Page 31 of The Beast
I looked at myself in the mirror for another five seconds.
Then, I opened the door.
He was still on the sofa. Exactly where I'd left him, head back against the wall, eyes open, staring at the ceiling with the expression of a man engaged in a private argument he was not winning. He looked up when the door opened. Something moved across his face that he didn't quite manage to contain—relief, and underneath it the other thing, the thing that had been there all evening and was not subtle anymore.
I crossed the room.
I stopped in front of him and looked down at him and said: "I'm not shaking anymore."
He looked up at me. Said nothing.
"And I don't hate anything about tonight," I said. "And I'm not grabbing for something in the dark. I know exactly where I am and I know exactly what I want and I have spent twenty-nine years letting other people make that determination for me." I held his gaze. "I'm asking you to let me make this one."
The silence lasted three seconds. Maybe four.
Then he reached up and took my hand—slowly, deliberately—and pulled me back down.
I came down into his lap and his hands were at my face before I'd fully settled, cupping my jaw, tilting my head. He looked at me for one long moment with those dark eyes doing everything they did—seeing me, all of me, the whole complicated truth of the day—and then, he kissed me.
It was not a tentative kiss. It was not a question. It was the kiss of a man who had been holding something back for hours and had finally, on his own terms, decided to stop. It landed with the full weight of all of that—certain and deep and thorough, his thumbs against my jaw, his mouth knowing exactly what it was doing.
His tongue swept in, claiming mine with slow, deliberate strokes that made heat pool low in my belly. I made a sound I hadn't planned—half moan, half whimper. I felt him respond to it immediately, a low, rough exhale against my mouth, his hands sliding from my jaw into my hair, fingers tightening just enough to hold me exactly where he wanted me.
He kissed me until I stopped thinking about anything except his mouth, the taste of him, the way his lips moved like he was learning every secret I kept behind them.
Then, he pulled back just far enough to look at me, breathing hard, his forehead against mine.
"You sure," he said. Not quite a question. More like a last accounting.
"Brock." I pulled back enough to see his face. "If you stop again, I will actually hitchhike to New York."
Something cracked open in him. A real laugh—full and surprised and helpless—and then his arms were around me and his mouth was at my throat, hot and open, sucking and biting at the sensitive skin until my head fell back. I stopped being able to construct sentences.
He shifted us without breaking contact—one smooth movement that laid me back against the cushions with his weight coming down over me. That alone did something to me that I didn't have a category for. The easy physical certainty of it. The way he moved like the space between us was a problem he'd already solved. His body was heavy and solid, pressing me into the cushions in the most delicious way, his hips settling between my thighs so I could already feel the hard, insistent length of him against my core.
He braced over me and looked down. I watched him look, his gaze dragging over my body like he owned every inch of it.
"You've been driving me out of my mind since the alley," he said. Low. Flat. Like a confession that cost him something.
"Good," I said.
He made a sound—half growl, half groan—and came down over me.
His mouth found my jaw, my throat, the place below my ear that made my hands grip the back of his shirt. I pulled at it until he let me get it off him. Then, I stopped breathing for a moment because the reality of him—the breadth of his chest, the scarring I hadn't expected, the evidence of a life lived in the direction of hard things—was more than the category of handsome had prepared me for. Muscle and heat and raw, masculine power.
I pressed my hand flat against his chest. Felt his heartbeat, fast and hard, running completely counter to all that stillness.
"You're not as calm as you look," I said.
"No," he said. “I’m not."
He got my shirt over my head in one swift motion. His mouth went immediately to my throat, then lower.
He unclasped my bra with practiced fingers and slid it away, his big hands cupping my breasts, fingertips brushing over my already tight nipples before his mouth followed. When he closed his lips over one aching peak and sucked hard, I cried out, the sound echoing off the studio walls. He didn’t stop, licking and biting gently, then harder, switching sides until I was writhing beneath him, wetness slicking between my thighs.
"Quiet," he murmured against my skin, not like a demand. Like he found it interesting that he'd pulled that out of me. His voice was gravel-rough, amused, and possessive, all at once.
"That's not—" I started.
