Page 38 of Collateral Damage
Her eyes flicker to my lips and hold, and my entire sense of the world and of what’s good and what’s right flips upside down, and I forget even my own fucking name.
“Cooper?” her voice trails off as she shifts closer, her body turning so that her chest is brushing against my bicep.
My cock is painfully hard at this point, and I can’t stop staring at her lips. Every nerve ending has turned into a live-wire and every breath feels like an eternity perched on the edge of a cliff.
This woman, the one person I’ve wanted for years, is staring at me like she’s about to kiss me. I can’t let that happen. I can’tnotlet it happen. I’m completely fucked.
“What?” I’m on the verge of losing control.
“What are we doing?” she breathes softly.
That’s a damn good question. I’m thinking about throwing my morals out the window and taking what I want. While I can’t put words in her mouth, I know what it means when a woman looks at me the way Sybil is, and I know she’s thinking of doing the exact same thing.
“What we shouldn’t be doing,” I answer, hating every word, but knowing it’s the truth.
It’s as simple as that. Just because they’re broken up doesn’t mean shit. It’s fresh, and it would be a huge betrayal. Ethanlovesher. He’ll hate me if I cross the line I’m currently sprinting toward. And Sybil? She’ll hate me, too, once she has a chance to clear her head.
But she’s a gorgeous flame, and I’m a pathetic moth, and even though I’ll burn if I get too close, I can’t stop from throwing myself into her fire.
“You’ve never looked at me like this before,” she whispers with a husky vulnerability that’s like a riptide about to pull us under.
But I have, Valentine. You’ve just never looked back.
She shifts her weight even closer, her warmth so intoxicating I could live in it forever. Her eyes dance over my face, indecision in her gaze quickly replaced with resolve.
And hunger.
“Please,” she whispers, and the frail string of my resolve snaps.
“I’ve never been able to say no to you, Valentine.”
Her mouth is on mine first, and I’m quick to respond, pressing hard against her soft lips. She’s sweetness personified,but our kiss is bruising—a delicious punishment for mutual sins. I expect her to retreat quickly, but she doesn’t, and I can’t. She groans into my lips, and I deepen the kiss, our tongues fighting for dominance as I lose all rational thought and lift her onto my lap.
Her knees widen automatically to straddle me, and my cock presses against my jeans, searching for her warmth under her buttery-smooth leggings. I slip my hands under her shirt, greedily running up her back and then down to her ass.
Her hands are everywhere—first my biceps, then fingers raking through my hair, down to cup my jaw, my neck, my chest. For a moment, I wonder if this is what it’s like for Ethan. Does she touch him like this? Is she wild for him?
The thought almost ends this for me, but she releases a long moan and rolls her hips against my erection, setting us both aflame. I thought we’d be a slow burn, but we’re a fucking wildfire. We can’t get enough. I bite down on her lip, and she bucks against me, her frantic hands quickly dropping to the button of my jeans. All we can do is burn and burn and burn.
Nothing has ever felt so right. So inevitable. This woman is a goddess, and if she needs me to kneel at the altar of her body for her to understand that, then watch me worship.
My pants are undone. She did that. I still can’t believe she did that. She’s about to slide her fingers under the band of my underwear, about to stroke my cock and send me to another dimension, when she cries out against my mouth. She sounds so vulnerable, like she’s about to cry for real, and ice-cold reality washes over me.
I go completely still, every muscle in my body tight, and force myself to stop kissing her. She whimpers and presses her lips to mine again, but this time I don’t let myself kiss her back. Instead, I lift her from my lap and gently set her on the couch beside me.
Reality is a bitch that slaps us both hard.
I stand, wiping my lips and adjusting my pants. “I’m so sorry,” I plead, hating myself for what I’ve done. This isn’t her fault. She kissed me, but only because she’s hurting. I never should’ve let this happen.
From the horrified look in her eyes, she knows it, too.
“It wasn’t your fault,” she tries. “I kissed you first.”
I shake my head. “The kiss was both of us, but it was my fault, Sybil. You’re vulnerable, and I took advantage.”
“But I kissed you first,” she repeats, insistent this time.
Doesn’t matter. She was in emotional pain, not in her right mind, and as soon as she gave me the go-ahead, I was on her like my brother didn’t exist, and that was my decision. It’s my mistake. My failure.
