“Shane,” I plead the instant I’m back on my feet, trying to get him to hear me out before I have no resolve left to argue.
His reply is to turn me to face him, my back resting against the door again. His hands are on my hips, those gray eyes of his dark, unreadable. “I’m right here,” he promises. “With you, where I’ve been since the moment I met you. But what I said earlier is true. Everything has changed.”
“Then why are you here?”
“I came for you,” he declares. “I’m not leaving without you. Will you lie now and tell me you want me to?”
My chest tightens, eyes burning with the hint of betrayal I hear in his voice and my hands go to his arms. “I hated lying to you, Shane. Please know that. I thought this would end, I could confess.”
He leans in, his lips at my ear. “Tell me you don’t want me to stop,” he commands. “Tell me what you really feel, not what you think you’re supposed to feel.”
“You know what I feel,” I whisper.
“Say it.”
There is a gravelly, tormented sound to his voice. I desperately need to answer, but if I say what he wants me to say, what I want to say, I will only ensure he won’t let go of me when he has to let go. “No,” I say firmly. “No. I won’t.”
He leans back and looks at me, his gray eyes sparking with flecks of blue I know to be anger. “Yes,” he replies. “You will because I won’t stop until you give me everything that is real. That is what I want and deserve. And so do you. But that is what we have to be from this point forward. Real. Absolute. Honest.” He lowers himself to one knee, where his mouth presses to my belly, his tongue flickering over the sensitive flesh.
I pant and my lashes lower, because I know what is coming, what he will do next, and my willpower will soon evaporate, if it hasn’t already. He wants what is real, but that is dark and blood-laden, and he doesn’t deserve it. His hands caress up and down my hips, over my backside. His tongue flicks against me, sweeping into my belly button. I’m so very in this man’s control but the thing is, that is when I feel the safest. That is when I feel like nothing else can touch me.
“Look at me,” he orders, and as if I have no option, I do as he says. I look at him, and I find the smoldering heat of his desire and mine reflecting in his stare. And feel the connection I share with this man in every part of me. “I’m going to remind you how good we are together.” He cups my sex. “I might not own you,” he says, his thumb stroking my sex, and I feel each stroke in the tingling of my nipples. “But I own your pleasure. And more that we’ll talk about after I make you come.” He slips a finger inside me, then another. “More than once.”
I try to grab his shoulders, but he is out of reach, forcing me to fist my hands by my sides, and endure the pleasure. Endure. Like this is hell when it’s pretty much heaven. He lifts my leg to his shoulder, his lips pressing to my belly again, his free hand sliding up and down my thigh. And then it happens, that thing that I know will happen, and want to happen. His tongue finds my clit in a tease of a touch. Then another. And another, until he sucks me into his mouth, dragging deeply on the sensitive nub, while those two fingers are inside me. The world fades. There is just pleasure. Just Shane, who does indeed own my pleasure.
As if proving that point, his mouth lifts and his fingers stop moving. “Look at me,” he orders again.
“You’re killing me,” I hiss, lifting my head to stare down at him.
“Do you want me to stop?”
“You already did.”
“Do you want more?”
“Yes,” I hiss, and knowing he will insist on more, I add, “Yes. Yes. Yes. I want more. Please stop teasing me.”
“Whatever you say,” he declares, his sexy, sometimes punishing mouth dangerously, wonderfully close to that sweet spot where I need and want him. “You’re in charge.”
“We both know that’s not true,” I manage, just in time to have his deep, rumble of laughter whisper against my clit, but he still denies me, giving me a darkly amused look. “Do you want control?”
“Not right now,” I say. “Later I do.”
His sexy, often punishing mouth quirks and then, to my relief, there are no more questions. There is just a lick of his tongue, which is gone too soon. “Shane,” I plead desperately.
The sexy laugh that follows tells me that my urgency pleases him, and thankfully, my reward for doing so is his mouth closing over me. His tongue and fingers stroking my sex a moment later. And oh God, the spiral of heat and pleasure is almost too much to bear. It overwhelms me and I can’t think. I can only submit to this crazy, sexy, amazing man, and to the pleasure, so much pleasure. So very much and it’s too much, too fast. I want to fight the ball of tension in my belly moving lower and lower, but it’s powerful, fierce, and in a blink I stiffen, before my body spasms and pleasure rockets through me. A deep, low moan rips from my throat, a sound I barely know as my own, and time stands still. And then it’s over, and my body feels like it’s melting to the ground.
Shane lowers my leg and catches my hips, lifting me and carrying me across the room, setting me on top of the bed, his body arched above mine. And then he is kissing me, the saltiness of me on his lips, now on mine, before he tears his mouth from mine and declares, “I need to feel you wet and hot around me, and I need it right now. Skin to skin, the way I only let myself be with you.”