My back hit the wall, crashing into the dried section of my mural. I grasped at the freshly painted surface, desperate for balance as his teeth nipped at my throat. I made a sound I had never made before, gasping for breath and begging him to touch me.
He took my mouth again, deepening an already soul-altering kiss. His hand moved over my hips, trailing a hot path over my ribs and then finally to the crest of my breast. His thumb rubbed over my nipple and I made another one of those mewls that would have embarrassed me with any other man. But I was so past that with Ezra. I was done overthinking, analyzing and finding fault. I was done pushing him away because I was afraid of getting hurt, or being rejected, or feeling unwanted.
He pinched my nipple between his skilled fingers and I decided that the clothes we were wearing were frustratingly in the way. I pulled back, but barely as he already had me pressed against the wall, his long leg cleverly positioned between mine. Tugging at the hem of my shirt, he saw what I wanted and didn’t hesitate to deliver.
My shirt disappeared, and then my bra followed quickly after. Before I could take a full second to feel self-conscious, his mouth descended on my nipple, making my skin tingle and my entire body flush with desire.
“Fucking beautiful,” he murmured against my skin as he tasted and nibbled and drove me out of my mind.
I struggled to get his buttons undone while he made me wild with seductive kisses and talented hands. He finally gave me mercy, reaching back to rip his shirt over his head before I’d fully unbuttoned it. There was a funny moment where his sleeves got caught on his wrists, but with some necessary teamwork, we finally got the damn shirt off. His undershirt went into the pile of our clothes with little fanfare.
His lips found mine again, his heated, muscular chest pressed against my softer, fuller, female one.
He was much taller than me, but it was like we had been designed for each other. His body towered over mine, conforming all of my curves to his. He felt like heaven pressing in on all of my sensitive spots, driving my body wild with sensation and seduction and his wonderfully sinful mouth.
“More,” I pleaded. “Ezra.”
His kisses slowed, not lessening, but somehow becoming more… hotter… needier. His hand moved over my hip, finding the front of my jeans until his fingers disappeared inside. I gasped again, nearly exploding the second he touched me.
It had been so long since I’d been intimate with someone and I had never felt the way I did about Ezra. Which was what? I couldn’t even put words to it. Something that burrowed into my soul and became a permanent, treasured thing. Something that would never let me walk away from this man again.
I wouldn’t be his father that used him for needs Ezra shouldn’t have had to meet. I wouldn’t be Elena that didn’t understand his drive to be successful, or the relentless push inside him to carve out an empire. I wouldn’t be Lilou, or Sarita. Or Bianca, or any other girl that only wanted to use him for what he had to offer: his money, his connections, his… business know-how.
I would be me—a broken, lost, terrified woman that didn’t know if she could tolerate her job for a second longer, or if she would ever be able to check her oil or change a tire, or cook. I would be honest with him and let him decide.
It was the only thing I knew how to do.
His fingers moved inside me and mine curled into his shoulders, desperately holding on for strength, needing him to anchor me to this place. To him. To us.
His free arm braced his body over my head as our mouths pushed and pulled in a kiss that was achingly tender. His fingers moved in, out, deeper, slower until I was gasping for breath, hovering at the brink of internal combustion.
My leg wrapped around his hip, giving him better access to the hidden, secret parts of me. He pulled his head back and gazed down at me, studying, watching… worshiping.
“Do you know how beautiful you are, Molly? God, I could watch you all night.”
I was too close to the edge to respond coherently, my eyes shut as I chased that delicious surrender. My head dropped, my forehead landing on his chin. So close…
“You’re unexpected and lovely, and something that very much feels like salvation,” he murmured against my hairline, his scruff-shadowed jaw scratching my overly sensitive skin.
His last, whispered words were my ruin. I fell apart in his arms, his capable fingers doing something magical inside me. I dropped my defenses and let go with a man I realized I completely trusted, respected. With his hard, beautiful body pressed against mine in a restaurant he had named after a woman that had hurt him, I came undone.
And I knew, I just knew, it was because I felt something for this man that I had never felt in my life.
He kissed me again, slowly and tenderly… reverently. “Don’t stop,” I pleaded. “I don’t want you to stop.”
A wolfish grin flashed, greedy with the promise of more. Tugging me off the wall, he laid me down on the sheets covering his floor and hovered over me. My heart kicked in my chest. His skin was perfect, muscular, smooth and so enticing. I wanted to taste every inch of him and return his most recent favor.
But I knew I wasn’t alone with those feelings as his dark, rich chocolate eyes moved over my own topless body, drinking in the sight of me. I was drowsy with desire, my body limp with experienced pleasure and pooling heat. But fear curled too, whispering truth and realization and the very real possibility that this man could destroy my heart.
I was too far gone for him.
“Please don’t name a restaurant after me,” I whispered as his hot skin touched mine.
He must have seen the terror in my eyes, because his gaze softened and he bent down to nip at the swell of my breast. Lifting his head for only a second, just long enough for me to catch the raw plea, he countered. “If you left Molly, one restaurant would never be enough. They would all be you.”
It shouldn’t have been a compliment. I shouldn’t have felt cherished at that moment, adored. But I did.
And because of that, my fears disintegrated and I found him again hovering above me. He had been waiting patiently for me to give into it, to him. He had been watching as I decided that I wouldn’t hurt him, that I couldn’t walk away.
Whatever had started between us as a seedling of angst, had blossomed into a tree with roots and stretching branches. I wouldn’t leave him.
I couldn’t.
This was what my mom had meant all those times she’d told me not to quit. It wasn’t the job that was the most important thing in my life, or the life I’d imagined myself. It was this. Ezra.
It was the thing building between us that I wasn’t quite ready to name.