when I said that, remember?” he says, scrubbing his hand down his face. “Jesus, fuck. What do you want from me? You should know by now there’s no getting each other out of our systems. No matter what we do, or what we say, we’re always in there. Vein-deep.”
Vein-deep.
He’s so fucking right.
He reaches his hand out and takes mine. “With what happened . . . I don’t know if I can do this, Bailey.”
The pain in his voice has me squeezing his hand with mine. “Now that I have you back in my life, I don’t want to lose you.”
He lifts my hand to his lips, kissing each of my knuckles. “I don’t know what to do, what’s right. But I know that I want you again. And again.”
“Can’t that be enough for now?” I ask in a small, hopeful voice.
He smiles, even though his eyes don’t do the same. “You know I can never say no to you.”
That makes me smile, hearing something he used to always say to me all those years ago. “I was your weakness.”
He barks out a laugh. “You still are.”
We both go silent, studying each other, the air thickening between us. When Rake stands and leads me to my bedroom, I follow him eagerly. Locking the door behind him, he switches the light on, then turns around to face me. I kind of wish he’d kept the light off, so he can’t see my every flaw, the marks on my stomach and my imperfect body, but at the same time, this is me. And he needs to want me as I am, not as I was.
“Undress,” he commands.
I swallow hard. His dominance turns me on, but it also makes me want to push him.
To disobey.
To test him.
He wasn’t commanding like this before, but he was just a boy then.
Now he’s all man.
“And if I don’t?” I ask, arching an eyebrow.
He inhales deeply, nostrils flaring. “But you will, won’t you? Or you won’t get what you want.”
“And what is it you think I want?” I ask boldly, taking a step back toward the bed. Rake prowls forward, closing the space between us.
He slides his cut off, placing it on the end of the bed, then pulls his T-shirt up and over him in that sexy way men do, with his arms crossing each other. “You want to be fucked. You want to come. You want me.”
He’s right, of course. I do want all of that.
But I also know that no matter what, he will give it to me.
I check out his perfectly toned body, then look down at his jeans.
“Keep going,” I demand.
Rake raises an eyebrow, his lip twitching in amusement, but he does as he’s told, unbuttoning his jeans, then sliding them down his muscled thighs. He’s left standing in a pair of black boxer shorts, which have me sinking my teeth into my lower lip.
He’s so sexy, it’s unbelievable.
No one will ever compare, no one.
“Undress, Bailey,” he repeats, and this time I listen, sliding the straps off my dress and letting it fall to the floor. I take off my bra, and let it do the same. My hands automatically cover my stomach, without me even realizing it.
“Hands to your sides,” he says huskily. “Do you know how beautiful you are? I don’t care if you have a few marks on your body. You should wear them proudly.”
I drop my hands.
Did he really mean that?
He could get any woman he wanted, but it’s me he’s looking at like that, like he wants to devour me.
“Baby, take those panties off,” he says, licking his lips. “And get on the bed on your stomach.”
I remove my black lace panties, the ones I put on just in case this happened tonight, and get on the bed, lying flat on my tummy, just as he told me.
“Good girl,” he praises, climbing on the bed himself and putting his hands on my hips. “Now get up on your knees.”
I lift up on the bed with my hands and my knees at the same time.
“Beautiful,” he murmurs. When I suddenly feel his tongue on me from behind, my whole body jerks. He slaps my ass. “Stay still and let me eat this pretty pussy.”
I stay still.
Biting the pillow and making sounds I don’t think I’ve ever made before, I wait in one place as Rake licks my clit and my center in a rhythm that has me wanting to scream. A few seconds later, I do, my thighs shaking