Page 51 of Bourbon & Blood

CHAPTERTWENTY

La Croix…

Hurt her?

Shit…

I guess I couldn’t say I blamed her for thinkin’ that was my thing just by lookin’ at me; but no. I didn’t derive pleasure out of inflicting pain on a woman unless that was her thing. Even then, I couldn’t say it quite sat right with me.

I held her tight, my arm around her back, the other pressing her face to my chest, as her fear stained my cut with her tears.

“Shhh,” I soothed, and I wouldn’t let go.

She didn’t pull away. She simply stayed, holding to me. I didn’t understand how she could be so terrified of me and simultaneously seek comfort from my big dumb ass. I mean, it was confusing as much as it was thrilling.

Did I want her? More than anything. Did I want her to be willing?

Wasn’t she already?

She’d agreed to the terms, knowing full well what that meant, what it all entailed, and she was here with me – that’s all that I’d really asked.

The rest?

Shit. I didn’t know. I trusted though, that I would either figure it out or I wouldn’t.

Her weeping settled to the odd sniffle and finally she drew back from me and said, “I’m sorry. I’m just scared. I-I’ve never done anything like this and it’s just… it’s just a lot, I guess.”

“It’s alright,” I told her, and I tried at a bit of levity. “I ain’t bite ‘cha unless you’re into that sort of thing.”

She laughed, dashing at the moisture under her eyes.

“Look at me,” I told her. She resisted at first but finally did. I tipped her chin up a little more with the crook of my finger and she inhaled sharply, her eyes widening.

I lowered my lips to hers, slowly, carefully, and kissed her softly.

She didn’t pull away, didn’t resist, but neither at first did she return it. She stood wooden before me, her hands finding my waist, warm over my cut, and then she softened under my touch and carefully kissed me back.

I didn’t think I’d ever gotten so hard so fast in my whole life. Not even when I was a boy with hormones raging right along with my temper.

I was better about the latter as a man, but this? This was testing the furthest reaches of my self-control.

She whimpered against my lips as I moved them softly against hers and it was a small, pleading noise that set me on fire. I stepped into her just a little bit more, both hands now cradling her face as I flicked my tongue against her bottom lip.

She gasped, her lips parting and I thrust my tongue past her lips, past her teeth, and stroked it against hers, pulling her body up against me. My hands relocated from her face to her hips and I drew her body up against mine as tight as it could go without trying to break her and force her inside me or some shit. We stood just a foot or two from my bed and kissed like we was on fire, andholy gee – God almighty,did I want her.

I fuckingburnedfor her. I had for a long while now, but shit, this was an inferno as opposed to a candle flame.

I tore my mouth from hers and with a small sound of protest at my taking my lips from her, I lifted her tank over her head. She lifted her arms, and I pulled it off her, letting it hit my bedroom floor along with her wrap.

She stepped back into me immediately and lifted her lips to mine. I returned to kissing her, reveling in her taste and her soft skin.

My hands played along her ribs, and I tore my mouth from hers to look at them, my hands with their darker tattooed skin against her pale flawless white body was a sight. Her chest heaved, breathless from my kisses and I looked up from my hands to catch her watching me, warily, her eyes wide.

I cocked my head, and she swallowed hard, her hands at her side as I touched her.

She was a dream come true, a fantasy I’d had more times ‘n I could count made real, standing right in front of me.

“Take it all off,” I uttered, and I took off my cut, hanging it off the hook by my bed that I had there for it.

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