Chapter Thirteen
Oh, mercy. Emma was in way over her head here. She was supposed to be playing it cool and professional, putting their crazy-sexy-hot moments behind them. Just make coffee, Emma. Just chat innocuously about your boss-roommate-hottie-in-a-suit’s upcoming weekend plans, Emma. She had to go ask about the freakin’ bridesmaids. And he had to go show her that text message about Coldplay-loving, fresh flowers–hating Gabby.
Hey, jealousy. Surely it was understandable when only yesterday morning, he’d been lodged so deep inside her that she felt him all the way to her heart. His mastery of her body had been a thing of beauty.
She should be able to turn this need for him off, like a lamp. She shouldn’t be lying in his guest room bed with the fifteen thousand thread count sheets, humping a pillow…and her hand…and wishing she could afford batteries for her vibe.
Biting her lip, she moved her legs together, but he separated them with his knee and planted his pillar-thick thigh there. The hard planes of his body were the perfect fit against her aching softness.
“Are you okay, Ms. Strickland? You look…agitated.”
“This isn’t fair.”
“I know. It’s not fair that you’re a walking temptation and are sleeping barely feet from my bed.”
“Don’t worry. I’m not sleeping.” She frowned, annoyed at that reveal. “Kevin’s nocturnal and requires everyone else to be as well.”
His smile lit him from the inside. He should never stop doing that. No. He should stop doing that immediately.
“I’ve had a taste of you, Emma, and it’s hard to imagine going back to before.”
Oh, she knew the pain of that. But if she let him in, breaking away would be so much harder. So why was it that the only thing she could fathom was his lips on hers, his hands kneading her breasts and ass, his cock driving home—and driving her to heights she’d never achieved with any other guy?
He leaned in close enough to kiss her. Burn her alive.
“Where did you come from, Emma?”
Not what she expected at all. After his provocative words, he could have taken her apart, body and soul. There would be no resistance.
“Just a small-town girl…” she sang softly. Probably tunelessly.
“Small-town girl, big-city dreams,” he murmured, his gaze no longer on her mouth but now locked on her with a regard that consumed her. His lie-detecting look. “Did the city eat you up?”
And spat her out. “It hasn’t beaten me yet.” Keeping the shake out of her voice took effort. The times she’d picked herself up and dusted off the latest disaster to befall her were too many to recount. Fighting was her default setting. “I’ll be okay.”
“That’s what we say. That being okay, operating on autopilot is enough. But what if it isn’t?”
She recognized a kindred soul in those words. The loneliness in them. For so long, she’d struggled to keep her head above water, and the thought of wanting more was almost foreign. Anytime she reached out, she had her hand snapped off. Sure, she was a tigress in defending her sister and she could color-code a filing cabinet to beat the band, but she’d always hoped there was more to her. That she had a future that didn’t involve subjugating every need, desire, and hope to the service of others.
But with this man who made her think the impossible could be overcome, she wondered if her dreams were too small. If Emma Strickland could be more.
He nuzzled her nose, the intimacy of it a balm. “Hey, where’ve you gone?”
“It just—it’s been a while since I’ve thought about what I want. And the other night when we were in that private room together at the club…” She hesitated, unsure how to verbalize it.
“What?”
“I had this supremely selfish urge to come all over your cock.”
His snatched breath was immensely gratifying.
“Clamp down tight and ride you to heaven or hell. I didn’t care which, because I knew the journey would be out of this world.”
His groan must have been heard in the lobby sixty floors below.
This anchor of Brody’s unrelenting desire for her was about the only thing she could depend on. His potency crashed through her resolve. The south just seceded.
He lifted her onto the island counter, like she was a slip of a thing. His hands fit into the indentations of her hips perfectly. Kiss me, please. Make it better.
“You need this,” he whispered against her lips, his voice rusty with his desire. “Tell me you do.”
Somehow, he understood. Somehow, he recognized that the sanctuary of his body was necessary to her next breath. And somehow, she knew he wouldn’t demand more.
“Yes, Brody. So much.”