three steps, I have her pinned to the wall. She glares at my chest, refusing to look up at me.
“You’ll stay where you’re safe, and that’s final.”
She lifts her chin, finally looking up at me even if it is to glare. Her jaw unhinges, and I know I’m seconds away from getting every ire this fiery Italian can manage.
“Don’t open your damn mouth unless it’s to—”
I snap my jaw shut, blaming her proximity, the angry inhales and exhales of her breath pressing her breasts against me, and the pressure of her thighs against my own, on what I was about to say.
“Unless what?” she snaps.
Maybe it’s the pink in her cheeks. Maybe it’s the way her lip quivers as she waits for my answer. Maybe, just maybe it’s the fact that Annalise Grimaldi has driven me crazy with her attitude one too many times.
Or, maybe it’s because I can just no longer resist her.
Instead of letting her go, instead of taking a step back and telling her to go about her merry damn way, I inch closer, hovering my lips over hers until her breath becomes my own.
“Deacon,” she whispers, but it’s not a warning like it should be. It’s a plea, her way of begging me to come just an inch closer.
It should’ve been what made me snap back to reality, but all it does is make me want her more.
I slam my mouth against hers, partly because I can no longer resist the need to know what her lips feel like against mine, but mostly because I’m pissed that I don’t have the strength to step away.
She moans, the perfect sound rushing past her parted lips. I slip my tongue inside, my body nearly seizing when she presses her own forward. My fingers tangle in her silky hair as I tilt her head to the perfect angle for me to dive all the way in. Breathing becomes impossible. Thinking took a long hike off a steep cliff.
The only thing that exists is this.
Me.
Her.
The way her lips smile against my own when I inch back to reposition.
The way she tilts her chin, inching closer when she thinks I’m going to end it.
My brain doesn’t come back online until her fingers reach under my shirt and trail down my sides.
And then it’s like the first bullet of a firefight. It snaps me back into focus. Her hands are on my skin. Her lips are pressed against mine. Every inch I can manage to line up is pressed against her. My cock throbs to be released.
It feels fucking perfect, but we both know just how wrong it is. This can’t happen. If she were literally any other woman on this Earth, I’d have her naked with her thighs clamped around my head. I’d bury my cock so fucking deep in her—
“Stop,” I whisper, resting my forehead against hers. “We can’t.”
She takes a long shuddering breath. “I know.”
Her hands fall away, and somehow, I manage not to lift them back to my sides. With strength I didn’t know I possessed, I untangle my fingers from her silky hair and take a step back.
Her chest is heaving just as hard as my own, and somehow, it’s a mild comfort to know that she may possibly be as affected by the kiss as I was.
“Dani wasn’t in West Africa. I need you to stay here where it’s safe.” She nods but refuses to look me in the eyes. “I’m spread too thin. I don’t want to have to worry about you, too.”
She nods, a mere two quick dips of her head, and I walk away, closing the bedroom door behind me.
Chapter 20
Anna
My eyes blink over and over as if I’ve just been woken up from a dream. My fingers press to my swollen lips as if I need to touch them for proof that the kiss really happened.
Even with his manly scent still in my nose, infiltrating my brain all the while telling me to chase after him, I can’t believe it’s real.
He went from get fucked to let’s fuck like a lightning flash, and he ended it just as quickly.
I lick at my lips, missing the scratch of his overgrown stubble. I don’t think he’s shaved in the week he’s been gone. It’s been forever since I’ve kissed a man with facial hair, and it wasn’t until the rough texture touched my face that I realized how much I actually missed it. God how I’ve missed it.
I didn’t realize how much I missed