"Damn it, woman," I growl, exasperated. "There's no place else in this town to get a fucking iced coffee that doesn't taste like shit, okay? And I want a damn iced coffee."
Lily narrows her eyes. "You want an iced coffee. So you bought a coffee shop and bakery."
"I want an iced coffee from the girl in the checkered apron with the ponytail who gives me shit about – hell, every fucking thing imaginable. I want an iced coffee from the girl who makes the cabin in the woods that I thought was the best place on earth feel so damn empty that I've been crawling the walls since she stopped talking to me. I want an iced coffee from the girl who makes me laugh. And who's so fucking stubborn and independent and never listens to reason and won't take any help from anyone because she's too proud, but she's also talented and gentle and kind and. . . raising a kid who's funny as hell and just like her."
I take a breath. I can't read the expression on her face, but fuck it, because I'm going to say what I want to say anyway: "I want a damn iced coffee from the girl I love."
"Killian, I –"
"So you see why I can't just go get an iced coffee anywhere else? It has to be from you."
Lily
He's close to me, his eyes simultaneously demanding and pleading, and my entire body screams for him to touch me, to put his mouth on me and claim me as his. Except I'm confused and have a thousand questions like how the hell does he buy a store, anyway? And I'm scared, so scared to leap. And I'm mad. "Damn it, Killian!"
"What?" His voice is low, his body close to mine, almost touching.
"You're so fucking infuriating. You're so arrogant and pigheaded and you're a thousand times more stubborn than I could possibly be, even if I didn't listen to reason, which I totally do! I just don't listen to your ideas necessarily because they're crazy sometimes – like the bakery rules. You're reckless. And gruff. And inappropriate – so inappropriate. And then you go and have to be such a damn softie and, hell, I don't know whether I want to kiss you or shove you into a pond half the time –"
"Shove me into a pond? In the park?"
"Or wherever the nearest body of water is. The location is beside the point. The point is that I don't know how the hell you do this to me. I'm mad at you and then you go and do something so much more extreme and ridiculous than the thing I was mad at you for and turn it all around so that I wind up loving you for it!” My finger punctuates his chest for emphasis.
Killian wraps his fingers around my wrist, his other hand flying to the small of my back, then lower, cupping my ass and holding me tightly against him. "Say that again."
"I can't remember what I just said." I think I'm dizzy – from adrenaline or lust or fear of the unknown – but all I want is to feel him against me. I want these damn clothes off. I want to feel his skin on mine.
"You said you love me." His voice is thick.
"No, I said you make me love you."
He pulls my shirt over my head and throws it on the floor, his hands moving immediately to my jeans. "Same difference."
"Hardly." I kick off my sandals and they go flying across the tile floor.
He tugs my jeans around my hips and pulls them over my legs. "Will you stop talking already?"
"I'm never going to let you just dictate what I do, you know." I pull at his shirt, throwing it across the room. "Not without a fight."
Killian reaches for my hair, pulling my head back so that my face is upturned. My lips fall open and I whimper, but not because it hurts. It's because I want him so desperately inside me. "That's fine," he growls. "The fighting is foreplay."
He brings his mouth down hard on mine before I can tell him that's exactly what Opal said, and then it's forgotten in the midst of his bruising kisses. He kisses me and kisses me, his hand squeezing my breast roughly through my bra and I don't want to wait anymore because he's right. The argument has been foreplay, and I'm ready.
I fumble with the button on his jeans, and he pulls away from my mouth to unzip. Pushing his jeans down, I take his cock in my hand – holding it, not stroking it. "Now."
It's all I say, and he lets out a groan, picking me up and setting me on the nearest surface – a stainless steel countertop that's freezing cold against my skin but I don't care. All I want is him.
And that's what I get. I get all of him. He slips easily inside my slick * as I wrap my legs around his waist, my palms moving over his chest and trying to take all of him in. His hand tugging at my ponytail, ensuring that my eyes meet his as he thrusts inside me, looking away only to kiss under my earlobe and along my jaw before crushing my mouth again with his.
Nothing about this is slow or steady. It's frantic, messy, and passionate – Killian thrusting inside me, bare, skin against skin. My hands are at his neck, desperately needing him closer.
"I missed this," he says, low in my ear. "I missed this tight, warm, wet *."