But he pulls away—pulls his fingers out of me and his body away from mine until the only place we’re connected is his hand at the small of my back. “Not yet,” he murmurs, stepping far enough away that I can no longer feel the heat radiating from his body.
And then even his hand is gone and I’m left alone, tears in my eyes and body sliding down the glass as my trembling knees finally give way.
A harsh click echoes through the silent room, followed immediately by a shift in light against my closed eyelids. Oh right. My muddled brain puts the pieces together. Ian hasn’t left me. He was just turning off another lamp.
Seconds later he’s back, crouching next to me. Sliding his hands around my waist. Pulling me back to my feet. Pressing me once again against the window.
I shudder, overwhelmed by…everything.
By his hands around my waist.
By the aftershocks of pleasure still working their way through me.
By this whole situation.
For a moment I think of saying no. Of calling a halt. But if I do that, he won’t touch me any more and though I know I should want that—I did want that just this morning—right now, it’s the most terrifying thought in the world.
And so I say nothing, do nothing, but stand where he places me. Where he arranges me.
My arms are down this time, hands by my hips, palms pressed against the glass. My legs are spread wide, my head down and forehead once again resting on the window as my hair covers most of my face.
I wait for him to step back, wait for him to leave me again. Brace for it, even. But this time, he stays where he is—one hand on my shoulder, the other on my hip—as if he knows just how far gone I am. As if he knows that it is only his touch that’s keeping me from floating far, far away.
“Fuck,” he mutters as his fingers curl around the front of my hip, rubbing at the sensitive skin of my abdomen, my navel, my mons. “You go under so easily.”
I don’t know what he means, don’t know if it’s a good or bad thing and right now I’m too far gone—too far under, to use his words—to try to figure it out. And so I just whimper as I stand there, arching my back a little so that my ass presses against his hard cock.
“Don’t!” His hand clamps down on my hip hard, holds me in place.
I cry out then, and it’s a sound I don’t think I’ve ever made before. Half-pleasured, half-distraught, it hangs in the air around us for several long, tense seconds. And then he’s wrapping his arms around me. Burying his face against my neck. Pressing wet, openmouthed kisses against the fragile skin there.
Immediately, I feel less bereft.
“Trust me,” he says.
Any other time I would laugh at him. Trust him? I don’t trust anyone, let alone the writer sent to pry into my life for a magazine article. But right after he asks it of me, his teeth nip sharply at the join of my neck and shoulder and my whole body goes limp. And I know that even if I don’t trust him—even if I never trust him—I’m still going to surrender to him.
Still going to give him anything—everything—that he asks of me.
Chapter 13
Who are you?
The words are on the tip of my tongue. There are so many other questions I need to ask, so many others I’ve waited months to have the answers to. And yet, right here, right now—when my hands shake with desire and my dick aches with the need to be inside of her—this is the question that matters most to me.
Who is Veronica Romero? More, who does she think she is? I’ve only known her a few days and yet already I’ve figured out that how she perceives herself is as different from how the world perceives her as it is from who she actually is.
But as I stand here, burning with both questions—and with a need I can’t deny—I see her eyes in the reflection of the glass. They’re dark and hazy and far removed from the woman who stormed into this hotel room less than an hour ago.
She’s in subspace now, weightless, unmoored, drowning in sensation. Instincts I didn’t even know I had tell me that I could push her a little harder, take her under a little more, and she’d answer my every question. Tell me anything and everything I need to know.
And while that might be the easy route, that doesn’t mean it’s the right one. Taking advantage of her sensuality—of her trust—would make me an even bigger bastard than I already am. And while I’m willing to bend my rules quite a bit to get the answers I need, I’m not willing to break them completely.
No matter how much I want those answers.
No matter how much I want her.