against his chest ‘...you to make me scream your name...’
Tyler swore viciously beneath his breath. He’d said he was more trouble than she could handle? Man was he ever outclassed on that score. Every strand of knuckle-dragging caveman that remained in his DNA demanded he tame her and tie her down. But the part of him that had made the mistake of looking for something more meaningful in the wrong place wouldn’t let him take her without it.
He wanted to strip her naked in more ways than one. He wanted to climb inside her mind and discover all her secrets. He wanted her to be more herself with him than she’d ever been with anyone else. He wanted sleeping together to mean something to her because he knew it would mean something to him. But he couldn’t say any of those things without discussing a future he couldn’t plan until after the day of reckoning.
From what she’d said it didn’t even look as if she wanted a future with him. Then he remembered she’d asked about commitment. It hadn’t been a statement of fact. The devil was in the detail. Where there was a loophole, there was a way in. He needed to know how she felt and in the absence of words he knew how to get to the truth.
Making the first connection with their eyes, he dropped his guard and allowed her to see how much he wanted her. It drew a low gasp from her lips, encouraging him to continue despite the glimpse of fear he got in return. Running his hand over her back in a soothing caress, he cradled her close, releasing her hand so he could brush the backs of his fingers over her cheek.
‘What are you doing?’ she whispered.
He angled his head and lowered his mouth to her lips. ‘Don’t speak, just feel.’
Moving his hand, he pushed her hair over her shoulder, changing the direction of his lips at the last possible second to place a kiss on the sensitive skin of her neck. He slid his mouth upwards, circled the shell of her ear with the tip of his tongue and felt a shiver run through her body.
‘Tyler—’
‘Shh...’
He kissed his way down her jaw and captured her mouth, alternating between soft and hard, breathless and slow. While she responded in kind he could sense she was holding back, conflicted by the desire to have him take her hard and fast the way he knew she wanted him to and the warm, cherished feeling he was attempting to convey with tenderness. Then she was leaning into him. The kiss became deeper, richer, full-bodied and intoxicating, creating a haze around them that blocked out everything else.
Something he didn’t recognize expanded in his chest. It pushed the air from his lungs and filled the cavity until it felt as if it would break his ribs and burst free. In seeking out the truth about how she felt he’d touched the edge of something so large within himself he couldn’t see to the other side. But before he could figure out what it was, with no more warning than a low moan she wrenched her mouth free and took a sharp step backwards.
‘Stop.’
When he looked at her Tyler discovered her eyes were wide with anguish. He frowned. What had he done wrong?
She sucked in a sharp breath and shook her head. ‘This isn’t what we’re meant to be doing.’
‘I thought you wanted to make love,’ he said roughly, the after-effects of the best kiss of his damn life still rippling through his body.
‘I want us to have sex.’
‘Meaningless sex.’ The empty, emotionless joining of bodies that led to a brief, unsatisfying climax held zero appeal for him. He didn’t want that with her.
‘No.’ She frowned back at him. ‘I mean, yes, but not totally meaningless...something somewhere in the middle... I don’t know... I don’t have much—that’s not the point!’
A surge of affection lifted the corner of his mouth. ‘Might need you to explain that a little better...’
‘Don’t look at me like that.’
Suddenly she was more scared than he’d ever seen her look before—even when she saw him roughing up a low life in an alley.
‘Come here.’ He took a step forwards and reached out to draw her back into his arms.
She took a step back and left her hands at her sides. ‘We’re not dating,’ she said firmly. ‘You don’t have to spoon on the romance to get me into bed.’
‘We’re not having a quick roll