Page 44 of Broken Trust
He pushed off the door and took three deliberate, rolling steps that brought him close enough that she could see the tiny brown hairs making up the shadow on his jaw. Close enough thatthe steadiness she’d borrowed from her time with the women threatened to slip.
The tendon in the crease of his jaw twitched. “I keep failing.” His voice was a rough stroke across her nerves.
“What have you failed at?” Her voice had gone softer, and her body swayed toward him.
He worked his jaw, gaze trained on her like he was crossing a minefield one careful stride at a time. “Some days in this game, you win. Some you lose.”
She didn’t know how to respond to that, not when he was only a step away and her heart was hammering wildly in her chest.
“I tried, Elin.” His voice came out gritty, his throat working. “I tried to stay away from you. I can’t do it anymore.”
The room shifted. She felt it—like pressure dropping before a storm. She told herself to move, to put the bed between.
But he reached her first.
In two strides, he caught her face in his hands, framing it with a tenderness that undid her. His thumbs stroked the corners of her mouth, fingers sinking in her hair like she was something precious he’d been afraid to pick up.
“Christ, angel. I never stopped—” He broke off and slammed his mouth over hers.
Heat surged through his lips into hers, and her body followed, pushing closer to him. God, the way he called her angel tore away any resistance she ever had.
When he slipped his tongue across her bottom lip, she responded with tenderness and a new desperation.
She made a sound she didn’t recognize as her own. He swallowed it, tilting her head, angling, deepening. He was patient until she wasn’t. Then he wasn’t either.
He lifted her like she weighed nothing. Her breath caught as she locked her legs around his hips. She gripped his strong, solid shoulders, and he turned for the bed. The room blurred around her.
Her spine met the mattress, and he braced his body on his carved forearms. His heat transferred through the thin cotton of her tank.
Their eyes connected for three heartbeats, then four. Everything in his gaze made her body throb with hunger only he could satisfy.
It made her fearless and terrified in the same second.
“Don’t stop.” She reached for him.
His control cracked, and he kissed her again, deeper, drawing soft moans past her lips that he turned into growls of his own. He skated his palm under the hem of her tank, stroking the skin at her waist like a man touching fire.
Then he trapped her bottom lip between his teeth and she forgot her own name.
He delivered a soft bite, releasing it gently. She raked her fingers over his spine, and suddenly he was kissing her like he’d been starving for two years and had finally found food.
The heat built in a fast climb she couldn’t stop if she tried.
She didn’t try.
His hands were everywhere and nowhere—exploring, claiming, asking—until her skin felt too tight to hold her. She tugged his shirt, and he pulled away long enough to strip it overhead. The sight of him—broad chest, scars that were familiar and some that weren’t—hit her with a new brand of desire.
“I need you.” She wasn’t sure whether she meant now or always.
He pinned her in a scorching look, lowering his body until his weight pressed her into the mattress, scalding her with a warmth that dizzied her. As his mouth found the line of her throat, she issued a rough rasp.
He stripped off her cardigan first and flung it aside. Before he could go further, she bracketed his handsome face in her hands and kissed him for several mind-spinning moments. When he broke the kiss, he dragged his teeth lightly along the neckline of her tank top.
His gaze lingered on her with a glint that made her heart skip. “Take it off.”
Need spiked in her core at the order, making her hands shaky enough that she fumbled with the fabric and had to try twice. He cursed, quiet and rough, and helped her strip off the top, his knuckles brushing her ribs as the fabric cleared her head.
His gaze swept over her with a hunger that looked like he’d been holding it back his whole life and slowly, he ducked his head. His mouth closed over her bare breast.
