Slow Burn

  I hear his shocked exhale at my blatant response. Confusion flits through his eyes, and he angles his head and stares so deep within me that when I begin to avert my eyes, he brings his hands up to the sides of my face and holds it so that I have no option but to look at him.

  “Uh-huh. You think you can actually say something like that to me and I’m not going to make you explain what’s behind it? We’d better do some talking because you’re making me hard with a comment like that. And you keep making me go back on promises I’ve made to myself … and, City, if I can’t trust promises to myself, then I can’t make promises to anyone else….” He shifts some and adjusts himself within his shorts with a pained groan. “So either you start talking or you might just have to sit there silently while I take care of myself because fuck, woman, you’re not giving me many options at this point.”

  Is he for real? He would really make me sit here and watch him get off rather than let me help him? He’s that goddamn stubborn?

  We sit in silence as I try to hide the answers in my eyes and the desire apparent in my nipples pressing through the thin fabric of my tank top. He nods his head in measured acknowledgment—of what, I’m not sure—before a ghost of a smile traces over his mouth.

  “Keep those eyes of yours looking at me like that, Montgomery, and you’re going to be in a whole world of hurt.”

  “I am?” I snort, trying to play off the fact that every part of my body is angling toward him to be touched.

  “Yup, it’s a bitch wanting something so bad, you’re weeping,” he says, his eyes flitting down to where he’s dampened my panties and then back up to mine, a cocky-as-hell smirk playing over his lips.

  He wants to play this game? Bring it on. “Nah, I’m a ‘grab life by the balls’ kinda girl … so if I, uh, want something,” I say, repeating the same response he’s giving me, eyes trailing down to his erection pressing against the seam of his shorts and then back up, “I just take what I want.”

  “And what is it you want?” He leans back on his hands, his arms bracing himself as he toys with me.

  I work my tongue in my mouth as I fight my own smirk and the need coursing through me. “You.”

  “Hmm,” he says. “Well, City, that there poses quite the problem because, one, I brought you here to talk. Just to talk.” He pushes himself up so that he leans forward, his face dangerously, temptingly close to mine. “And, two, since I brought you out here with only that intention, I didn’t bring a condom. No glove, no love.” He shrugs, a victorious smirk transforming his face from arrogant to playful.

  And fuck the man is gorgeous in whatever role he’s playing. I sag inwardly at his statement, needing his touch like I need my next breath since he has me primed with his verbal-and-taunting foreplay. Then I realize that he could very well be playing me.

  Time to call his bluff. He won’t touch me without a condom? I love that he’s that respectful of me, but hell if I don’t want to be disrespected right now.

  “That one of your rules too?” I ask with a lift of my chin and a challenge in my eyes.

  “Mm-hmm.”

  I can see him trying to figure out where I’m going with this. See the cogs of his mind turning to why I’d be questioning a rule that’s a no-brainer. I bring a hand to my throat and trail my finger slowly down between my breasts like it’s a move I do every day. I watch his eyes follow, take note of his Adam’s apple bobbing in response, and figure I’ll go in with the coup de grâce and see if I can’t make him take my own bait.

  “Well, I like rules too, you know … and one of mine is that I take my pill regularly, get tested regularly.” I wet my bottom lip and love that I see his mouth part in reaction. “Nothing like the feeling of skin on skin, right?”

  His eyes flash to mine, and there’s an audible sharp intake of air before he controls his response to seem blasé. “The Pill, huh?”

  “Yep, the Pill and a clean bill of health. You?”

  “Am I on the Pill? No.” he laughs out, breaking the momentary sexual tension sparking between us like a live circuit.

  “Cute. Very cute, but I was referring to your bill of health.”

  He angles his head and stares at me, all joking aside because this is a serious answer. “Clean as a whistle.”

  “Well, I don’t know about whistles, but I’m sure you’ve got something else I can blow on.” My smile is smarmy, and I love watching his eyes widen at my audacity.

  “Goddamn it, Haddie,” he swears under his breath. I see him angle closer into me, see his resolve weakening, his eyes scrunched and a sigh escaping, and then just as quickly, he reins it back in and pulls away from me. “Well played, well played … but as much as I want you to blow that something else, I’ve got my list of rules.”

  “I like a man who sticks to his principles … who likes to remain in control,” I tease, enjoying torturing him after my damn libido has been a slave to his orders over the past week, “but I was born to break rules in order to get what I want.” I tilt my head and purse my lips, staring at him, waiting for his reaction, and every part of me wants desperately for him to take my shoulders, push me back, and have his way with me.

  “Well, I guess this is going to be a test of wills … seeing which one of us will prevail.” He raises his eyebrows and leans back on his hands, making the point neither of us is going to get what he or she wants unless one of us caves.

  We stare at each other for a few minutes, both of us trying to figure out how to manipulate the situation to achieve our goals when he twists his lips and nods his head. “Okay, City … you want sex, and I want answers, so I have a proposition.” I just raise an eyebrow at him because I’m thankful he is trying to add some levity to the moment—he only calls me that nickname when we are being playful. “For every question I ask you that you refuse to answer or lie about, you have to remove a piece of clothing and vice versa. See, I’ve already given you a head start,” he says, pointing to his shirt lying on the ground beside me. “You have a few more lies to give than I do before you’re naked.”

