MINE TO POSSESS

It was getting difficult to breathe. “O-okay.” Her hands clenched on him.

“This isn’t friendship.” A blunt statement, underscoring the dividing line they were about to cross.

“No. It’s okay,” she repeated when he just watched her.

“Is it?” A finger nudging aside cloth to stroke the dip of her breastbone.

“What do you want?” she asked, desperate to give it to him.

“Is this punishment, Tally?” Cat-green eyes clashing with her own. “Are you giving in to me because you want to hurt yourself? Am I another faceless fuck you plan to forget?”

“What?” Her hands fisted against the roughness of denim. “No!” She couldn’t believe she had ever worried about not feeling with Clay during sex. It was impossible to be anything but fully engaged—his leopard demanded it and so did her own fierce hunger. “I’m not giving in. I’m choosing this because you make me crazy with need, you arrogant cat. I want to mark you, make sure the world knows you belong to me.”

Those male lips seemed to soften. “Then tell me what you want.”

If her heart hadn’t already been his, he would’ve captured it then and there. He might be in a dangerous mood, but he was hers—maybe she didn’t have all of him but what she had, she would cherish with every breath in her. “I want to see you,” she whispered.

His eyes snapped up to meet her gaze. “I was thinking more along the lines of what would pleasure you. I don’t have much patience left.”

“You never had much patience,” she teased, though her stomach was tight with such frantic sensual craving, it hurt. “Seeing your body gives me pleasure.”

Eyes holding a surprised, strangely vulnerable look, he reached down, undid a few buttons on his dress shirt, then pulled it off and threw it to the side. All at once, his beautiful, naked chest was there for her to taste, kiss, enjoy. This very dominant male had just given her total skin privileges. Delighted, she flattened her hands on him, luxuriating in the tensile strength of pure muscle covered by hot, dark, beautiful skin. The crispness of the hair that curled under her palms was yet another seductive sensation.

She felt him place his hands on her hips but was too focused on his beauty to pay attention. Never, before Clay, had the mere sight of a man been enough for her body to ready itself for penetration. But today she was melting from the inside out and oh, how she liked it. Trailing her fingers down his chest, she found herself wondering what it would feel like to strip off her clothing and rub her nipples against the rough heat of him. Something tightened between her thighs, a hungry, aching need that begged to be satisfied.

There was a vibration against her palms. She bit her lower lip, fought the wave of sheer pleasure … and the piercing realization that that vibration would serve to intensify the sensations she craved. “You’re purring again.”

His lips curved. “I can scent your arousal.”

It should’ve made her blush. But it only made her hotter. “I can see yours.” He was hard under the straining zipper of his jeans. And big. Very big. Her body clenched and unclenched, urging her to unzip him, let him fill her up. It would hurt so-damn-good.

“Drop your arms.”

Face hot with the erotic images dancing through her head, she raised it to discover he’d unbuttoned her shirt. “No.” Wrapping her arms around his neck, she leaned in. “Kiss me first.”

“Going to be a brat in bed, too?” His hands slipped under her open shirt to hold on to her waist as he took her mouth in hot, languorous kiss that made her feel so sexy she thought she might just be able to conquer the world.

“I get to give a few orders, too,” she murmured.

His hands slipped down, closed over her bottom. Squeezed. She was still gasping over that when one of those deliciously callused hands slid up over her back and around to her front. She held her breath.





CHAPTER 33


He didn’t just touch her breast. He held with bold possessiveness. Squeezed there, too. And she decided to obey his order. Dropping her arms, she tugged off her shirt. It stuck at her elbows. Clay took full advantage, wrapping the material in his free hand and using it as a binding to keep her hands behind her back.

“I don’t like being restrained,” she complained.

He squeezed her breast again, then cut through the straps and the middle section of her bra with a single sharp claw, retracted a second later. “Can’t I even pet you in peace?”

Then her bra was gone and Clay was looking at her, his hand spread big and confident below her breasts. Her heart galloped. With each indrawn breath, it was as if she was pushing up her breasts for his enjoyment. They weren’t huge. Not even close. But right now, they seemed to have taken over her body.

“Apples,” Clay said, his eyes cat-bright.

She had no idea what he was talking about. “Apples?”

“I love apples.” He bent that dark head and closed his teeth around one nipple.