She gave me a lopsided smile and she worked her hands under the collar of my shirt so she could stroke the base of my neck.
“Because it’s bound to happen, but I really want to enjoy what we have before then.”
How did I fight against that? How did I convince her when she seemed so certain that if she let go and trusted the feelings building between us instead of worrying about what might happen or what had happened, we could make the here and now something that lasted forever?
I wanted to keep arguing, to keep pushing her to see that this was more than a fling, more than two people who were sexually compatible. I wanted her to feel, to know I wouldn’t have been able to make it through everything going on with Phil and the shop without her kindness, her gentleness and care. However, she had her hands under my clothes and her mouth settled over mine, and even though I knew she was trying to distract me from the conversation, I decided not to stop her.
If this was the only way she was going to let me connect to her, I would just have to make do with it for now. I was a guy after all … and there were far worse things in life than having a gorgeous girl want you for sex. Plus, she wanted me, had proven that time and time again. I guess I would just have to ultimately decide if what she wanted me for was going to be enough when I felt like I needed to give her everything else I had.
CHAPTER 14
Saint
I was going to screw all of this up. I felt it all the way down to the marrow of my bones.
I had to touch him. Had to try and soothe the way I was cutting into him and making him bleed. There was no hiding the way my hesitation, my resistance, made his eyes go dark and his mouth go hard. Even with his obvious disappointment, he never lashed out, never got nasty, which made everything even more convoluted in my head. I did what I knew would make it all go away for a while, I kissed him, started pulling at his clothes and pressed up against his hard body. He was stiff and unresponsive for a half of a second, but like always when we got together like this, his big frame started to loosen.
Seeing Royal making herself at home on his couch had made every concern, every worry, every insecure part of me want to run away from him and never look back. All those questions of why he would want me, of how long would it take until he found someone without my hang-ups, someone not stuck in the past, barreled through my head like a runaway boulder falling off a cliff. If there hadn’t been real joy, real gratitude glowing out of his violet eyes when he saw it was me at the door, I would have bolted and never spoken to him again. I hated that this thing with him made me feel that way, brought such a ridiculous weakness to the forefront of my mind. It made me feel like I was stuck in time. I just couldn’t handle that, so I blew him off when he tried to explain. I was protecting myself, insulating my heart, but little did I know my words were drawing a line in the sand where he was concerned and his heart very well might be just as fragile as mine.
When he had told me to go, walked to the door like he was really ending it all, my breath had been sucked out of my lungs and my blood had frozen still in my veins. I couldn’t give him everything he wanted, that left me far too vulnerable, but I had to make him see this was just as important to me as it was to him. The only way I could do that without getting stuck on words was with my body. Sure, I wanted him and he knew it, but I don’t think he knew it was so much more than that. I just couldn’t figure out a way to explain it all to him without sounding like a nut job or an uncertain and immature child.
I made a startled noise when he pressed me back fully into the door and tangled his fingers in my hair. His eyes burned down at me in endless rivers of purple and blue.
“This is a conversation we are going to have to finish at some point, Saint.”
I put my hands under the hem of his shirt so that my palms could skate up the divots and hollows of his rib cage. His skin was always so warm. He always felt so strong and vital, so resilient and secure. That he let me call the shots, let me set the pace when we were together, made me feel like the most powerful and most desirable woman in the world. It was intoxicating. I couldn’t just walk away from it even if that was ultimately what was best for both of us.
“But it can wait, Nash.” I brushed my lips across the base of his throat and felt him swallow. I hated that he felt like he had to deal with me and all my issues on top of everything he was struggling with in regard to his dad.
He kissed my temple and then used his tongue to trace the shell of my ear. It made me shiver all over even when he whispered, “No, not now. But soon.”
He pressed even more fully into me, making me spread my legs. He let his hands fall to the round curve of my ass and I gasped when he shifted, hefted me up, and urged me to wrap my legs around his waist. I was tall and not a petite girl. There wasn’t much about me that I would ever consider dainty, but he was a monster in comparison, so he didn’t even seem like he noticed my weight when he moved away from the door and headed down the hallway that led to his bedroom. I curled my arms around his shoulders and sealed my mouth over his while he walked. I loved the way the motion rubbed our bodies together. Even through my work scrubs and the layers underneath, I felt my ni**les pebble, felt his body respond through the thick denim of his jeans. I twisted my tongue around his, twirled them in a sucking, breathless kiss that had both of us needing to come up for air by the time he got to the bedroom.
He leaned forward and dropped me on the center of the bed while pulling back and pulling his shirt up and off over his head. Now, that was a sight that would never get old. The muscles and golden skin stretched so tautly over them was always mouthwatering and made my fingers tingle and itch to stroke all over, but the designs, the markings that defined him, decorated him, and made him his own walking art gallery were just as alluring. The ink that curled and twisted up and down his arms was brilliant and eye-catching, but it was that dragon, that other part of him, that I always wanted to touch. The wings, the fire, the scales that covered so much of his big body … it was like he had a second skin and only a few got to see it in all its grandeur and I was one of the lucky ones.
He popped open the tab on his belt and lifted an eyebrow at me. I sat up and pulled my top off. Hospital work clothes were not the most flattering thing a person could wear but he didn’t seem to mind them. His gaze did that thing where it went almost all the way black when I was left in front of him on the bed in nothing but my underwear. He reached out a single finger and trailed it down the valley between my br**sts.