Page 9 of Billionaire's Runaway

She nodded, sniffing again. But the city lights coming through the window illuminated the tear tracks on her cheeks.

“Talk to me,” I said. “Please.”

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” she said, with a soft, watery laugh as she ran the back of her hand across her cheek. “I’m so happy. Really. I’m so glad to be here. And you’ve been so great. My knight in shining Hugo Boss. But I don’t know. I was lying here in this big bed, staring right out at the Central Park, and I just couldn’t stop crying.”

Before I even thought twice, I gathered her into my arms. She came willingly, her small body almost melting into my touch. I wondered if maybe she hadn’t gotten a lot of physical affection from her family or another man, though I definitely didn’t want to think about that. Still, every touch I’d given her since pulling her from her car had been met with the thirst of a dying man in the desert.

“Will you stay with me?” she asked, her voice barely a whisper.

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” I answered honestly. It was difficult enough not to kiss her, not to claim her lips and push her back onto the mattress. She fit so perfectly against my body, I never, ever wanted to let her go. “You should really try to get some sleep.”

“I thought you weren’t going to tell me what to do,” she replied wryly.

I took a deep breath and turned to correct her, but when I caught the humor in her gaze, saw her biting her lower lip to hide a smile, I shook my head.

“You’re a brat.”

My brat. My spoiled, sassy, gorgeous brat who I would marry and put my babies into the first chance I got. And we’d raise a pack of spoiled, sassy brats of our own. Then we’d have spoiled, sassy grandbrats.

“You just went somewhere,” she said, cupping my chin in her palm and peering into my eyes.

“Somewhere you don’t want to go, yet,” I confessed, pulling her hand into mine and kissing her fingers. “I’m not telling you to go bed. I’m just saying you’ve had a hard day, probably a hard few months really. You’re safe here. You should get some sleep. Tomorrow, we’ll go out to breakfast and talk about what we’re going to do.”

“What do you mean?”

“Tomorrow,” I insisted. Unable to resist it any longer, I leaned forward and softly pressed my mouth to her tempting lips, lips I’d wanted since a second after I’d lain eyes on her the first time.

I’d expected the kiss to be chaste and comforting, but my little monster had other ideas. Her arms snaked around my neck and pulled me closer, her tongue running over the seam of my mouth.

With a deep groan, I opened to her probing, running my own tongue over hers, drawing a whimper from her. I pulled hertighter against me, her breasts pressed to my chest as I tangled my fingers into her dark, wild locks.

“I’m sorry,” I said, pulling back from her. “Laura, I can’t do this right now. We…can’t.”

What the hell was I saying?

“What the hell are you talking about?” The glare she gave me would have made most men quake. I was stronger than that, though with her, barely.

“Look, God knows I want you. I mean, baby, you have no fucking clue how much I want to bury myself inside you and never leave. But you must be at the legal limit for stress. And I don’t want you ever to regret our first time.”

“You think I’d just sleep with you all willy-nilly because I’m stressed?” She narrowed her gaze at me. “I’ve beenstressedsince the sixth grade. This is that caveman shit I don’t like, Luke. Don’t presume to tell me what I’m thinking or feeling.”

“Jesus! I need a God damned handbook with you,” I snapped.

Before she could respond, I pulled her into me again, crashing my mouth over hers, as I pushed her body onto the mattress so I could lie over her.

She responded immediately, her nails digging into my back as she splayed her thighs, allowing me to fall between them. Thank fucking God I was wearing pajama bottoms. As it was, my erection was pressed against her core, and even through my pants and the cloth of her skimpy sleep shorts, her heat radiated from her to me.

Lust was making me act rashly. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew I couldn’t take her tonight. No matter what she thought, this wasn’t the right time. That didn’t mean I couldn’t tease her and tempt her with a taste of what she had to look forward to for the rest of her life.

“Luke, I want you,” she whispered, breaking away from the kiss to meet my gaze. “Please. Just, make me forget about the rest of the world.”

“I will,” I promised her. “But I’m not fucking you tonight.”

“Why not?” she pouted.

“Because I don’t like that caveman shit where you tell me what to do.”

“You’re kind of an asshole.”

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