Page 83 of Falling for the Enemy

“Keep talking. I like the way your voice shakes when you’re trying to sound annoyed.”

She wasn’t trying.

She was annoyed. And melting. So many sensations tangled into one until she felt trapped and over-sensitized.

When she squirmed, he caught her hips, refusing to let her escape the onslaught of pleasure. His hands smoothed along the outsides of her thighs, thumbs tracing slow circles into her clenched muscles she couldn’t seem to relax.

“Easy. Just let it happen.” Everywhere he caressed her, she softened against her own will, her own body betraying her mind in response to his drugging touch. “Relax,” he murmured against the inside of her thigh, pressing maddeningly soft kisses into her flesh. “I’ve got you.”

Okay, he had no business saying such intimate things to her while he was down there whispering sweet nothings into her vagina. And damn her gullible heart for believing the crap coming out of his mouth.

His words landed somewhere beneath her ribs, in a place she usually kept locked up tight.

“You don’t have to be so gentle.”

“You just worry about you.”

She was worried about herself. Gentle was dangerous. Gentle disarmed her in ways desperate roughness never could.

“I know you’re holding back, Soren.”

“I’m moving at the exact pace I want to go, Joce. Stop stressing and enjoy it.”

It was too intense. Too delicate. When he came at her like a demanding brute, she could meet him head-on. Give as good as she got. But this slow, reverent worship was a language her body couldn’t speak.

She could write it. But living it in her own body was different. This was too close, too real, and she preferred using her characters as detached fictional filters rather than playing the main role herself.

A breathy gasp left her throat as he moved his fingers, rubbing her clit and building that wave to unsustainable heights that would inevitably crash over her and wash the last of her senses away.

“Soren, wait.”

He ignored her plea and licked into her again. Fingers strumming her towards completion, she whimpered and squirmed. Her hips rose to meet him without permission. Another sound escaped her throat, soft and unguarded, and then she was trembling beneath him.

“There you are.” She felt him smile against her pulsing clit, still working her with his fingers. “Stop fighting me, Joce. It’s a battle you won’t win. And look how good it feels to lose.”

“I don’t know how to do this,” she admitted, hating the tremor in her voice as aftershocks fluttered into an encore. “You have to stop being so gentle.”

He lifted his head then, his eyes finding hers across the length of her body, gold flickering in the mercury depths from the fire. Something shifted in his expression, the cockiness dimming into something quieter, something that scared her far more than his usual arrogance.

Truth and desire.

“I want this, Jocelyn. I want all of you.”

“You’ve had all of me.”

“No. Not like this. I want you to give me control. I promise I won’t push you further than you can handle.”

He already was. “I can’t.”

“You can. Stop thinking about what any of this means, and just, for once, let me have you.” Then he said the magic words he avoided at all costs. “Please.”

She closed her eyes, and that was all the consent he required.

He crawled up her slowly, pushing up her shirt and pressing kisses along her stomach. Her traitorous body arched into his touch, needy and tense.

“That’s it.” He unclasped the buttons of her shirt one by one, planting soft kisses on every newly exposed inch of her skin. He nuzzled the underside of her breast through her bra, as if pressing his scent into her. The wild flurry of her pulse fluttered at her throat as he braced his body over her, caging her in without pinning her down.

“Tonight, we aren’t rushing anything, Jocelyn.” He brushed a curl from her cheek, the gesture so tender she couldn’t meet his stare. “Do you hear me?” He kissed her softly. “I want you here with me. Not in your head, not planning your next escape. Here.” His thumb dragged across her bottom lip.