Page 72 of Dove
All from that one simple touch.
He’dnevertouched me so familiarly. So intimately.
“He didn’t satisfy you, did he?” he asked in a voice like gravel, low and deep. So deep.
I’d never heard it sound like that before.
The huskiness of his voice was reminiscent of Torrence’s in my ear, but so much better, and I realized Josh was turned on.
A tingle started low in my belly, and I pressed my thighs together. This is what I’d been trying to recreate with Torrenceand failed. This hollow ache, this slow, consuming heat.Thiswas the feeling that had haunted me since Josh’s return.
I swallowed, my throat dry, and refused to answer, although I know he knew.
He’dheard.
“If you needed relief that badly,” that ocean deep voice rumbled, “why didn’t you just come to me, Dove?”
His thumb pressed harder into to the flesh of my lower lip, and I inhaled shakily. Where Torrence hadn’t been able to make me wet enough to enjoy it, I was nearly gushing now.
“You know all you have to do is ask. I’d do anything for you.”
I did know that, but somehow the words he’d been telling me since we’d entered each other’s lives boiled my blood.Thiswas not something I could ask for, justtake.
“Don’t,” I ground out, and his thumb slipped from my lip with the movement. “Don’t make this about—about that.”
His head titled in a move I’d seen dogs do, assessing me. His eyes met mine until they dipped lower, and I shivered.
“About what?” he asked, eyes focused on my mouth.
“About duty or responsibility.”
His eyes flickered back up to meet mine, a flicker of anger deep in their depths.
“You think it’s about obligation that I know I can make you come when that little twerp couldn’t?”
The air was stolen from my lungs, and I froze in shock.
Whatever game we’d been playing since he came back just changed, the rules rewritten, and I had no idea how to play any longer.
His chest came to rest against mine as he leaned in, and I prayed he couldn’t feel how hard my nipples were for him through my shirt. He shifted and I stifled a groan. Then again, maybe I did.
“You’ve always been my responsibility, Dove. Always will be. But this isn’t about that. So, why don’t you let yourstepbrotherdo what he’s always done”—Ididgasp this time as his hand cupped me, all of me, his palm nudging me hard enough through my jean shorts to have my clit zinging a jolt of pleasure through me—“and let me take care of you?”
I wanted to, God, did I ever. My hips ached with the need to press forward, to ride his hand, but he’d just had to phrase it that way, didn’t he?
My anger flared hot and bright, startling me at how fast it came on.
He left us—leftme. Turned his back without even a glance back and left without a second thought.
I didn’t need him, and I certainly wasn’t his responsibilityorhis priority.
He’d made that perfectly clear.
Even if the local boys couldn’t satisfy me, it didn’t mean I needed Josh to do it for me, swooping in like some hero to fondle an orgasm out of me. I’d vowed to myself to never need him again the moment the dust settled after he drove away three years ago. Vowed it with tears blurring my sight and a crack in my heart that ran too deep to ever mend.
How easy it had been to forget that vow when he came back with an apologetic smile and sympathetic eyes, coaxing my crush back into full force.
When I slipped out of his grip, surprise crossed his face. It wasn’t what he’d expected me to do.
