Page 30 of Last Light

Just hard enough to keep me trapped.

“Travis,” I gasp.

“What can you move?” His voice at my ear is so thick it’s barely comprehensible. Hardly more than a low growl.

I start to bring my foot up and stomp down on him again, but he wraps his other arm around my thighs, pinning my legs to his.

He’s hot as fire behind me. Hard and firm and alive in a way that makes my blood throb.

“What can you move?” he asks again.

I roll my hips, pushing them backward.

I feel something new. Against my lower back.

It triggers a rush of heat below my belly. A coil of deep pressure I can barely process. More than my blood is throbbing now.

I struggle helplessly in his grip, but I’m not sure I’m even trying to get away.

“Damn it, woman.” His voice is stretched and demanding. “Stop squirmin’ like that. What can you move?”

My arms. I suddenly realize I can move my arms since he’s holding me by the neck and the thighs. I drive an elbow back into his side.

He grunts and jerks. I try to yank myself away from him the way I did before, but this time I can’t get away.

I lose my balance. Or maybe he does. Both of us tumble forward onto the grass.

I fall on my face, catching myself when he lets me go. He ends up on top of me, his weight pressed into my back.

Both of us are gasping. He plants his hands on either side of me, taking off some of his weight.

That pulsing between my legs is stronger than ever, and it’s making my body do things I never would have considered otherwise. I raise my hips until my bottom finds that bulge in his jeans. I rub myself against it, making a weird little sound in my throat.

Travis chokes wordlessly and hauls himself off me, collapsing on the grass beside me.

When I turn over, he’s hefting himself to a sitting position and giving me the world’s meanest glare. “What the hell you doin’?”

“Sorry.” I rub at my face, trying to pull myself together. I’m panting loudly, and every cell in my body is straining for him, reaching for him, aching for something to happen. “Sorry. I wasn’t...”

“You can’tdothat.”

“I said sorry. I wasn’t thinking.” I gulp and cover one of my flaming cheeks with my palm. “I wasn’t... I didn’t realize you...”

“You didn’t realize what? That I’m a man?” He’s tense and angry and flushed as deeply as I am.

“Of course I know you’re a man. But men are all different. They’re not all going to want... to want...” I break off, still trying to catch my breath. Still trying to keep myself from crawling over to him and rubbing myself all over his body. “I didn’t realize you thought about me that way.”

We stare at each other across the thick air and the dead grass for a long stretch of time, both of us breathing heavily.

“I’m sorry,” I murmur again. “I wasn’t trying to tease you.”

He doesn’t answer.

“Are you mad at me?”

He lets out a long, hoarse breath. “Nah. It’s okay. It happens. No big deal.”

I hope he means it, but I’m not sure if he does.

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