that what it is? I thought you were just taking walks.”

“Yes,” she said, one hand slipping under his vest. “That’s what I meant.” But there was no heat to her denial, no panic in her eyes.

“You know what I think?” he murmured, pushing his luck. “I think you’ve wanted me for a long time.”

Her lips tilted into a wry smile. “Maybe. Way longer than you wanted me.”

He frowned and caught her chin, letting her see the truth in his eyes. “Just because I didn’t want you in my bed, doesn’t mean I didn’t want you. I was desperate to be around you, to know you, and I still am. I want to carry every inch of you in my head forever, because you are too precious to remain a mystery.”

She swallowed, her lashes fluttering as she looked away. “Zach…”

He was fucking this up—pushing too far, too fast with the emotional declarations. He couldn’t bring himself to say, I meant that as a friend, so he said the next best thing. “Don’t freak out. I care about you, remember?”

“I remember,” she whispered. But she looked so vulnerable, as if she wasn’t quite sure why.

“Tell me something,” he said, suddenly curious. “Why do so many people downstairs know you, but none of them act like your friend?”

She blinked, obviously confused by the question. He’d meant what he said; he needed to understand her. It was a compulsion, now.

Finally, with a rueful twist of her lips, she murmured, “I suppose Kevin got all our friends in the divorce. I don’t think I’m the type of person others hold on to.”

“Me neither,” he admitted easily. “Does it bother you?”

“No. I have everyone I need.”

“Do you think you could ever lose me?”

Her nails raked his chest as she curled her hand into a fist. “I think I don’t want to find out.”

Sharing time was officially over. He could see it in her face and feel it in the tension of her body. So, he soothed her the only way he knew how: by unleashing the full force of his lust, letting it rush out and sweep her away. Soon, she would trust him completely. For now, just a taste was enough.

The sudden change in Zach felt like a storm; like the thrill of excitement as the wind whipped up and the sky grew dark with the promise of thunder and lightning. Rae had a thing for storms, always had. They drew out a mix of primal fear and violent, feral triumph. They were overwhelming and all-consuming. So was Zach.

He pushed her back onto the bed and dragged his shirt over his head in one swift movement, so fast she barely followed. In the low light, his pale skin seemed to shine. Ridges of muscle defined the slab of his chest, carved his broad shoulders, slashed a V at his hips. Then her gaze found the thick curve of his erection, clearly outlined by the grey jersey of his joggers.

“Top off,” he said, but she shook her head, trying not to pant at the sight of him. At the living temptation he’d become, half-dressed like that.

“You think I’m missing the rest of your strip tease?”

“Fair point.” He pushed down the joggers and his underwear all at once, then laughed softly as she went slack-jawed. Oh, Lord. She liked to look at men, but Zach… he did something strange to her. He always had.

It was the way he held himself, maybe, like some proud Greek statue from an age gone by. Like he’d never felt an ounce of shame or self-consciousness in his life. He was so casually dominant, so lazily confident, his nudity deliciously lewd yet utterly natural. She tended to focus on his chest, since it was usually bare, but now she took in his thickly muscled thighs, his lean hips, the jut of his erection.

And God,