Page 125 of Freed
I take a step toward him. Then another. My skin is still damp from the shower, my pulse loud in my ears, my pride hanging by a thread and my common sense already dead on the floor with the towel.
“Then you better do something for me before you go.”
His eyes lock on mine. “And that is?”
I don’t let myself hesitate.
“Fuck me.”
The words land in the room like a lit match. His jaw tightens so hard I can see the muscle jump.
“Birdie.”
“No.” I keep walking until I’m close enough to feel the heat coming off him. “Don’t use that voice on me like you’re about to say no.”
His hands flex once at his sides. He hasn’t touched me yet. That restraint feels almost obscene now.
“You’ve spent a week locking me in this penthouse,” I say, softer. “A week looking at me like you want to devour me and then pretending you’re too noble to do it. I am tired, Lorenzo.”
His eyes drop to my mouth.
“Tired of what?”
“Tired of pretending I don’t want you, too.”
That does it. I watch the last shreds of control leave his face. Not entirely. Lorenzo would probably die before he fully lost control in front of me. But enough that his hand comes up and circles my wrist, pulling me flush against him. He lowers his head and the look in his eyes is pure ruin.
“You should not have opened that door like this,” he says.
“Probably not.”
“You should not be asking me for this.”
“Definitely not.”
His thumb strokes once over the inside of my wrist. “And yet.”
“And yet,” I whisper.
He kisses me and it’s a week of tension and anger and sleepless nights crashing through me all at once. His mouth takes mine like he’s been starving and furious about it, and the second I kiss him back I know I’m gone. Completely, hopelessly gone. I fist my hands in his shirt. He makes a low sound against my mouth that nearly undoes me all by itself. Then his hands are on me—one at my waist, one sliding up my spine, both of them hot and possessive and somehow still holding back more than they want to.
That part fuels me even more. The fact that even now, with me naked against him and begging for the one thing I shouldn’t, he is still trying not to break me.
“Lorenzo,” I breathe.
His mouth leaves mine and drags along my jaw, my throat. “I’ll stop if you want me to.”
The words barely register through the heat pounding through me.
“I don’t want you to stop.”
He swears under his breath and lifts me.
The world tilts. I gasp, wrapping my arms around his shoulders as he carries me backward into the room. He kicks the door shut behind him and the sound is sharp, final, sending another pulse of something wild through me.
“Still want this?” he asks, setting me on the edge of the bed.
His hands remain on my hips, steadying me, grounding me, and I hate how much that tenderness matters right now.
