Page 58 of Give Me Strength

“It’s not fair,” I mumble out loud.

“I know.”

My arm falls off my face, and my eyes squint open. I look up to see Gilbert leaning against the canopy frame, watching me with a lust-filled expression on his face.

Devouring me with his eyes, more like.

The way Gilbert looks at me… I’ve never had anyone look at me that way. His desire is on display, and he doesn’t try to hide it. Not this time, anyway. His eyes trail over the outline of my body hungrily, zeroing in on the not-so-subtle mound in the middle, where my hand is. I swear it makes me even wetter, having the object of my fantasies watching me as I pleasure myself. A needy moan almost slips out, and I bite down on my lip to tamp down on it.

Still, he doesn’t get a pass.

“Why are you still here?” I ask him bluntly.

He shrugs. “Can’t seem to move my feet to leave.”

Well. At least he’s being honest.

I pull my hand out from my shorts, push the covers off and sit up. His expression shifts. Darkens, more like, as more skin is exposed. I lick my lips, wondering if he’s as ready to tear off what little clothing I have on as I’d like to do the same to his. Then, just for good measure, I tap the bed, inviting him to join me.

He shakes his head. “Not so sure that’s a good idea right now.”

“Why not? You’ll just be sitting. Here. Next to me.”

We both knew there will be no ‘sitting next to each other’.

He watches my expression, that same tortured expression mixed with lust cycling through his face. I know what he’s going to say again, but I can’t let him. I want him, more than I’ve ever wanted anything.

Save for ballet, that is.

But even that pales in comparison to this ache deep within me. An ache only he can satisfy.

“You said you wanted to explain. So far I don’t hear you doing any of that. You’re all the way over there. Instead of here, where I need you. While you explain.”

A low rumble moves through him. “I can’t let myself touch you again.” His voice is a gruff whisper.

“Fine. Then leave.”

“If I do,” his throat shifts, “I wouldn’t stop.”

“Who says I want you to stop?”

“Ash—”

“How much clearer do I need to be about this?” I force out, cutting him off. “I know what I want, and that’s you. I want you. All of you, every last bit. I wouldn’t be inviting you into my bed if I wasn’t sure.”

Granted, my sexual experience with the opposite sex is admittedly limited — non-existent, in fact — so I’m not sure how these things usually go. But is it usually this hard to get the man you want, whom you know wants you too, to sleep with you?

It shouldn’t, right?

Because he looks like he’s fighting a losing battle with himself.

He pushes off the frame, takes a step toward me. “I’ve never done this before,” he pauses, his pulse flickers erratically in his neck as his hungry eyes feat on my barely clothed body.

“Never done what?” I ask tentatively.

Those hungry, piercing eyes of his flit back to mine, and his throat shifts. “Been with a woman.”

My lust-filled brain is a tad slow on the update, so it takes sixty excruciatingly painful seconds before his meaning finally sinks in.

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