Page 14 of The Bastard (Filthy Trilogy 1)

“I was pissed when I saw you up there.”

“I was pissed when you were gone.”

His hand goes to my jaw and he tilts my face to his. “And yet here we are,” he says, his mouth lowering, lips just above mine, his warm breath teasing me with the promise of a kiss that I shouldn’t want. He’s the bastard by his own admission and we both know he revels in living up to that title. He’s trouble, but my God, I have long hungered for another taste of that trouble.

CHAPTER NINE

Harper

Eric’s mouth closes down on mine and it’s like I’m six years in the past. I’m aware of the divide between us and try to resist, but I can’t. The taste of him is like a drug on my tongue, addictive, sweet, and impossible not to crave. I know this whole “princess” label is all about conquest and division—his conquest, our division. I tell myself this isn’t good. I know it’s not good. I don’t want to be with a man who ultimately hates me and that thought is a dash of cold water on the heat burning between me and this man.

I shove on his chest. “Stop.”

“Are we doing this again?” he asks, his voice husky, rough. “Because I really don’t think either of us wanted to stop then or now.”

“How many times did you stand on a stage or just by their side, Eric? How many times in the years you were part of that family?”

“That family?” he challenges. “You mean your family?”

“We both inherited them. I didn’t ask for them, but you judged me for standing on that stage when we both know you did it, too.”

“I’m not on that stage with them anymore.”

“You were. For years, you were. We both know you were.”

“And you still are.”

“No,” I say. “I’m not. Me being here isn’t about them. I swear to you, Eric. It’s not.”

His fingers slide back under my hair at my neck and he drags my mouth to his. “Tell me later.” I barely have time to inhale the warm breath on my lips and he’s kissing me again, a long stroke of his tongue against mine undoes me, weakens my knees, makes every part of me tingle and ache.

“I need to tell you now,” I whisper when his teeth scrape my lip. “I need you to hear me.”

“Later,” he repeats softly, stroking the dampness from my lips. “I’ll listen.”

“You will?” I pull back to look at him. “Promise me you will because—”

“I will,” he says, his mouth closing down on mine and it’s pure heat and fire. He’s pure heat and fire and I feel the shift in us, the need that pushes us past family and divide. There is no divide right here, right now. There is just me and him and a night that was never finished but needs completion. Every part of me is alive in a way it hasn’t been since I was last with this man. We are wild, hands touching and tongues tangling, but then suddenly there’s a shift between us again and his hand settles between my shoulder blades, molding my chest to his chest.

His lips part from mine and our foreheads come together, both of us breathing heavily, the past between us again, so many questions and unspoken words between us with it, but neither of us wants those things to matter. That feeling is here with us, too. The silent understanding that later is, in fact, better. That word complicates our already complicated connection, but there is nothing complicated about the fire between us now or the sense of understanding. We’re alike and yet we’re different. Both pulled into a world we didn’t ask to join, a world that is why we’re here now.

“Eric,” I whisper, and not because I want to break the silence. Because I have this sense he’s waiting on me, needing something I don’t understand.

His answer is instant, not in words, but actions. His mouth closes down on mine, and I feel the snap of tension in him; whatever hesitation was in him moments before is gone, and I welcome the deep thrust of his tongue, the press of his hand under my shirt, his touch caressing over my ribcage. My breasts are heavy, heat pooling low in my belly with anticipation of what comes next, and then his hand is on my naked breasts, fingers plucking my nipple.

He pulls back to look at me, the deep blue of his stare flecked with amber heat scorching me inside and out. He drags my tee over my head, tosses it away, and then that smoldering stare of his is raking over my breasts, devouring me in ways that inexplicably no other man ever has. Just him. My sex clenches and when I grab his sleeve, tugging him toward me, he doesn’t make me wait.

His gaze collides with mine, and the punch of awareness and attraction between us steals my breath even as his hand returns to my neck as he drags my mouth to his. “God, woman,” he says, his voice low, rough, almost guttural, “what the hell are you doing to me?” And this time when he kisses me, I sense the barely caged control, the edge of hunger clawing at him, and me with him.

I reach for the buttons of his shirt and he responds by backing me up until I’m against some wall. I don’t even know what wall, and then he releases me just long enough to pull his shirt over his head and toss it. I don’t play shy. I’ve waited too long for this to hold back. My hands go to his hard, really perfect chest, my fingers twining in the light brown hair there. Hair I happen to know forms a line of hair that trails beneath his waistband. I want to lick my way down that path, but there is so much with this man to explore, to experience, even as I contemplate that journey, I’m distracted by his tattoos and my hands move to his new ink, the right shoulder that is now a giant jaguar.

“I love your ink,” I dare.

Shadows flicker in his eyes, an edge to his mood now that isn’t about sex, but that talk we haven’t had. “Do you now?”

“Yes,” I say, looking him in the eyes. “Why is that a problem? What just happened? Because I do love it. Very much, and I want to—”

I never finish that sentence, I never get to tell him how much I want my mouth on his ink and his body before his cheek is pressed to mine, his lips at my ear, breath warm on my neck as he declares, “I want you naked” his teeth scrape my earlobe, “in every way, Harper.”

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