“As the person in charge of your case, and the anger management issues, I should be encouraging you to never think the way you’re thinking right now.”
He shrugged.
“But…”
“But,” I exhaled slowly. “But I’m not going to. There’s no reason to.”
“Why is that?”
“Because I can’t say I don’t agree with you,” I answered. “I would’ve probably done the same thing, being in your position.”
His lips tipped up.
“I’d hope that if you were ever put into a situation like that, that you wouldn’t do anything as stupid as I did,” he drawled. “Otherwise you might get that pretty little head hurt.”
He thought my head was pretty?
“Pretty little head?”
His lips twitched.
“And that cute fat ass.”
My mouth fell open.
“It’s not fat.”
His eyes went to my hips.
“No, you’re not fat. Your ass though? It’s not fat, fat. But it’s fat. Round. I bet it would take my hips pounding against it like a pro.” He paused. “Would like to see it flaming red from my hand smacking it, too.”
I swallowed.
That was when I noticed that I wasn’t across the room from him anymore, but standing near the edge of the couch—only a scant few feet away from him.
I swallowed and started to step back, but his hand reached out and snagged my wrist, halting my backward retreat.
“You know something, Ms. Hanes?”
I swallowed again, and shook my head.
The feel of his long, strong fingers wrapped around my delicate wrist was my undoing.
I never knew that a touch on my wrist could feel like an electrode was connected straight to my clit, but damned if I wasn’t pressing my thighs together to alleviate the ache.
His eyes missed nothing.
“What do I know?” I whispered hoarsely.
“I know that this thing between me and you will never work.”
I frowned, anger that he’d write us off before we even started simmering in my belly.
Before we’d even started? What the hell, Hennessy?
“Wanna know why I know that?”
I swallowed and nodded.
“It’s not what you think,” he said.
I cleared my throat.
“What do I think?”
“You’re thinking that this is a patient doctor line that shouldn’t be crossed.”
I nodded faintly. It was. Very much so.
“But that’s not what’ll ruin us.”
“What will ruin us?” I questioned.
He grinned. “We will.”
I blinked.
“What?”
“You’re the preacher’s daughter. I’m the son of the town whore.”
I bit my lip.
He was speaking the truth.
Everyone knew who I was, and everyone knew who he was. Neither of us denied that fact.
“You’re all sunshine and giggling unicorns. A doctor that the whole entire fucking town can’t help but love, and I’m the dark, dangerous man that’s been to prison. That has killed someone. Nobody but my own crew likes me. You’re sweet honey, and I’m gasoline. Highly flammable and something that everyone is wary of.”
“I like the smell of gasoline,” I blurted.
His lips twitched.
“We’re gonna do this once, and once only.”
He pulled me closer, and by God if I didn’t do what he asked without protest.
“Straddle my hips.”
He’d see my garter belt. My stockings. The ones that I wore for him.
Oh, fuck.
I shook my head.
“What we’re about to do could ruin my career.”
His smile was sort of scary.
“How’s your heart?”
I placed my free hand to my chest, and felt it beating. “It’s racing.”
He smiled at that news. “What about your cunt?”
I shivered.
That word, coming from his mouth, would be my undoing.
“My vagina is…wet.”
Why was I being so honest with him?
“Do you ever say cunt…or pussy?”
I shook my head.
I tried really hard not to curse. The worst word I used was hell or damnation.
Being the daughter of a preacher was one way to stop yourself from using those kinds of words.
It’d been touch and go in college, but I’d managed to stay strong.
This man, though? He had the power to make me do anything, and I think he always had.
“What about cock?”
I shook my head, my eyes going to where his fingers still wrapped around my wrists to keep myself from looking at his lower half. Because if I did, I might very well throw myself at him.
“No,” I rasped.
My eyes became fixated on his tattoos. Starting at his fingers, they flowed up his wrist into a perfect sleeve. There wasn’t an inch of his skin that wasn’t covered with something. A jester. Swirls from some tribal pattern. A flower. Rose petals. A constellation. Mickey Mouse. The word ‘Alyssa.’ It just went on, and on, and on.
Each one I wanted to ask its meaning, but I couldn’t make my mouth work.
My body was focused on other things—like the throbbing between my legs.
I wanted nothing more than to drop my hand between my legs, and swirl my fingers around that unfamiliar bundle of nerves.
Yes, you’re reading that correctly. Unfamiliar.
I’d never had an orgasm.
Never.
I’d never once touched myself down there.
I’d had sex one time, and one time only.
It was the night I got really, really drunk.
I’d been at a party, had started drinking, and it’d lowered my inhibitions enough for me to do something I’d never been able to do before. Have sex.
It’d been a boy from my physics class. He’d been what you would call a nerd, and had been exceptionally terrible at sex.
I’d come onto him, and he’d taken me up on the offer almost immediately.
He’d taken me up to his room, shut the door, and followed me down onto the bed.
There I’d let him touch me.
I knew I hadn’t gotten off. I was fairly sure I hadn’t even been all that turned on.
But I’d always been curious.
However, when I was sober, I wasn’t able to lower my walls enough to ask for what I wanted.
There was a time that I thought something was wrong with me, but right now, standing next to this man, I realized that there wasn’t anything wrong with me.
I just hadn’t been near the right man long enough to realize what I wanted.
And I wanted Tate Casey, almost more than I wanted my next breath.
His eyes watched my face, studied every single expression that crossed it.
“Are you a virgin, Hennessy Hanes?”
I shook my head.
That was one thing I wouldn’t be able to lie about, and didn’t have to.
I wasn’t a virgin.
I hadn’t come. I never got myself off. And I hadn’t had sex in over ten years.
But I wasn’t a virgin.
Practically, yes. But technically, no.
My drunken night of sex with my first and only sexual partner had ended with him getting off the moment he’d sank his penis inside of me. I guess I should be lucky that I at least got that. Krisney hadn’t had sex with any man but her ex-boyfriend, Reed. Reed, who had shown her what she was missing, and then had taken it away from her. Mine, at least, hadn’t done that.
“Good,” he growled.
Then I was in his lap.
This was going to be bad. I knew it. He knew it. We all freakin’ knew it.
My notepad hit the floor, and the next thing I knew, my mouth was on his.
I was straddling his thick thighs.
They felt like rocks underneath my ass, as well as the long, thick column of his cock.
I told myself this was a bad idea.