Another kaleidoscope spin of emotion in his eyes, then they went dark, pupils blowing wide as he gripped her upper arms and bore her back against the wall. The impact drove the air from her lungs. A gasp followed as her senses kicked into overdrive, recording impressions, volatile emotion held in check by strength and power harnessed in service of control. For a second she wondered if the promise of a walk on the edgy, barely restrained side was more than she could handle. But she felt alive, more alive than she had in weeks, maybe months. Performing plugged her into the vast, creative energy swirling around her, but she’d been slowly withering away in the downtime.
She wasn’t withering now. Her body swelled with hot, saturating desire. She stretched into his grip, rolling her shoulders back, shifting against the power in his hands, all that he was using to hold her against the wall. She came up against the edge of what her body could do, felt his thumb press down into her shoulder joints. She lifted her hands, felt the constriction of movement, flattened them against his torso, and pushed.
It wasn’t “no,” or “stop,” or “don’t.” It was an exploration of how this could be between them, and a quick glance at his face confirmed this. Desire had won, the mask firmly in place. Heat infused his cheeks, and his abdomen rose and fell under her hands. He slowly took all control from her, leaning in with hips, then chest, then his mouth, his lips hot and demanding against hers until he’d stolen her ability to breathe.
She took her air from his lungs, a lingering taste of barbecue on his tongue, spicy-sweet until it faded into the pure heat of his kiss. She arched under him, straining against his hands until he released her shoulders and slid his hands down her arms to twine his fingers through hers and press her palms against the wall by her head. Bracing his forearms along hers, he leaned down, impossibly closer, his muscles shifting until all her curves melded into the angles and planes of his body.
It was gently brutal, or brutally gentle, the way his body caged her, restrained her. She wasn’t sure which, only knew that his mouth was soft, almost tender while he used his body, hands and hips and chest and thighs, to hold her exactly where he wanted her. He wanted her pinned, helpless, and completely at his mercy.
She gave a hitching little sigh that could have been a sob if he’d let her breathe, then surrendered.
“There you go,” he murmured. “There you go.”
He kissed her for far longer than she thought he would. On so many levels, she’d been wrong about Connor McCormick, mistaking size and an obviously tightly reined temper for lack of feeling, mistaking his hard body for a typical muscle-bound player, someone who’d be easy to sleep with, and easy to leave.
She’d been wrong. He kissed like he loved it, like he luxuriated in the competing sensation of teeth against slick lip, tongue on a long day’s rough stubble, the undeniable intimacy of sharing breath, noses rubbing. He didn’t move, just kissed her and let her feel his cock hardening between their bodies, shifted his hips in a subtle parody of sex, let her delve into him and get a little breathless from the weight of his body against hers, get a little panicky from the futile effort before pulling back. He was reading her reaction like … well, like a trained observer who routinely used his body to manage situations and control people.
Heat pulsed through her, liquid and thick and stinging her nerves, pooling in her nipples, between her legs, rising in her belly each time his abdomen brushed hers. Needing more, she wrapped one leg around his thigh, then hitched it to hip height and brought her other leg up to cross her ankles.
He didn’t even grunt, or shift his weight. She laughed at the realization she could climb him like a tree and not even faze him. He was that strong. That immovable.
The bulk of his solid weight rested on his elbows and forearms, she discovered, because she was able to wriggle her hands in his until he let go, very reluctantly. “I’m not going anywhere,” she said, and suited her actions to her words by looping her arms around his neck. She pulled his T-shirt to the side, mouthed at his neck, his ear, his jaw, luxuriating in the edge where soft skin met stubble and the hard angles of his jaw. Teeth on his earlobe made him shiver. Tongue against his pulse made him wrap one arm under her hips and hold her still so he could thrust forward.
“Really?” she asked. Such simple kisses never spurred that kind of reaction from a man before, like a barely tamed animal discovering it was okay to arch into a touch. Delighted, she did it again.
He growled, a rough sound she felt as much as heard, and tipped his head to the side, the male lion demanding more from his lioness. She clasped the back of his head, digging her fingertips into his scalp, making even more of a mess of his hair, and applied herself to her task, stopping just short of sucking a mark into skin visible to anyone. But it wasn’t easy, because the way he was breathing, each exhale vibrating through his vocal cords, and the way his grip tightened on her bottom made her want to respond in kind. She bit down on the straining tendon on his neck, and felt him wince.
“Sorry, sorry,” she whispered, and soothed the spot with a lick.