Holding back the tears was impossible.
By time she reached the dimly lit shadows of the building’s side parking lot, the first one had escaped. Cupping her hand over her mouth, she fought to hold back the cry that would have spilled free with it. Allowing it to escape would only lead to more tears, to the pain erupting inside her like a tightly capped volcano spewing free.
She was unaware she had been followed. Unaware that the man who caused the tears was no more than a step behind her.
Casey heard the hitch of her voice, and as though the knowledge of her tears was borne in the air following a storm, he knew the pain suddenly raging inside her.
He’d never felt another person’s tears or another person’s emotions as he felt hers now. As though they reached out to him and pierced his chest like an arrow, shooting straight to his soul.
“Sheila.” He reached for her as the door slammed behind them, the shadows of the night wrapping around them.
He gripped her shoulders, turning her, overcoming the instinctive struggle, the pride that had her stiffening against him as he pressed her body between his and the side of the building.
“God, baby, you’re killing me.” The words, whispered at her ear, seemed to break something inside her.
Her body slumped, her shoulders trembling as he felt the silent sobs that suddenly escaped and the tears that spilled to the thin white dress shirt he wore.
She cried silently, which was all the more heartbreaking as her fingers tightened and fisted in the shirt over his chest. Wrapping his arms around her, Casey held her as closely, as tightly to him as he could, and still, it didn’t seem to be enough. He wanted her under his skin, to be a part of him, locked so tight to him that neither of them could escape.
Bending his head to her shoulder, the soft flesh bared by the thin straps of her camisole top, he let his lips press to her flesh, his tongue ease out to taste the soft, feminine taste of her.
As though that small hint of her essence only intensified the need, he allowed his lips to part further, his tongue to take more of her taste as he kissed the fragrant flesh.
“Fuck. Roses,” he growled as that hint of a taste penetrated his senses.
God, he loved the taste of roses against her flesh.
His hand smoothed up her arm, lifting until he was cupping her neck, his thumb pressing beneath her chin to lift her face to where the moonlight gleamed on the damp trails of her tears.
Her eyes glittered in the darkness, filled with pain. And God knew he understood how she hurt. How the hunger and the need beat inside her soul, because it beat inside his own.
As her lips parted on a ragged breath, he couldn’t resist the taste, the soft, crushed-silk feel of them.
His head lowered and he took instant advantage of the parted curves, the damp, tear-drenched saltiness, and the heat and pleasure he’d found only with his Sheila.
Her breathing hitched, but this time in response to his kiss rather than in response to the pain.
Lifting her closer as his knees bent, one hard thigh pressing in between hers, Casey pulled her to the furiously hard flesh pounding beneath his jeans.
Her skirt slid back, revealing tempting, creamy thighs in the dim light as her legs lifted, her knees bending to grip his hips and ride the cloth-covered erection raging beneath the denim.
Damn her. His body craved her like air. She was as natural to him as breathing, and he couldn’t seem to exist without finding a way to see her, to touch and hold her.
He let his palm slide up her thigh, beneath the skirt. His fingers tucked beneath the tiny square of material that barely covered her sex to find her hot and wet, the silken folds drenched in sweet, feminine honey.
He was so damned hungry for her it was all he could do to keep from ripping the zipper of his jeans and impaling her with the stiff flesh of his dick.
He wanted inside her so bad he could barely think for it, barely concentrate on anything but the remembered feel of her pussy milking the come from his dick.
As he snarled his head jerked back, his hips grinding between her thighs as a soft, desperate little moan escaped her lips.
“Tell me, Sheila.” He had to hear the words. “What do you want from me? Tell me, baby, and I’ll give you what we’re both dying for.”
He left his fingers tucked between the folds of her pussy, to rub against the snug, clenched entrance in a sensual promise to fill her if she gave him what he needed.
“Casey, just tell me.”
He froze. Staring down at her he could see the confusion in her gaze, the desperation, and he could see how much she loved him.
A love so strong, so deep was what he felt for her.
No, his was stronger, deeper he decided, because he knew it for what it was, felt it for what it was, and she continued to hide from it. From him.
His fingers eased back.
“Casey, please,” she cried out, her voice hoarse with tears. “What do you want from me?”
What did he want from her?
Hell.
“As strange as it may seem, baby, I want you to see without being shown.” He sighed as he eased her back to her feet and steadied her until she was standing on her own. “Come on, I’ll take you to your car.”
Before he ended up fucking her against the wall.
That was
