of them while I was getting ready for our night out.
I found one of my Da’s favorites and set it to play before I took his bowl and mine to the sink. As I started to wash, I could feel that he was still watching me. His stare hit my back like a rock against glass. I wondered what piece of me he’d steal this time?
My eyes closed as his arms wrapped around me. My head tilted back and I leaned into him, for the first time in a long time giving someone else my burdens to share. Maybe he was stealing those, too, because I felt as light as a feather. Higher than I had been when he was blowing intoxicating smoke in my mouth and I’d breathed him in.
“There’s one thing, darlin’, that just might have power over me,” he whispered, his soft accent lulling me into the safety of his arms even deeper. One arm released me, while the other kept me tight against him, and his free hand ventured against my body. Over my ass, across my hip, around my thigh, and then between my legs.
I sucked in a breath, releasing it in a slow stream, as his breath picked up in my ear. “I never forget. You make me forget. When my cock is buried deep inside of you, I don’t know my fucking name, or who I am, or what the world sees when they look at me. I’m just a man inside of a woman, a woman who holds the power to make me forget it all.”
“Be careful.” My breath was coming out in pants as his fingers worked me higher and higher to the edge of desire. “That’s a dangerous direction. It could lead to the loss of a vital organ.”
My nails sunk into his arm as the pressure increased, as he started to move faster, as his nose skimmed down my neck, his mouth sucking my skin. “I’ve already stolen your heart, my darlin’. There’s nothing left to lose. All that’s left is for you to give in.” His words were slow, low, and seductive. “Give in to me, Keely Shea Kelly. You’re wasting your time trying to keep what’s already mine.”
I let out a strangled moan when his arm let me go and his free hand came up, loosening the buttons on his shirt—the one covering my body. He started to tease my nipple. “We both know…” I moaned even louder “…that resisting you is my greatest weakness and my greatest strength.”
“You’ll be damned if you make it fucking easy on me.”
“That’s the way of it, yeah. Ah.” I sucked in a breath when his teasing became rough.
He grinned against my neck until I moved my ass against him, and he hissed out a breath. I was going to use every bit of weaponry in my arsenal—my eyes, my lips, my legs, my femininity, my heart—to get under his skin. I was going to make him forget that he didn’t have a heart until he remembered that he had one. The situation between us was so ugly that I was starting to find it pretty. Beautiful even.
He stole my heart. Now it was set on having him and him alone.
I started to tremble, giving in, and then I came in an explosion that seemed to echo around the kitchen.
He turned me around to face him, and after staring me in the eye for a moment, he set me back on the counter, situating himself between my legs. I slipped his shirt off my body, throwing it to the side, completely bare to him. I used my feet to shove his sweatpants down, and after he stepped out of them, he entered me in a thrust that rocked my entire world.
He moved in and out, like a thief in the night, finding more and more of me to steal.
Our eyes connected in an intense stare down. My heart was at war with the space where his was supposed to be. It was fighting for this, despite my mind’s protests. My heart would pound like a fist until he decided to let me in.
He growled at me. Fucking growled at me. Like an animal. A noise came from my throat that was similar to his. My body was going insane, wanting to shatter, ready for stars to shoot behind my eyes, but it was holding on with all that it had, refusing to give in so easily this time.