Page 45 of Expressionate
Slowly, I turn over, preparing for the worst. Irrationally, my brain shoots back a couple of years and I'm back in Danny's bed and this is one of his friends, coming to collect a payment from Danny – coming to break me down even more. Could he ruin even more? Is it possible to break beyondshattered?
"Hi, Lovely," Tax's low, lyrical voice nearly sends my pulse skyrocketing into outer space and somehow, it brings me back to the present. I'm not with Danny anymore. I left him. I'm living on my own. I have a roommate. I talk to my sister now. And this man, the one in my bed with the bare chest and rigid muscles that sculpt his body, is nothing like Danny'sfriends.
"How the hell did you get in here?" I demand, my heart still racing in myribcage.
Midnight eyes sparkle as Tax grins down at me and leans down to press a soft kiss to my lips. I'm shaking, but I let him kiss me. When his mouth moves over mine, it's soothing. When his lips press mine apart and his tongue invades, I moan into the sensation. Fireworks dance under my flesh and I reach up, raking my hands through his hair. He's a pillaging Viking in my bed, ready to take something I didn't even know was valuable anymore. But even when I lay back and move to pull him over me, he doesn't take it. Tax backs off and stares down at me. My chest expands and deflates with the force of my breathing. His lips arewet.
"I can get anywhere I want to go," he finally says, "I just have to have the righttools."
Before I can reply, he slides backward, out of the bed. "So, you break into my apartment?” I lift an eyebrow. “Why would you do something stupid like that? I think this is the definition ofcreepy.”
He smirks. "It’s only creepy if you don’t like meback.”
I blink at him. “What?”
“It’s only creepy if I make you uncomfortable.” Tax arches one brow. “Do I make you uncomfortable,Lovely?”
“No,” I say quickly. Tooquickly?
His smirk blossoms into a fully amused smile. “I'm gonna go wait for you to getchanged."
"Why do I need to get changed?" I sneak a glance at the clock bouncing across my laptop screen. It reads 3am, which just serves to confuse me evenmore.
Tax leans down and presses his lips to mine once more. He pulls back and smiles even wider. "Put on a swimsuit and meet me out in your livingroom."
"What about Beverly?" Iask.
He lifts a brow. "She's not here. Now," he pops my bare thigh as I slide to the edge, "no more stalling. Hurry up. If you're not ready in five minutes, you'll go as youare."
I don't doubt that Tax would try to drag me out of my apartment in nothing but my pajamas. As he slips through the door, I hurriedly pull off my sleep shirt and throw it across the room. Rummaging through my underwear drawer, I come up with a black bikini that I haven't worn but once in the year and a half since I bought it. I drop my panties and yank the bottoms on. I barely have the triangles of fabric over my nipples before the door pops open and Tax is standingthere.
"Ready?"
I glare at him as I hold the triangles in place. "Out!" Though he's already told me Beverly isn't here, and I can't hear her snores from anywhere in the apartment, the word comes out a quiethiss.
Tax, for all his arrogance, simply waits as one side of his mouth curves upward once more. He tips back, pressing his spine against the doorframe and tracks his eyes down my body. His eyes on me make my skin heat. I growl and spin, giving him my mostly naked back as I let the triangles hang over my breasts and I tie the top around my neck. Warm fingers brush against the nape of my neck, startling me. I don't get the opportunity to turn, though. Tax's hands on my hips stop me. I shiver as the sweat from before pops back up on my skin. This time, it's not the heat of the apartment. It's the stifling fires between Tax and me that are causing thisreaction.
Goosebumps raise to meet his fingers as Tax holds me with one hand on my hip and then strokes the ridges of my spine down to the edge of my bikini bottoms. Then he reaches up and pulls the remaining strings at my sides around the middle of my back and ties them. The loops he makes as he pulls the strings tight take my breath away. I've had so many men undress me, but never once have any of them helped medress.
Slowly, when I'm sure my top isn’t going to twist or slip off and I'm covered, I turn and look up. Tax's face is sober, thoughtful. He bends and kisses me again and almost immediately, I'm right back where I was before. With my hands in his hair and my body pressed against his. When my naked legs brush his shorts, I realize he's in swimtrunks.
"Let'sgo.”
Downstairs, Tax leads me by my hand out into the pool area behind the apartment building, and warm air brushes my hair across my shoulders. “I thought it was locked up at night?” Iask.
We bypass the outdoor shower just in front of the iron gate surrounding the pool area. Tax looks over his shoulder with a devious smirk. “Theydo.”
“Are you going to break into the pool the same way you broke into my apartment?” Iask.
He scoffs, stopping in front of the gate. “No,” he says. “There’s no need.” He grips my waist and before I know it, he’s swinging me up and over the gate. I gasp when my feet land on the concrete on the otherside.
He releases me and Tax’s hands grip the top of the gate. The muscles of his arms bulge and strain as he swings himself over as well. “Ready?” heasks.
Looking up at him, a strand of black hair falls over his forehead. “You’re an enigma,” I thinkaloud.
He blinks at me, his smile dropping away as he reaches for me and pushes me back up against the iron bars of the gate. His deep blue eyes sharpen, like the deadliest of knives, as he gazes down at me. “Nah, not really.” He leans down and takes mymouth.
Barreling heat smacks into my chest and ignites a fire in my veins, flooding the rest of my body. I thought perhaps the kiss in my room was a fluke. Nothing but the combination of being woken up suddenly and the shock of finding him in bed with me. It’s not. I clench up, my hands sinking into his hair. “Tax?” I mumble his name – a question on my lips when we finally breakapart.
