Page 57 of Hold You Close
“No.” She pushes me away slightly. “I don’t even understand why you want to.”
“Yes, you do.”
Our eyes are locked in a fiery stare. “Fine,” she admits. “But just because the sex is good doesn’t mean—”
“It’s better than good and you know it.”
She bites her plush bottom lip. I want to bite it too.
“You can’t stand me, either,” she says, but her tone is weakening, like this is her last line of defense, and her eyes have started to wander over my shoulders, chest and abs.
“Most of the time, that’s true,” I tell her. “You can be a cold, condescending bitch.”
“I have to be, Ian.” Her hands are moving now, sliding down my chest. “It’s how I protect myself from you.”
I lower my mouth to her neck, and she tilts her head to allow me to brush my lips against the side of her throat. “Lower your guard, London. You don’t need to protect yourself from me anymore.”
“Lies,” she says as I kiss her neck. “You say these things, but you don’t mean them. It’s all a game with you.” Her hands have reached the drawstring of my pants, which hang low on my hips. Her fingers hesitate.
“Go on.” I whisper the words in her ear. “Do it.”
“If I do, things change from this point forward.”
Oh fuck, she’s going to make demands now? When she’s got me this hard for her? This weak for her? This desperate to get inside her again? “Yes. Whatever you want.”
She unties the string and my pants fall to the floor. In an instant her hand is wrapped around my erection and my mouth is closing over hers.
Things escalate quickly from there.
My hands beneath her thighs. Her legs around my waist. My fingers tugging lace aside. Her back against the door. My cock moving inside her, hot and hard and fast, while her hands twist into my hair, fisting tight.
Our sounds bounce off the floor tiles and echo throughout the two-story foyer. Her gasps and cries. My groans and growls. The door rattling in its frame. Or maybe it’s the entire house shaking—it is, it’s a fucking earthquake, it has to be. There’s no other explanation for the way the floor is vibrating beneath my feet. The hot, humming sensation moves up my legs, gathering strength, and I fuck her so violently I’m sure the entire front wall of the house is going to give and we’ll tumble onto the front lawn.
She comes first, screaming my name before sinking her teeth into my shoulder as her body clenches mine. The sting of her bite only heightens the pleasure for me, and I erupt inside her in a series of powerful bursts, my entire body trembling with the force of it.
Afterward, my legs nearly give out, and I have to take a moment to let my muscles recover and regain some strength. We’re both breathing hard, and her forehead is resting on my shoulder. It’s kind of nice, and for a moment I wonder what it would be like if the next words out of her mouth were something sexy or affectionate and not defensive or bossy.
But I know her too well. She doesn’t want me to know how much I get to her.
Sure enough, she doesn’t disappoint.
Her head pops up. “Let me down.”
Carefully, I disengage from her body and set her on her feet. She’s still wearing her lingerie and heels, which is hot as fuck. But why does she have to wear that furrowed-brow expression too? She’s looking at me like I’m a fly in the fruit salad, not like I just gave her an orgasm so intense she bit me.
“I’ll be right back,” she says, her heels clicking on the tile as she walks away from me. A moment later, I hear the bathroom door close.
“Fuck.” I run a hand through my hair. We didn’t use a condom—I always used a condom. Never, not once in the twenty years I’d been having sex had I ever been tempted to fuck someone without one. Jolene wouldn’t even let me near her without one, she was so worried about getting pregnant and tipping the scale one ounce above her ideal body weight. But just now with London, it hadn’t even occurred to me to stop and go get one. What the hell was I thinking?
Now she’s going to come out here squawking about diseases and risks and how we both have to go get tested. Well, I get tested often enough that I have results from a month ago, and I haven’t been with anyone since then but her. And fuck her if she doesn’t believe me!
Angrily, I pull on my pants and tie the drawstring. When I hear the bathroom door open, I widen my stance and hoist up my chest a little, preparing for the fight.
But when she comes around the corner into the front hall, she doesn’t look too battle-ready. She looks sort of sad and vulnerable. With her eyes on the floor, carrying her heels, she walks barefoot over to her skirt and blouse, scooping them up. Then she turns to me. “We should talk, don’t you think?”
I’m so thrown by the change in her demeanor, I can’t think. “Okay.”
“Give me a minute to get dressed.” Her eyes meet mine, and they’re not accusatory or cold. They’re soft. Her voice is soft, too. “I promise I will not run away. I just want to put my clothes back on.”
