Fate (Steel Brothers Saga #13) - Helen Hardt Page 0,7
lake was, it didn’t hold a candle to the woman sitting next to me. She was ravishing on the outside, but whatever she held inside put her outer beauty to shame.
She was something, Daphne Wade. I wanted to know everything about her, all the secrets inside her.
I wanted to…
I reached toward her and trailed my fingers over the graceful line of her jaw. Her lips shone in the soft light of the moon. Slightly parted, they glistened.
Glistened.
I wanted to…
I leaned toward her and brushed my mouth against hers in the softest kiss.
Just a kiss. A peck, really. No tongue or anything.
And I swore I felt more in that one kiss than I had in all the making out Wendy and I had done over the years.
I never thought I was a romantic, but it was a beautiful kiss.
A perfect kiss.
So perfect that it was enough.
For now.
Chapter Five
Daphne
My heart jumped, and the place between my legs fluttered.
I’d been kissed before, but never like this.
It was so simple. No one trying to probe my tonsils. Just a simple kiss.
A perfect kiss.
And I wanted more.
The few other times I’d been kissed, during my freshman and sophomore years in high school, the guys had scared the crap out of me with their aggression. Everyone wanted to shove his tongue in my mouth or grope my boobs.
I was honestly surprised Brad Steel didn’t try for more. He was over twenty-one, eons apart from the high school boys I’d been with.
But no, he seemed to sense that I wasn’t quite ready for anything more tonight, and he respected that.
Except that I did want more.
For the first time, I wanted more.
His gaze never left mine. “You’re beautiful.”
“So are you,” I replied.
He smiled. Perhaps he thought my words silly. But to me, he was beautiful. He looked like a pagan god in the moonlight. Perfect in looks with just the right touch of darkness.
I should know.
I was used to darkness.
I’d learned to live in it when I had to. It was just part of my life. Something that was a piece of me.
I had the feeling Brad Steel knew what darkness was as well.
My therapist had told me I’d overcome my fear of men. I had no basis for that fear, but so far, everyone who’d kissed me had been so pushy.
Didn’t want to go there right now.
All I knew was one thing.
Brad Steel didn’t scare me.
And now I wanted more. More than just the chaste kiss he’d given me. I wanted to feel his tongue trace my lips, enter my mouth, twirl with my own.
I wanted to feel his large and beautiful hands again on my face, on my neck, on my body, on my breasts.
I wanted to feel his lips slide down the side of my neck and over my bare shoulder.
And that secret part of him… I wanted that too. In fact, I ached for it now. The fluttering between my thighs continued, became more resonant.
Brad would go slow. Brad would make it good for me.
I hardly knew him, but I knew that as well as I knew my own name.
Brad Steel was the one.
“No one’s ever called me beautiful,” he said.
“Then no one’s ever seen you,” I said. “You’re more than handsome.”
“My God, Daphne.” He cupped both my cheeks and brought our faces together. Our lips touched softly, and then he traced my lips with his tongue. “Open for me. Please.”
I hadn’t had the best of luck with French kissing, but already I knew Brad Steel would be different. I parted my lips.
He didn’t plunge his tongue into my mouth. No, he tasted me slowly. First my lips, then the inside of my mouth, my teeth, my gums, until finally his tongue touched mine.
And I was lost forever.
It was soft. It was sweet. It was amazing.
But much better than all that?
It was right.
It was so right.
I parted my lips farther, letting him sweep into my mouth and kiss me with passion. Yeah, it was passion. I felt it. And within a few minutes of the kiss, after stroking my tongue against his, I wanted to explore his mouth too.
So I did.
His teeth, his gums, the velvet of his tongue.
More passion, more need.
More.
More.
More.
Until I was suffocating, suffocating…
The dream… The dream I never recalled but knew only in feelings.
I pushed away. “No!”
“Daphne? Sweetheart? What happened? Are you okay?”
I was far from okay. How could I want something that scared me so much?