That single touch was all it took.
She arched from the bed as she slammed into ecstasy. Her head rocked back and those perfect tits jutted toward my face.
My mouth grazed a rosy nipple as I eased my hand away before both my hands were on either side of her head as I conquered her with each erratic thrust.
Pleasure rushed down my spine. Tightening my balls. Constricting to a pinpoint.
Exploding and blowing through my body on a fiery circuit.
Every nerve.
Every cell.
I poured into her, my body bowing and my head dipping down to the soft flesh of her shoulder.
My teeth sank in.
Making my mark.
Sated, I collapsed onto her sweat-drenched body before I pushed up onto my elbow and brushed my fingers through her hair. “I think I like where this is going.”
Lillith giggled. “I think I do, too.”
She sobered, touched my face, vulnerability slipping into her tone. “I shouldn’t fall for you.”
I edged down and nipped at her bottom lip. “Yes, you should.”
Chapter Eleven
Lillith
“That was amazing,” the deep voice grumbled from beside me, his rugged pants rising into the air as night took hold of the hotel room.
I struggled to find my own breath. My body blissfully spent.
But it was my heart pulsing full of an overwhelming satisfaction and joy that shivered through my senses. The feelings pressed and pulsed and thrummed, demanding to make themselves known.
Affection.
Fondness.
Care.
Stripped of my anger, they were right there, taunting me with the fact I’d rather be in his arms than anywhere else.
I knew those feelings put me in greater danger with this man than I’d ever been.
I rolled onto my side and propped up on my elbow. “What is happening here?” I whispered.
Broderick lay on his back in the middle of the massive bed we’d spent the entire day utilizing to its fullest potential.
I couldn’t resist tracing a fingertip down the sheer strength of his bare chest and over his ripped abdomen. As if I hadn’t spent the last eight hours exploring every inch of him while he’d consumed every inch of me.
No place in me had been left unattended. He’d taken me hard and fast and rough, again and again. Until the last time when his touch had turned tender and slow as he’d stared down at me through the descending night.
He grinned. “I thought we were seeing where this goes.”
“But now that you have things settled here, you’ll be going back to New York.”
“Will I be?”
Quickly, I shifted up farther so I could get a better look at him. “What?”
He raised a hand and threaded his fingers through my hair. “Maybe you were entirely wrong about my view back in Manhattan, Lillith. Maybe I have the best view right here.”
Tingles spread like sparking matches to my spirit.
Stunned, I blinked down at him. “You want to stay here…because of me?” It almost came across as an accusation.
“You think I wouldn’t?”
My head shook. “You don’t even know me.”
His smile was easy. “You keep saying that.”
He seemed completely unperturbed by my sudden questioning, while my whole world felt as if it’d spun off its axis.
I was a realist.
A planner.
Cautious to the ninth degree.
I didn’t carelessly fall in love. To me, love was a decision that was made only by choice, given after every consequence had been taken into consideration.
Otherwise, you were left stung. Bitten. Broken.
I also didn’t fall recklessly into someone’s bed.
Yet, there I was.
“I keep saying that because it’s true.”
“What are you so afraid of?” he asked as he ran gentle fingers through my hair, a frown denting between his eyes.
I had the sudden urge to slip from his bed and cover myself, hide, the impulse stronger than it’d been in a long, long time.
His brow furrowed, the man so intent as he ran the knuckles of one hand down my cheek and under my jaw. Tingles lifted. Warmth and comfort and a stroke of that fire. “Who hurt you, Lillith?”
“The people who were supposed to love me most.”
I had no idea what had come over me, because the urge to tell him was suddenly so much greater than the need to run. The pain I’d kept hidden for so long begging to be released. He watched me, silently coaxing me to continue.
I swallowed around the lump in my throat before I forced out the confession. “I was fifteen…”
I blinked through the memory, my voice going soft as I got lost in it. “It was just like any other day. I went to school. My momma had been more scattered …flustered. Depressed maybe, I don’t know.”
My tongue felt as if it might freeze up, but the words kept flooding out when Broderick tightened his hold in my hair. “I let myself into the house after school that day, and they just…were gone. She and her boyfriend. I kept calling for her, thinking it was some kind of joke. I ran to her room and all the drawers were open. Empty. She’d left me this letter…telling me she was sorry and that everything would be okay. That I was a big girl.”
Something that looked like anger took hold of his expression before awareness settled into its place. Slowly, he nodded in understanding. “And Addelaine took you in.”
“Yeah. I answered a call for a help wanted ad, na?ve enough to think I’d make enough money to keep paying rent on the house. But Addelaine and that store…they became my home. I lived with her until I graduated from college.”
He smiled. “I knew she was an amazing woman.”
“She is.”
“Like you,” he murmured, brushing his lips across mine.
Butterflies tumbled. My heart full. The rigid pieces splintering beneath the weight of his care. And suddenly I was wanting things I hadn’t dreamed of wanting in so long. Maybe Nikki was right. I needed a little shredding. But it was my distrust and skepticism that this man was shaving away.
Silence hovered in the air. “I should probably go.”
“Oh no, Ms. Redd. You aren’t going anywhere.”
My brows lifted as my mouth pulled into a smile. “Is that so?”
He grinned. “I thought we already established you don’t need to be afraid.”
My fingertips raked across the strength of his chest, and I peeked up at him. “But I am. I’m afraid of this. It’s insane that I’m here. You’re the last person I should fall for.”
His big hand cupped the side of my face. “Don’t you know all great love stories never should have been? That’s what makes them great.”
“Is that what you think this is…the start to a great love story?”
“Do you want it to be?” There was a tease behind his words, but a softness, too.
Heat flashed across my skin, warming me inside and out. “That’s…crazy. Just last night, I hated you.”