Page 27 of The Complete Truth Duet
He started to pace. “I can’t do this,” he huffed in pure and utter defeat. “You have to stop this bullshit with me.”
I blinked slow and incredulous.
I had to stop this bullshit with him?
I glanced around the empty hallway as if I could discover the answer to my question before I was forced to ask it. “What exactly is this bullshit you think I’m doing?”
He refused me eye contact as he cut two fingers through the air to indicate my body. “That. Right there. You gotta stop.”
Curling my lip, I looked down at myself. I was covered—for the most part. “Oh, right. Because I totally planned this. I somehow sensed that you’d be in the breezeway, having a nervous breakdown, so I quickly threw on a blanket, teased my hair into sleep knots, and then raced out here. Damn it. You caught me.”
He gripped the back of his neck. “I’m not saying you planned it. I’m just saying you have to stop. I’m begging you. Just put on some clothes and stop walking around in the dark. It’s not safe.”
I wrestled the blanket up. “In my experience, Penn, if a man wants something, a pair of pants and a light bulb won’t stop him.”
“What?” he snapped in a harsh tone that suggested he had very much heard me. And then he moved with long and heavy strides, advancing on me.
My stomach pitched, and a hum in my veins became deafening.
Gentle as a pillow, he collided with my front. His hand found my hip, firm but without the first hint of pain. Dipping his head low, he brought his mouth to my ear and asked, low and ominous, “In your experience?”
Heat rolled off him in waves, chasing a thrill down my spine and sparking my every nerve ending to life. “Oh, wow,” I whispered, closing my eyes. It had been over a decade since I’d felt that spark for a man.
“Answer me, Cora.”
Like a wanton fool, I swayed into him. “It’s a lesson we all learn.”
His hand tensed and he shook his head, his jaw ticking as though he were chewing on a curse. But he said no more.
And I couldn’t bring myself to break the static silence.
Not with him looming over me, touching-not touching-impossibly close-but-worlds-apart. And definitely not while I was floating in the most blissful pool of erotic anticipation.
As I was lost in sensation, rational thought wasn’t firing in the right direction, but there was nothing logical about the way my body responded to him.
With every inhale, his chest brushed against mine.
And, with every exhale, his breath seductively danced across my skin.
“Unlearn it,” he ordered. “In your experience.” He bent lower, his lips only fractions of millimeters away from sweeping my ear, and repeated, “Unlearn it.”
“Okay,” I panted, unsure of what exactly I was agreeing to and too entranced to care.
He stared, his eyes ticking back and forth between mine, until he finally spoke in a pained whisper. “How do you do this to me?”
“I guess that depends on what you think I do?” I asked, praying it was the same all-consuming heat he caused in me.
His eyes fluttered closed. “If I could answer that, I’d know how to block you out.”
My skin tingled as I pushed the envelope of what I thought he might allow. Cupping his cheek, I whispered, “Or you could just let me in.”
He groaned at the contact, a mixture of torture and desire. And then he leaned against my hand, agony etched across his face. “You have no idea what you’re asking from me.”
“No. I don’t. But that’s the beauty of getting to know someone.”
“And there’s our problem,” he mumbled before his lids flashed open and the man who had ignited me disappeared. He backed away, the cool air once again parting us, but it was the emptiness blazing from his hollow orbs that carried the chill. “Don’t try to get to know me, Cora. I’m not a puzzle you can figure out or a broken lamp you can put back together.” He patted hard on his chest. “This thing living inside me. It fucking burns. And if you get too close, I swear to God, it’s gonna light you on fire too. I will not be responsible for that.” He took a giant step toward me and seethed, “I cannot be responsible for that.”
My head snapped to the side. “Who asked you to be responsible for anything?”
“You did. The longer you stand there looking like that. The more you stare at me when you think I’m not looking. The more you smile and laugh. Every single minute that you are around me, you are making me responsible for that fire taking over your life too. So I am begging you. Drop this bullshit with me. Because, God’s honest truth, I don’t know that I’m strong enough to do it for both of us.”
