Page 20 of Easy On Me

With a flex of my hands, I drew her a half-inch or so closer to me. “I might be learning about that, too.”

She scoffed. “You were engaged.”

“Yeah, but . . . I’m seeing we weren’t real.” Dipping my head, I brushed my nose over her ear and smiled at the palpable frisson running through her body. “And seeing you and me might be.”

Her brows tugged together in a fierce frown. “I’m not easy.”

I shrugged. “That’s okay.”

“You say that now.”

“Listen.” I slid a fingertip along the soft skin above her jeans. “I spend my days taking stuff apart, running down problems and fixing them. I don’t need easy.”

“I don’t need fixing.” A thread of ice entered her tone. Yeah, I’d brushed up on something bruised and hurting there.

“No, and you don’t need me to take you apart and run down your problems. Think you need me to support you, maybe hold you steady sometimes. Like a motor mount.”

Her small laugh exploded as a tiny snort. “A motor mount.”

“Yeah. I figure Colt Calvert didn’t make a good one because he’s a little broken, so you felt unsteady, off center, no matter how much you cared about him.”

Her lips parted, understanding dawning in her eyes.

I chuckled. “I’m right, aren’t I?”

With one finger, I tickled her waist, and she smacked my hand aside. “Stop.”

Laughing, I cradled her face in both hands. “Let me make love to you. See how it goes.”

She stilled, eyeing me.

I winked. “You might like it.”

Several moments dragged out, with her studying my face like some old complicated riddle she didn’t quite understand. Her chin lifted, the barest hint of a tilt, and she tiptoed up, pressing her mouth to mine. She linked her arms about my neck.

Cupping the back of her head, I deepened the kiss, teasing, tasting. She was giving me something here, trusting me.

And I had to make this good.

Chapter Five

Tyler

He lifted his head, blue eyes dark with desire and emotion. Holding my gaze, he stroked a finger from my collarbone, down between my breasts to rest at my bra’s front clasp.

I couldn’t maintain that visual contact and turned my eyes aside. Concentrating on the veins in his forearm, I traced them with my gaze, from his wrist to his elbow and on up to his biceps.

He moved, brushing another one of those whispery kisses on my shoulder. The warmth of him, that simple touch, curled through me, so desire unfurled a tiny little pang in my belly. And panic, racing along my nerves.

“If it’s too much, tell me to stop.” He rasped the words over my skin.

This was already too much. He was steady, easy, and I was the problem, wrestling with the fear of trusting too much.

Of having that trust turned on me.

“Stop,” he whispered over my ear. “It’s just me. I’ll stop whenever you say.”

I shuddered, then swallowed, throat dry and achy. “It’s easier when it’s not slow.”