Even after the thunder subsided, I didn’t pull away. He didn’t remove his arms, either.
“You are, I’m not,” he said gently. “I never sleep in a shirt.”
His touch was hard and strong, and so very, very warm. I felt my body relaxing against his. The built-up tension of the thunderstorm, melting away.
“Want me to put one on?” he asked.
“Fuck no,” I murmured into his chest.
Roderick chuckled and my whole body shook. “See? Filthy mouth.”
I rubbed my cheek lightly against one of his hard, unblemished pectorals. “May as well own up to it.”
For a minute or two we just lay there, listening to the storm. The rain was hypnotic, the wind like the droning of some familiar yet forgotten song.
Karissa, don’t even think about it.
Beneath the blankets, our bodies were growing closer. Inch by inch, centimeter by centimeter, our arms and legs slid together.
“We’re just going to sleep,” Roderick murmured abruptly. “Right?”
His skin smelled like soap, mixed with all things manly. It was the best kind of smell.
“Uh, sure.”
One of my hands found the flat of his stomach. I allowed my palm to glide over it, not even sure what the fuck I was doing.
What the fuck are you doing?
“You did win the bet though,” I reasoned carefully. “That’s got to be worth something.”
“It was,” said Roderick. “I got to take you to bed.”
“You were taking me to bed anyway.”
He made a face, and I laughed. Tilting my chin, I looked up at him.
“I could let you have something else,” I said. “Sort of a…”
“Consolation prize?”
I nuzzled him some more. God it felt good.
“I was going to say bonus prize. But yeah.”
My host hesitated, but only for a moment. I could almost see the internal struggle. The battle for good and evil, taking place within his brain.
“What exactly did you have in mind?”
Without thinking — and before I could stop myself — I took his hand and slid it straight up my shirt. It settled heavily over one warm, full breast.
“Something like this.”
There was alarm in his expression, like he’d suddenly done something he shouldn’t. I was trying to decide if it was cute. If it was maybe his way of being respectful, rather than coy. After all, one of his employees was about to—
“Karissa…” he said hesitantly.
“Or maybe this.”
I took his other hand and settled it over my ass. My sleep shorts rode high, leaving half the cheek exposed. His palm — rough and rugged from manual labor — felt abrasively wonderful.
We were face to face again now. Nose to nose.
“Really you could have whatever you wanted,” I breathed softly. “A bet’s a bet.”
I reached downward, between our bodies, and a wrist closed firmly over mine. Our eyes locked. My fingers were just inches away from the prize.
“Or… we could just sleep,” I shrugged. “Like you said.”
I took my hand away. I saw his eyes soften.
“Karissa it’s not like that.”
“Apparently not,” I said, pulling back.
“It’s just… it’s…”
The struggle was deep-seeded. Rational and real. Roderick’s expression was filled with sorrow and regret, but also a thousand other emotions as well. I saw longing in his eyes too. Desire. Need.
“I can’t just—”
Lust.
I dipped my chin, and suddenly he had my face in his hands. Roderick’s lips crashed against mine, his mouth moving with a hunger and passion that sent waves of heat crashing over me. His body surged forward, enveloping mine, as his tongue slipped into my mouth and made me his.
Holy fuck.
His kisses were fierce and fiery. Full of passionate promise. I felt almost consumed by him, engulfed in the burning heat of his suddenly insatiable appetite. His hands were back on my body. Squeezing me. Possessing me…
There was zero resistance as he rolled me onto my back. Straddling my body, his two big arms on either side of my head, Roderick stopped kissing me just long enough to look deep into my eyes.
“Say you want me,” he breathed. “It’s all I need.”
His words knocked the air from my lungs. I took only a second to recover, though.
“I want you.”
Nudging my thighs apart, he crushed me into the bed.
Eighteen
RODERICK
There weren’t words, really. None that came close to describing the violent storm of conflicting emotions, raging through my head.
But my body…
My body was full-blown lost. Corrupted by feelings so base, so primal, I couldn’t stop myself from being overwhelmed by them. Not tonight. Not in a million years.
No, not ‘corrupted.’ That’s just wrong.
She wasn’t just gorgeous, this creature writhing beneath me in my bed. That would’ve been easier. She was smart, capable, intelligent. Raw and unapologetic in her approach to life, which mirrored the approach to my own life, my old life.
And yes, she was beyond gorgeous to boot. Beautiful and stunning in all the ways that pushed every one of my buttons, in ways that dropped my walls and shattered my defenses and made me finally assailable. At least physically.
Emotionally, too.
Fuck. I was lying to myself. Deceiving my own self-imposed standards to maintain my restrictions and restraint. There was nothing stopping me from doing what I was about to do. No one to shove me aside, to preserve the unblemished memory of the last time I did this, and who it was with, and what it ultimately had meant to me.
It’s been two. Whole. Years.
“I want you.”
Her mouth, her lips, those three little words… I allowed them to be the tipping point. I let them erode away my last ounce of resolve, and free me to do what I truly wanted.
And what I wanted, was to fuck her gorgeous little brains out.
“I need you.”
The words were short. Staccato. Brutally honest. She smiled as I said them, and then I drank that smile with my own hungry mouth.
Oh my God.
Her lips were wet and full, her mouth wholly delicious. I explored it again with my tongue, even as I reached down one arm and yanked her shorts — and panties — roughly down her smooth, flawless thighs.
Karissa gasped as I shoved myself between her
