Page 22 of Unhinged Cravings
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.Don’t ask her, I warned myself, but my mouth didn’t listen.
“You sleep naked?” It sounded like I had just hit puberty.
“No, but topless.” She held my gaze a bit too long. Like a challenge. Heat seethed in me at the look in those brown eyes.
Silence. Long, heavy silence. With unspoken words and that damned challenge. Almost like she was daring me to grab her and take her against the wall like my body was craving. I broke the connection, turning and cursing myself for being so weak. Ava was my prisoner. That was it.
“Damn. If you thought I was adorable before, any hope oflooking like a mature adult has gone out the window with this look,” Ava mumbled.
She stormed past me, book in hand, shaking her head and continuing to mumble. Hand going to her wrist, I turned her around. Something I shouldn’t have done because seeing her in my shirt was a mistake. Giving it to her had been a mistake. No, coming to her room had been the fatal error. Everything else was just residual idiocy.
Although she was tall, my shirt fell to her knees, the size and the length too much for her frame. It hung over her breasts, the material gathering so that I could see her nipples protruding along with the outline of the nipple rings I wanted desperately to reach out and tug. My thumb rubbed her wrist in the same path I desired to smooth over her nipple.
“What?” she said, swallowing a bit too loudly. My eyes rose from where they’d been devouring her body, and there was a twitch in my jaw that matched the one in my pants. “Nothing.” I released her, and reached behind her to open the door, my body moving closer to hers with the action.
Her eyes searched mine. What she was looking for, I wasn’t sure. But I hoped she didn’t see the battle that was waging inside of me. Warring to keep seeing her as my hostage instead of someone I wanted in my bed. Which was exactly where I had commanded her to go.
“Walk,” I said, scraping my hand through my hair.
“I don’t know where I’m going.”
Huffing, I pushed her aside, expecting her to follow me.
“Rude,” she muttered, and I shot a look back at her over my shoulder.
“If you want to keep your tongue, I recommend keeping your mouth shut.”Unless it’s around my dick.Fuck, I needed to stop. It had to be the situation with the merchandise and everything else that had kept me on edge the last few months. That’s why I was so off kilter and why my mind couldn’tfocus.
She stayed silent as I led her through the main room and to the other side of the house.
“What’s down there?” she asked when we approached the stairs that led from the living area to my room. The hallway continued well past the stairs.
“The garage and the entrance to the basement.” I gestured for her to go ahead of me. Not because I was worried she would bolt for the garage, but for a better view of her legs. Perverse reasoning, I knew, but it was too tempting not to. “Don’t get any ideas, either,” I told her as her eyes lingered on the hallway. “I have men posted outside it.”
“Doesn’t mean I couldn’t steal a car and run them over with it.” Her eyes sparkled with amusement when they returned to mine.
My lips thinned. “Try it and I’ll show you why people fear me.”
She didn’t flinch. Instead, she took a step closer to me and stood on her tiptoes. Her head tilted, revealing the soft arc of her neck, before she brought her fingers to my chin.
“I don’t fear you, Emerson.”
Bold, brash, and beautiful. I was screwed. I’d known this woman for two days and she was already breaking down my barriers.
I grabbed her wrist and closed the remaining distance between us, then forced her to step back until the wall stopped her. Her lips parted, and I fought the need to kiss her, even though it was raging through me. Letting her think I was, I moved my face closer, hearing the hitch of her breath and noting her pulse race in the wrist I had pinned against the wall. Sliding my cheek along hers, the scent of her skin tantalizing me, I brought my mouth to her ear and snarled, “You should fear me, Ava. Because whatever it is you think I am, I’m not.”
“Then tell me who you are,” she breathed, her chest heaving against mine.
I was too close, and the temptation was too high to just ravage her here in the hallway. To take her like I wanted and touch every inch of her, kiss every bit of ink, play with every piercing. Just the thought had me so hard I was aching.
Dragging my cheek back left my lips so close to meeting hers that it took every ounce of strength I had not to move them the few centimeters needed to devour her mouth. My other hand was above her and I dug my fingers into the wall to keep from dropping it into her hair.
Pulling away but still maintaining my stance of power over her, I said, “A dangerous man with hands that are stained with the blood he’s spilled. Don’t think because I’ve been kind to you I’m anything but a killer, Ava.”
The blink of her eyes was her only reaction.
“Now get your ass up those stairs before I change my mind.”
“You still don’t frighten me.”
