The Mix-Up (Southern Hearts Club #3) - Melanie Munton Page 0,35

know I couldn’t move him if he didn’t want me to. But he takes it. “What the fuck was that? Huh? What are you doing here, Ryder! Why are you suddenly all up in my business all the damn time?”

I shove him again. He takes it again.

“You’re not his to have, duchess,” he says baldly.

This shove is the hardest.

“Christ, I’m not yours either! You and I are nothing to each other. If this is all still about that bullshit competition between you two, it stops now. I won’t be pulled into this again.”

Unable to formulate any thoughts that don’t end with me stabbing him with my nail file, I push past him and whip open the door to my building. I’ve been screaming like a madwoman on the sidewalk of a residential area. It would be just my luck to have one of my neighbors call the cops.

Then again, seeing Ryder hauled away in handcuffs does have a certain appeal.

His footsteps pound inside the building after me.

I pick up my pace toward the stairs. “You can let yourself back out.”

“Not a fucking chance.”

I’ve barely reached the first stair when Ryder’s hand grips my upper arm and hauls me backward. He pulls me around to the darkened cranny beneath the stairs and roughly shoves me against the wall.

“When are you going to get it through your head, duchess?” he hisses through clenched teeth. “This has never been about some fucking competition. Not for me.”

The second the last word leaves his lips, he slams our bodies together, nearly knocking the breath out of me. His mouth covers mine, silencing my litany of four-letter words. He swallows them all into his mouth with a masculine groan of unadulterated relief.

The filthy, demanding kiss lacks all smoothness—the desperation in it overpowers any need for finesse. His tongue assaults my mouth, thrusting past my lips and driving straight to the back of my throat. His hunger is voracious, needy, and so intoxicating it’s all-consuming. Whatever techniques he’s honed over the years are completely thrown out the window and are replaced by the kind of greedy, unyielding passion I’ve longed to feel my entire life.

Heaven is real and I’m standing at the pearly gates.

Lord, blessed be the day.

It’s like I’ve been holding my breath for ten straight months. Now, I’m finally allowed to let it all go.

And let it go I do.

I throw myself into his arms, into his kiss, against the hard ridge in his pants. I don’t think anything has ever felt more blissful than shamelessly dry-humping his straining erection against this wall. I need that buried inside me to the motherfrigging hilt. I’ve never needed a good hard thrust so wildly that it’s made me mindless.

Ryder rips his mouth away. “Fuck yeah, duchess. Don’t go easy on me. Make me work for it.”

His words spark yet another match inside me, and I pull his mouth back to mine. Our lips slide together in a breathless melding of frenzied biting and sucking. I can’t get deep enough inside him, can’t feel enough of him around me.

I’m on fire for this man.

I whimper when he tears his mouth away again. “Ah, duchess, I knew you’d be like this. Can’t control yourself right now, can you?” He palms my ass, pulling me tighter to him. “Good. I want you totally free. Go fucking crazy for me. Rub more of that heat all over my cock. I want to take your smell home with me on this suit. It’ll never see a dry cleaner again.”

If I hadn’t already learned in the last few weeks that Ryder has a dirty mouth, I sure as hell know it now. I obey his command and drive my hips into him, thrusting my center against his jutting shaft. He’s so hard that when his tip bumps my clit, I nearly combust.

I’m well, well overdue.

His fingers fumble at my back, searching for the zipper on my dress. He yanks it down, nearly ripping the garment in two. Impatient, he shoves the dress off my shoulders and down past my breasts.

“Need to see these,” he rasps, sounding at the mercy of his body, his mind no longer in control. “Need to see my hands on these.” When my red demi cup bra is revealed, he leans back to take his fill. “Fucking beautiful.” Then his eyes darken. “But I never want to see this bra again. You wore it for him, not for me.”

“It wasn’t for anyone,” I pant. Why I feel the need