He dipped his head, his lips brushing warm and rough against my neck, and my knees wobbled so abruptly that I wasn’t sure I could keep myself upright if not for his grip on me. Another damned whimper trickled from my mouth.
“Not near good enough.” His breath was hot against the side of my neck. “See, Miss Bellamy, I’m not sure you want me to let go. I think you want me to take care of you. But if you want that—if you want me to really take care of you—then you have to say it.”
His mouth traveled to my earlobe, the same earlobe Dalton had kissed not twenty four hours before, and he gave it a sharp nip.
I moaned, arching my back and pressing hard against him. The entirety of me trembled as pleasure vibrated up my legs and into the rest of me. I moistened, as if to prepare for him, as if to answer his question without saying a word.
“You have to say it,” he commanded. “If you want it, you have to say it.”
I hadn’t felt like this in … well, I couldn’t remember a time I’d ever felt this way. The attraction—the need—was all-consuming. I didn’t care about anything else anymore. Just this moment. So I told him what he wanted to hear—what deep down was really true.
“I … I do,” I murmured, heart in my throat. “I want it.”
He let go of my hands and grabbed either side of me, thrusting me up and wrapping me in his massive, muscled arms.
The world spun as he pressed his face against mine, ravaging my cheeks, nose, and neck with his mouth.
Finally, mercifully, he took my lips with his own. The rush was almost too much to handle. When his tongue pushed past my lips and into my mouth, I thought I might faint. The warmth of him caressed me, exciting me and comforting me all at the same time.
I wrapped my legs around his waist, and we slammed into a wall still slick with fresh paint. I smelled it all, the paint that now covered us both, the sweat that slid between our bodies, the scent of him that urged me to go further.
My fingers tangled in his hair as he kissed me deeply. He throbbed against me now, and I ached for him to quench the fire he had lit.
His hand, covered in paint, ran under my blouse, inching up from my navel. He bit my lip as he tugged off my bra, freeing my breasts and sending a needy shiver through my body. I moaned again, clutching against him and thrusting my hips into his.
His mouth still pressed against my own, I felt the smile creep across his lips as he scoured my breasts hungrily, electricity in his fingers and desire coursing through my every nerve. He pinched my nipples between his thumb and forefinger until my moans turned to begging, then he pulled at my blouse, ripping it open.
“Your dress,” he muttered.
“Fuck the dress,” I whispered. “Just keep going.”
He trailed kisses down my neck, my chest, my breasts. My body shuddered as he took them in his mouth, one and then the other. His tongue flickered across my nipples, sending shockwaves through me and beating past the very last of my defenses.
But it wasn’t enough. I wanted him everywhere. As my body rocked against his, his hand traveled lower, past my navel, in between my thighs. His face came back up near mine, his nose brushing across my cheek and his lips tracing my jawline. When I tried to push my body back against his, I was met with the resistance of him holding me still and his soft chuckle in my ear.
“What are you waiting for?” There was a pleading in my voice, a pleading for him not to stop, for him never to stop.
“You’re not ready,” he mumbled. His hand slid over the silk of my underwear, and his thumb rubbed my clitoris through the thin material. “I’ve never known you to be so quiet. Are you all right?”
My nails were digging into him again—his back, this time. “I’m going to kill you, Abram.”
“Not yet you’re not,” he whispered. His fingers dipped in the welcoming darkness of my underwear, and I gasped as he slid one into me, but his free hand flew up and pressed over my lips.
I stood, trembling against the paint-soaked wall. With Abram’s hand against my lips and his other hand inside of me, pushing deeper than I ever imagined anyone would go, it seemed as though I might explode.
After a moment, he removed his hands from me and stepped back, but when I whimpered, he just grinned. “Shh, Mrs. Bellamy. These walls are thin. You wouldn’t want the whole town to hear.”
I felt vulnerable, needy, and weak—but I didn’t care. My whole face burned as he assessed me with his gaze while sliding off his shirt to reveal the rest of his upper body. The paint had smeared across both of us, and he was covered in streaks of gray and desire. My heart leapt in my chest as his fingers trailed down to unbutton his pants, but there was one more thing we needed to do first.
“Wait,” I breathed.
He blanched. “Is this too fast for you?”
I replied with a devilish grin. “Not fast enough,” I said, both my voice and body still trembling with desire. “But now you have to say it. If you want me, you have to—”
“I do,” he said. “Since the first moment I saw you, I have.”