Page 30 of Merciless King

London

His door was closed.

It had been hard enough to walk through my own. Did I knock? Or just stride in, all false confidence and bravado?

Yeah, there was no way he was buying the confidence act, and I knew I couldn’t pull it off.

I lifted my hand, fingers curled in a fist, poised to knock.

Do it. This is your last chance. DO IT.

Somehow my fist connected with the door before I registered the movement. I stumbled back a step, in shock that I actually had done it.

The silence that followed was deafening.

I was contemplating turning and running away when the door opened.

Van stood there, shirtless.

He was wearing only boxer briefs.

And he was staring down at me, waiting for me to say something.

I noted he held the door partially closed, blocking my view of the room behind like I’d never seen it before, like he was afraid I’d run in and dive in his bed and he’d never get me out.

This was a bad idea. No, a monumentally terrible idea.

If he wanted me that way, he would have done something about it. Van was a take-charge kind of guy. The kind of man who went after what he wanted.

My entire body flushed with heat. With humiliation.

What the hell were you thinking?

“London?”

I jolted. “Um…I just…I was going to…I wanted…I’ll just go back to my room.”

His hand shot out and caught the fabric of my tank at my belly, fisting it lightly, stopping me. “You knocked on my door. Talk to me.”

His voice was all gravelly and sexy, and I felt it between my thighs, kicking off a low throbbing ache. My panties were damp and my skin felt hypersensitive.

My flight instincts were on high alert. But that grip on my shirt held me in place. The muscle in his jaw jumped. It seemed to do that a lot around me. His gaze dropped to my mouth, and when it came back to mine I couldn’t hold his intense stare. I glanced down…

And got an eyeful.

Van was hard.

Straining against the soft fabric of his boxer briefs, and he wasn’t trying to hide it.

The pulse between my thighs intensified.

Say it.

“London?” he said again, with a whole lot of growl behind it this time.

I aimed my stare at his chest because I couldn’t say this and look into his eyes. “I-it occurred to me that tonight was probably the last night I’d be here…with you.”

He didn’t say anything. In fact his big body had gone unnaturally still.