Into my ear, Connor breathes, “Talk to me, sweetheart.”
I close my eyes, losing myself inch by inch to the most powerful desire I’ve ever felt. “We can’t.”
“Yes, we can. One night. Just to get it out of our system.” His other hand finds my hip, curls possessively around it. He drags me closer to his body, so we’re flush against each other, crotch to chest.
He’s hard everywhere.
Nearby, someone snickers, enjoying the scene we’re making, but I could care less.
My trembling hands climb iron pecs and flatten over them. “We shouldn’t.”
Connor’s soft lips hover over the wildly fluttering pulse in my throat. He whispers, “We definitely should,” and touches his tongue to my skin.
Electricity crackles through me. I arch instinctively, sucking in a breath, my fingers digging into Connor’s chest. He makes a sound like an animal and takes a hot mouthful of my flesh.
The instant my eyes roll back in my head, an ear-piercing alarm sounds, shattering the moment. People start to shout. Chairs scrape back from tables. Connor and I break apart, panting.
He says, “It’s a fire alarm.” Then, angrier, “A fuckin’ fire alarm,” like he can’t believe the timing.
Saved by the bell, I think. A semihysterical laugh bursts out of me.
Connor grabs my hand. We move in the opposite direction of the rest of the crowd and run to the door with the red Exit sign illuminated above it on the opposite side of the patio from the main entrance. Inside, a stairwell leads to the ground floor.
We take the stairs two at a time, Connor ahead of me, still gripping my hand. The stairwell echoes with the sound of our footsteps pounding against metal, the blare of the alarm. We burst through the door on the first floor and out into the night. We’re on the side of the hotel, on a lit pathway that leads to the parking lot.
Before I can get my bearings, Connor pulls me off the path into the shadows of the building, presses me back against the wall, and takes my face in his hands.
“One night,” he says roughly, staring at me like he’s starving. “Say yes.”
We’re both out of breath. I know it’s not from the sprint down the stairs.
“Connor, the building could be about to burn down—”
“Let it burn. Say yes.”
I laugh. A wild, dangerous feeling is growing inside me, a chafing at the seams, like an animal that has grown too large for its cage. “You said you wouldn’t kiss me again.”
“Only because you were about to cut off my balls. Say yes.”
The way he’s staring at me, the heat in his eyes, the hardness of his jaw, the raw, unmistakable need—I’ve never been looked at like this by a man. I feel as if I’m standing in the sun for the first time. I feel like I’ve been living underground my entire life, and I’ve just crawled out of a hole into glorious, burning sunlight.
Burning being the operative word.
Things destroyed by fire: the earth in 2 Peter 3:10 in the Bible; Rome in 64 A.D.; London in 1666; Chicago in 1871; Boston in 1872; San Francisco in 1906; the Hindenburg in 1937; much of Europe in WWII.
Tabitha West in 2016?
When I freeze, Connor says, “Stop thinking.”
“That’s like asking me to stop breathing.”
One of his hands drifts down and very lightly grips my throat. His thumb rests over the pulse throbbing hard in my neck, betraying me more than any words ever could.
He murmurs, “Give your brain a night off. Your body wants this. And so does mine.” Slowly, he presses his pelvis to mine, his chest to mine, his thighs to mine, until our bodies are flush together and I have irrefutable evidence of how much his body wants me.
I squeeze shut my eyes so I can’t see that incredibly enticing look on his face turn into something a little less enthusiastic. “It’s called nonconcordance.”
A pause, and then, “What?”
“My body and my brain sometimes don’t work together. Especially in things like…this. I can’t help it. I get stuck in my head. I’ll start reciting lists, narrating what’s happening, anything to distance myself. It’s like being a spectator in my own body.”
He gently thumbs over my cheekbone. He doesn’t speak, but his silence has a quality of thoughtfulness to it, as if he’s working through what I’ve said.
“Once it happens, I can’t…that’s it. So.” I give Connor’s chest a gentle push, but he doesn’t budge.
After another moment, he says quietly, “Permission to engage the enemy, ma’am.”
Furrowing my brows, I open my eyes. “Um…I don’t know what that means.”
“I want to kiss you,” he breathes, staring at my mouth.