Touching him was craziness. She knew it was. So she curled her fingers into a fist and lowered her hand back down to her side.
“Tell me,” he said, his voice rough. “After going through what you did, being pregnant. Being abandoned... You don’t want to jump right back into relationships, do you?”
He didn’t know the situation. And he didn’t know it because she had purposefully kept it from him. Still, because of the circumstances surrounding Riley’s birth, because of the way her mother had always conducted relationships with men, because of the way they had always ended, Danielle wanted to avoid romantic entanglements.
So she could find an honest answer in there somewhere.
“I don’t want to jump into anything,” she said, keeping her voice even. “But there’s a difference between being cautious and saying never.”
“Is there?”
He had dipped his head slightly, and he seemed to loom over her, to fill her vision, to fill her senses. When she breathed in, the air was scented with him. When she felt warm, the warmth was from his body.
Her lips suddenly felt dry, and she licked them. Then became more aware of them than she’d ever been in her entire life. They felt...obvious. Needy.
She was afraid she knew exactly what they were needy for.
His mouth. His kiss.
The taste of him. The feel of him.
She wondered if he was thinking of their kiss too. Of course, for him, a kiss was probably a commonplace event.
For her, it had been singular.
“You can’t honestly say you want to spend the rest of your life alone?”
“I’m only alone when I want to be,” he said, his voice husky. “There’s a big difference between wanting to share your life with somebody and wanting to share your bed sometimes.” He tilted his head to the side. “Tell me. Have you shared your bed with anyone since you were with him?”
She shook her head, words, explanations, getting stuck in her throat. But before she knew it, she couldn’t speak anyway, because he had closed the distance between them and claimed her mouth with his.
Six
He was hell bound, that much was certain. After everything that had happened tonight with his family, after Shannon, his fate had been set in stone. But if it hadn’t been, then this kiss would have sealed that fate, padlocked it and flung it right down into the fire.
Danielle was young, she was vulnerable and contractually she was at his mercy to a certain degree. Kissing her, wanting to do more with her, was taking being an asshole to extremes.
Right now, he didn’t care.
If this was hell, he was happy to hang out for a while. If only he could keep kissing her, if only he could keep tasting her.
She held still against his body for a moment before angling her head, wrapping her arms around his neck, sliding her fingers through his hair and cupping the back of his head as if she was intent on holding him against her mouth.
As if she was concerned he might break the kiss. As if he was capable of that.
Sanity and reasonable decision making had exited the building the moment he had closed the distance between them. It wasn’t coming back anytime soon. Not as long as she continued to make those sweet, kittenish noises. Not as long as she continued to stroke her tongue against his—tentatively at first and then with much more boldness.
He gripped the edge of the doorjamb, backing her against the frame, pressing his body against hers. He was hard, and he knew she would feel just how much he wanted her.
He slipped his hands around her waist, then down her ass to the hem of her dress. He shoved it upward, completely void of any sort of finesse. Void of anything beyond the need and desperation screaming inside of him to be inside her. To be buried so deep he wouldn’t remember anything.
Not why he knew her. Why she was here. Not what had happened at his parents’ house tonight. Not the horrific, unending sadness that had happened in his beautiful high-rise apartment overlooking the city he’d thought of as his. The penthouse that should have kept him above the struggle and insulated him from hardship.
Yeah, he didn’t want to think about any of it.
He didn’t want to think of anything but the way Danielle tasted. How soft her skin was to the touch.
Why the hell some skinny, bedraggled urchin had suddenly managed to light a fire inside of him was beyond him.
He didn’t really care about the rationale right now. No. He just wanted to be burned.
He moved his hands around, then dipped one between her legs, rubbing his thumb against the silken fabric of her panties. She gasped, arching against him, wrenching her mouth away from his and letting her head fall back against the door frame.
That was an invitation to go further. He shifted his stance, drawing his hand upward and then down beneath the waistband of her underwear. He made contact with slick, damp skin that spoke of her desire for him. He had to clench his teeth to keep from embarrassing himself then and there.
He couldn’t remember the last time a woman had affected him like this, if ever. When a simple touch, the promise of release, had pushed him so close to the edge.
When so little had felt like so much.
He stroked her, centering his attention on her clit. Her eyes flew open wide as if he had discovered something completely new. As if she was discovering something completely new. And that did things to him. Things it shouldn’t do. Mattered in ways it shouldn’t.
Because this shouldn’t matter and neither should she.
He pressed his thumb against her chin, leaned forward and captured her
