Page 50 of His Greatest Muse

When he spins around and encloses me in his arms, I howl a laugh despite my surprise. If I didn’t know better, I would think the jutting of his bottom lip is almost a pout.

He narrows his eyes on me and holds my hips beneath his big hands. The touch makes me feel small in comparison to him, which is not something I’m used to. His thumbs and forefingers slip above the waistband of my jeans and disappear beneath the hem of my shirt. My laugh trickles off as my pulse thrums in my ears. Little tingles erupt from beneath his fingertips, making my skin beneath them buzz.

“I’m not a teddy bear,” he grunts.

I glance down to where he holds me, at the gentleness of his touch. Lifting a brow, I ask, “No? ’Cause you seem pretty soft to me right now.”

Eyes flaring, he digs his fingertips deeper into the swell of my hips before he yanks me toward him. I suck in a breath when he shifts his groin and presses against me, right into the ridges of my abdomen.

“There’s nothing soft about me, Tinsley.”

My tongue is in my throat. I’ve swallowed it. The rigid length of him juts into me, so long and thick I wonder how I’ve never noticed it before. My pulse has fallen between my legs, thumping so heavily I wonder if he can sense it.

The corner of his lips tugs into a dirty smirk as he leans down and purrs, “Cat got your tongue, Golden Girl?”

“I swallowed it, actually,” I squeak, suddenly so damn flushed.

A rough, deep laugh traces my temple before he brushes it with his lips. With a subtle push of his hips, he grinds himself against me. His eyelids fall shut over those dark eyes, and his touch turns bruising, hard enough that I’ll feel him there long after he pulls away. Yet, I don’t tell him to stop. I don’t want him to.

What’s wrong with me?

“You drive me fucking crazy,” he grinds out, as if he’s angry with me. “Tell me to stop.”

I shake my head. “I can’t.”

And then we’re moving. Air bursts from my lungs when my back hits the wall, the following thump sounding so loud in the silent room. His jaw pulses as he stares down at me, the iron-tight grip he has kept on his control finally bursting to pieces on the floor. I notice the palm cupping my skull and the fingers tangled in my hair when he grips it and drops his forehead to rest against mine.

He cushioned my head from hitting the wall.

I gulp for air, trying to fill my burning lungs. The air smells like him, leather and spice and an all-consuming dominance. My head empties of everything but Noah. With each breath I fight for, he fills me, until all I know and feel is him. His anger, lust, and obsession.

One breathing life into the other.

That’s how it’s always been.

I drop my head back against the wall and bite down on my lip to stifle a whimper when he buries his face in my neck and groans. It’s a wild, angry sound, and it has me rubbing my thighs together, the ache between them growing to be too fucking much.

“I’d devour you. Take and take until you had nothing left for me. I’m not right for you.”

I can barely pull a sentence together. “You don’t scare me.”

As if to try and prove a point, he smacks the wall beside my head so hard I’m positive they heard it upstairs. I don’t so much as flinch. A thick sense of approval has fire blazing in his eyes. The flames grow brighter with each second we watch each other, my newfound confidence driving me to reach for him. With one sure movement, I push the bandana out of his hair and thread my fingers in the thick strands. I’ve played with his hair before, but it’s never felt like this. Like with each tug of it between my fingers, I’m in some fucked-up way embracing my power over him. Like I could shove him to his knees and use it to pull him between my legs.

It’s wrong.

It’s alsoright. So fucking right.

My grip grows tighter, to the point I know it must hurt. His responding grunt sends me for a spiral as he shoves his erection against my stomach again. I give his hair a brutal tug, and he throbs against my belly.

“I should terrify you,” he breathes, lips parted over my pulse point.

My head is swimming. All common sense has drowned in the darkened cave of my mind. There’s nothing here but this insatiable want and need boiling my blood. It’s dangerous. Reckless. Stupid. I don’t care.

“I know,” I whisper.

“So run. Before I don’t let you,” he warns with a sharp nip at my throat. The burn that follows only stokes the flames between us.

“I’d just let you catch me.”

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