Page 76 of Forever Defiant
I looked around her apartment, and there really was no TV. I looked back at her. This was not a good idea to be alone with her. I knew it, and by the way she was looking at me, she knew it too.
She truly was beautiful, though. No makeup, no false eyelashes, completely natural.
I shouldn’t touch her.
I reached out and cupped her jaw, my thumb brushing the edge of her lips. She didn’t stop me either; her breath caught, and her teeth quickly dragged across her bottom lip.
“Fuck it.” I leaned across and kissed her. Not gently, not cautiously, or like I’d planned this.
As before, Hadley didn’t resist. She gasped against my mouth, and I used the sound to tilt her back onto the couch, her hands fisting in my shirt as I followed her down.
She tasted like beer and trouble. Her fingers slid around my neck. Her knee brushed my hip, making every coherent thought scatter as I lost myself in kissing her.
I kissed her deeper — hungry, frustrated, all of it blending together until I couldn’t tell where the anger ended and the desire began. Her hands pulled me closer.
“Dustin,” she whispered into my mouth, and I swear to God, I nearly lost it just from hearing my name like that.
“You’re so fucking irritating,” I breathed against her lips.
“Right back at you.” Her laugh hit my chest like a spark.
I kissed it off her mouth. She arched against me, her legs opening and resting on either side of me, causing me to groan. Her fingers curled tighter, pulling me down until our bodies fit like we’d been sculpted for this exact moment.
I broke the kiss only because oxygen was becoming a memory. She was flushed, lips swollen, eyes wide, and ravaged in the best way.
“Is this a bad idea?” she whispered.
“Yeah,” I said, brushing my mouth against hers again. “Ask me if I care.”
She didn’t ask; instead, she pulled me back down.
And I went willingly.
Her mouth opened beneath mine as if she’d been waiting — not minutes, not days, butweeks— and the sound she made when I kissed her again shot straight through me. Everything else faded away. None of it mattered.
All I could feel was her.
Her hands slid beneath my shirt, warm fingers tracing up my ribs, and I nearly shivered. No one had ever touched me like that — as if they wanted to feel every part of me I kept hidden.
Our kissing became more frantic. She pulled me closer as she shifted farther onto the couch, and I braced a knee between the cushions so I wouldn’t crush her, though I wasn’t sure I could think clearly enough to care.
“Dustin—”
My name on her lips definitely wrecked me.
Soft. Breathless. Wanting.
I kissed down her jaw, her throat, feeling her pulse flutter beneath my mouth. Her fingers tightened in my hair, and her legs tightened around me like she couldn’t get close enough.
“You have no idea,” I muttered between kisses, “how much I want to fuck you.”
Her breath hitched. “Then show me.”
I planned to.
I gripped her waist, sliding my hand under the hem of her shirt. Her skin was warm, smooth, and utterly going to ruin me. She gasped — a sweet, startled sound — and lifted her hips just enough that my self-control took a hard, unstoppable nosedive.
We were a mess of tangled limbs and uneven breathing and pent-up frustration that had nowhere to go buthere.
