Book 4 - Page 73 (1/2)

And f.u.c.k, she knew exactly what she was doing to me. I could see it in the mischievous twinkle in her eye. Her smile was a sly thing, sliding in from the side, pus.h.i.+ng her lips out into a flirty smirk and I listened to her chatter on about the show, the crowd, various songs, my mind bending with each scratch of her nails down my stomach, with every press of her soft body to my hips. I weathered the torture in silence, eyes never leaving her face, absorbing the treasure offered with each giddy word. With every jolt of the subway, every sway along the tracks, I mentally calculated how long it would be until I could devour her.

We rose from the station and she seemed to pause for air. Long enough, in fact, that I could press her against the wall of a building just down from our hotel, bend to inhale the honeyed rose of her skin and hiss, “What are you doing to me?”

“Hmm?” She stretched, catlike in my arms.

“Where is the order in my brain? Where is my sense that I need to tread carefully with you?”

“You don’t.”

“You’re muddling my every thought. We were doing so well taking our time.”

Her hands slid up around my neck, pulling me into a kiss so intimate I felt something turn over in my chest. The soft slide of her mouth shattered me, the way she offered up her lips and tongue so earnestly, her quiet whimper when she felt me licking her bottom lip, sucking it between my teeth.

“We’re still doing so well. I won’t make love to you until it is love for you,” she said.

No, not said—rea.s.sured. She was telling me that she knew she’d stolen my mind, possibly my heart, and would treat both things with care.

Somehow this promise that we wouldn’t make love until I was sure only heightened my delirium. I drew away, pulling her down the street.

Two seconds inside the hotel room and I’d jerked her coat off, thrown mine across the room, and had her flat on her back just inside the door. Her trainers landed somewhere near the bed; her jeans were roughly tugged down her legs and tossed aside.

I’d never known a hunger like this; my skin was tight and practically vibrating. Ruby stared up at me, washed only in the streetlight coming in the window, her eyes wide with thrill. Her expression of antic.i.p.ation and the rigid ache of my c.o.c.k pressed equally in my thoughts. Somewhere far in the back of my mind I knew I needed to temper myself but in the moment, with my heart drumming so hard I could hear it in my ears, I couldn’t be f.u.c.king bothered to slow down.