I panted, sighing her name and pressing my lips into the curve of her neck as I bathed in that feeling. Of owning her flesh like I’d been dying to. Of taking the girl I’d craved for so long and finally forgetting all of the things that had kept us apart. Because there was no keeping us apart. And I’d been a fucking idiot to think there ever could have been.
“Fuck,” I mumbled as a bit of sense returned to my brain and I pushed up onto my forearms as I looked down at her. “I didn’t use a condom.”
“I noticed,” she said with half a laugh that made her body clench around my dick. I could feel myself getting hard for her again already and I was dying to do that all over again.
“Shit, I should have pulled out, I should have-”
“I’m on the pill,” she said dismissively. “And I’m clean…are you?”
I snorted a laugh as I looked down at her. “Yeah. I got tested about eighteen months ago.”
“That’s not that recent,” she pointed out.
“Well, it’s recent enough. Considering I haven’t gotten laid since then.” I eased off of her as she arched an eyebrow at me like she found that hard to believe and I took her expression as a compliment.
I tucked my dick back into my jeans and knelt back, reaching over to snag my shirt from the floor and using it to mop up the mess I’d just made between her thighs with a teasing smirk. She bit her lip but didn’t make a move to stop me and when I got to my feet and offered her a hand to pull her up, she took it without question.
“Well, that was…”
“Unexpected?” I offered.
“Overdue,” she tossed back and I grinned at her.
“If it wasn’t official already, I’m definitely going to hell now,” I teased.
“Not possible,” she breathed, reaching out to trace the outline of the tiger which was inked onto my chest.
My gaze dropped down her body as she stood before me in her socks and shirt. There was something kinda hot about the fact that we hadn’t even been able to wait long enough to get our clothes off properly. But I wasn’t satisfied by what I’d taken from her. Not by a long shot.
“You’re not going to go back to just being my teacher again now, are you, Nash?” Tatum asked, her gaze flickering with vulnerability for a moment.
I leaned forward slowly, cupping her cheek in my hand and making her look at me when she tried to turn away.
“I fought this so hard because I knew you’d be the end of me, Tatum Rivers,” I said in a low voice. “I knew it the first moment I laid eyes on you, when you tripped me up with your fucking suitcase and when you called me an asshole right to my face. I could taste danger in the air every time I was near you and I had to fight with everything I had not to give in to what I wanted from you. What I needed. And every moment we spent together since has only made it harder to resist. Do you really think I could deny this now? Do you believe I could pretend that this hadn’t happened between us?”
I caught her hand in mine and laid it over my heart as I leaned in to kiss her, slowly, deeply, telling her everything I couldn’t put into words with the movements of my mouth against hers and letting her feel the way my heart pounded faster and faster with every moment we remained connected as one.
“Did you mean what you said?” she breathed as I slid my hands around her hips and started backing her up, crossing the single room which made up the cabin. The fire was roaring now and it warmed the air enough to make up for the chill trying to get in from outside.
“Which part?” I ran my hands up until I was peeling her shirt over her head and I groaned at the sight of her black lace bra with her pink nipples showing through the fabric.
“What you said when you came back,” she murmured, clearly not wanting to say the words in case I hadn’t meant to utter them.
I tossed her shirt aside as I bumped her back up against the kitchen counter and I lifted her up to sit on the edge of it as I ran my mouth down her neck, peeling her bra strap over her shoulder so that I could suck her nipple into my mouth. Tatum groaned, fisting her hand in my hair as I swirled my tongue around the hardened flesh, dragging my teeth across it and tugging until she gasped before looking back up at her.
“The bit where I said you were one of the only people I’ve ever really cared about?” I asked in a low voice and her eyes widened as I pushed her thighs apart and I couldn’t help but drop my gaze to take in every inch of her body bared before me. I’d imagined this so many fucking times that I just needed to drink in the reality of it.
“Yeah,” she panted. “It’s okay if you don’t, I just-”
I kissed her hard and soft at once, worshiping her mouth with mine as I brushed a hand up her spine and unclasped her bra. She tossed it aside and I palmed her breasts with a hungry growl as our kiss turned filthy and my dick hardened even more in my jeans with a desperate desire to claim her again.
“I haven’t felt anything close to this about anyone in a long fucking time,” I said against her lips. “And I’m not going to lie to you, I’m a
