“Just sex, Ava.”
“Oh, I don’t do relationships,” I assured him honestly, staring at his beautiful mouth. “They just rip you open and eat your carcass and then leave it there for some other animal to finish you off. If you’re smart, you heal and you get your ass up out of those woods and make sure no animal gets the chance to rip you back open. But I’m amenable to having wild animal sex with you.” I reached up and ran my fingers over the prickle of thick stubble on his face and whispered, “Will it tickle my thighs?”
Caleb’s eyes flashed and I swear I heard him growl, before he slapped a lot of cash down on the bar and got up off the stool. Then my hand was in his, helping me off the stool, his fingers tightening around mine as he marched us through the bar and down the lobby toward the elevator.
Oh my God. I was really doing this. I couldn’t blame the alcohol, because the world wasn’t spinning or anything and I felt totally aware of what I was doing.
And very turned on.
My gaze drifted upward from Caleb’s black boots, to his black jeans, to the white shirt that attempted and failed to make him look civilized. Finally I settled on his strong profile. The proud, straight nose. The bristles of his blond stubble that did nothing to hide the sharp angles of his cut jawline. His full lower lip was so sensual it made me want to nibble on it.
Feeling my intense gaze, he looked at me and I found myself falling into those eyes. I’d never seen eyes like them. They were like wolf eyes. He looked like he was going to eat me up, and I sucked in a breath.
I couldn’t remember the last time a guy had looked at me with such sexual voraciousness that I welcomed. More than welcomed. I wanted him to wreck me in the bedroom—give me so many orgasms that it made up for the years of abstinence.
“You’re going to be as good at this as you look, aren’t you?”
His answer was a devastatingly arrogant grin as he pulled me none too gently into the elevator and pushed me up against the wall as the doors closed. He pressed his long, hard body against mine. “Never fear, babe. I’m about tae ruin you.”
The elevator dinged and quite abruptly he hauled me out and down the hall. I vaguely noted we were staying on the same floor, but Caleb marched me in the opposite direction from my room.
He let go of my hand to let us into his room and I found myself standing in the middle of a suite identical to mine.
The first thing he did was grab a remote control to lower the blinds over the window facing the runway. Then Caleb turned to me and studied me carefully for a moment. “Still sober?”
I swallowed hard, feeling more sober than I had downstairs. “Yup.”
“Still want this?”
There was a doubtful voice in the back of my head, the one that was quickly sobering up, telling me to stop this nonsense. But my blood was too hot and my inhibitions were down. I wanted sex. End of story. I nodded. “Do you still want this?”
Caleb’s response was as straightforward as ever. He crossed the distance between us, slipped his hands into my hair, and tugged me toward him. His mouth slammed down on mine, his kiss hard, hungry, needy—everything I couldn’t remember ever having.
I wrapped my arms around his waist, my fingers curling into his shirt as I tried to match his ferocious kiss. His tongue swept against mine and I groaned as lust shot through me, making my breasts tingle and my belly tighten. I found myself being pushed toward the bed as his large hands gently extricated themselves from my hair, slid down over my breasts, the pads of his fingers just tickling the swell of my cleavage. My nipples peaked against my bra as his fingers trailed down my stomach and his hands gripped my waist. All the time he kept kissing me.
I was jolted out of the kiss when he abruptly spun me around and moved my hair out of the way of my zipper. “You have gorgeous hair.”
“Thanks,” I whispered, shivering as he tugged the zipper down on the dress. He brushed the fabric away from my shoulders and I took over, releasing my arms from the short sleeves and pushing it down from my waist until it dropped to the floor. I stepped out of the fabric, wobbling a little in my heels as I undressed.
I felt his breath on my neck as he dragged the back of his knuckles down my spine. “Perfect,” he murmured.
Feeling hot—way too hot—I spun back around, reaching for him, but suddenly he gripped my waist again. He lifted me up like I weighed nothing and dropped me on the bed with a bounce. I made a little squeak of surprise.
Caleb towered over me, his body tense, his features taut, his eyes hot as they dragged over my body. I wore a matching black lacy bra and underwear. Something flickered in his expression—something I didn’t like—and he took a step back from the bed.
Confusion made me tilt my head. “Where are you going?”
He didn’t answer but a muscle ticked in his jaw.
Feeling vulnerable, I felt the snarkiness that had left me down in the bar return. “I’m sitting on your bed in my bra and underwear. Don’t be an asshole. Are we doing this or am I putting my dress back on?”
And just like that, he grinned at me. God, the man gave mood swings a new meaning! “Underwear off, babe.”
“Please.”
He shook his head. “Not even for sex.”
I rolled my eyes but reached for the clasp on my bra. I shimmied it off and dropped it at his feet. I knew I had great boobs. Right now they were swollen and my nipples were tight. I sat back on my hands, the natural arch of my back thrusting my favorite assets out.
The Scot’s gaze devoured me. “Jesus,” he muttered.
The tingling between my legs worsened. “I’m going to assume that means you like what you see.”
“Was it the hard-on that gave it away?”
My eyes lowered to where a bulge was straining the crotch of his jeans. A fizzle of deep, gnawing need hit me in the gut. God, I hoped he knew what he was doing because if so this was going to be delicious.
Caleb began unbuttoning his shirt with quick fingers, and my mouth really did go dry as I watched him rip the damn thing off. Only his left arm was covered in a full sleeve of tattoos, and the design continued onto the muscular left pec. There was a solo tattoo at the top of his right arm. Now I could see that above the modern soldier on his left arm, there was a kilted soldier like the ones I’d seen depicted in Outlander. The smoke above him gave way to a Spartan in among the ruins of an ancient building with broken columns. The clouds of smoke, debris, and ribbons of tattered material were drawn downward from his shoulder and collarbone to his pec, where words on two ribbons, one above the other, were tattooed. They read: “I don’t know how I’m going to win. I just know I’m not going to lose.”
My eyes wandered over the muscles of his six-pack and those broad, delicious shoulders to the other tattoo. It was of a skull sitting on a huge black rose.
His large bicep flexed as he began to unbutton the top button of his jeans. I licked my lips as I dragged my eyes back over to his muscled stomach. Lust flooded me. “Oh dear God.”
Caleb’s smile was full of ego. “Did he finally answer your prayers, babe?”
“Depends on what you’ve got in the pants.”
It was unclear who was more surprised by his sudden bark of laughter, me or him. It made me smile, though. Laughter suited him. He should laugh more. I grew steadily more turned on as I took in the sight of him and thought of all that masculine beauty becoming mine. Not that I dated, but when I did find myself attracted to a guy, he usually had lean muscle rather than brawn.
But I wasn’t complaining about Caleb’s physique in the least.
My eyes dropped to where the Scot’s jeans, now open at the top, hung low on his narrow hips, the hard-cut V of his obliques so goddamn sexy I was about to self-combust.
“Please take those off now.”
“Always so well mannered.”
“Just take them off.”