  His proposition is interesting, to say the least, and I’m so focused on the fact that I have three lies until he is completely naked that I don’t think everything through. Like who gets to be the judge of if I’m lying or not. All I’m thinking about is how much Becks has primed my pump and left me without release. “And what? The person who is naked first loses? What does the winner get?”

  That low, seductive chuckle rumbles in his chest. “Winner gets to decide just what to do next.”

  Thank sweet fuck for that because this girl is ready to be taken here in this empty field. Talk about wanting the clichéd with reckless abandon…. If this isn’t the perfectly painted picture of it, I’m not sure what is.

  “You up for it?” His eyes taunt me, and his smirk goads me even though I’m already game.

  “The question that needs to be asked is, are you up for it?” I smirk at him.

  “City, you know I’m up for anything with you.” He works his tongue in his cheek. “I’ll even let you go first.”

  “I don’t want you claiming I cheated now when you’re naked and I’m—” I stop myself, not wanting to play my cards about what I want too quickly because if I tell him I have a strong desire to take him in my mouth and taste him, I have a feeling he’ll lie on purpose. Then again, we’re both in this sexually frustrated state partially because of him, so I’m not sure he’ll give in that easy.

  And the problem is, if I lie, I fear he’ll build me to a frenzy and then walk away again to prove his goddamn point when in fact it is his point I want in me.

  “I go first, huh? Don’t answer that,” I correct myself, realizing I almost just wasted a question on him. His grin spreads wide as he just nods his head for me to continue. “Who is Deena?”

  “Deena who?,” he replies like he doesn’t know anyone by that name. And as much as I love the idea that he’s acting like she’s insignificant to him, I raise my eyebrows, wanting the answer. He sighs
in resignation. “Deena is a girl I dated in high school.”

  I buy his response, even though I suddenly want to follow it up with another question, but he’s already started to ask me something. “Look at us and our D questions…. Is there anything going on between you and Dante?”

  I begin to lie—to tell him there’s nothing—but correct myself as I count my pieces of clothing. “Dante is an ex who once upon a time I thought was the one. Until he up and disappeared one day. I have a weak spot for him, yes. Have we kissed since he’s been staying with me? Yes. Do I want him back? No. Does he want more? Possibly. Do I want to sleep with him? No.” And I don’t know why I’ve laid all of that out there. Maybe I want to warn Becks away by telling him that Dante and I have a history, have kissed, but when I look at Becks, he is grinning from ear to ear.

  “What?” I ask him when he just laughs.

  “Well, you answered all of that for me, and I only had to use one question, so thank you. That lets me get to the important questions quicker,” he says, running a hand through his hair as I curse my wordy-ass self.

  He reaches out and begins to lift up the hem of my shirt, and I bat his hand away as he starts to lift it over my head. “Stop! I answered you!”

  He just keeps pulling it up, and as I continue to stop him, I turn my head back to find his mouth on mine. The fight goes right out of me when the warmth of his lips and his tongue delve to touch mine softly. An unhindered moan falls around us, and I’m not sure if it’s from him or me because I’m so completely mesmerized, my body completely lax and yet so very eager to respond to any request he gives me.

  I come back to reality when he draws back from the kiss and pulls my shirt over my head, distraction one hundred percent effective. “You lie,” he murmurs, and I’m so captivated by him right now, I don’t care that my shirt’s off or that he thinks I’ve lied because all I can focus on is his presence before me. “You want to sleep with Dante still. You just don’t want to admit it. He’s your past. He may be complicated, but since he’s your past, he can easily help you forget whatever it is you seem to be running from just as easily as I can. And the thing is, with him, you know he’s not going to be there in the morning or on the day after … and that’s quite appealing to you, whereas you fear that with me. You love your no strings, and yet you won’t cut the ties they have that hold you to whatever it is that makes you run away and remain alone.”

  I suck in a broken breath as he speaks with such raw honesty about the things I feel, and it scares me that he can see inside me so well. And even worse, if he sees that truth, what else is he seeing that I don’t want him to? Shit just got real, real quick, and I didn’t want it to.

  I swallow over the lump in my throat and deny him any reaction to his commentary, hoping that will save my sanity some if I just move on. It’s my turn to ask a question, and of all the things that I want to ask him, I can’t get my mind off the exotic Deena. I need to know if he slept with her the other day after he left me at the farmers’ market. I don’t know why. If he did, was he comparing us? Was he thinking how much less complicated she is than me? I don’t want to waste my question on this, but I can’t pull my head elsewhere.

  “Did you sleep with Deena?”

  He gives me a puzzled look and then says, “No. I can’t believe you’d wonder about that or waste a question on it. Don’t you get she could never hold a candle to you?”

  His words warm parts deep inside me that I don’t want warmed, and I realize how stupid this game is immediately. How he’s an open frickin’ book to my volumes of closed ones.

  I shift to stand up, wanting to change the topic and end this game right here, right now before he gets any closer to things I don’t want him near.

  “Nice try,” he says, shifting us back so that I am flat on my back and he’s sitting astride my waist with my hands cuffed at my sides. We seem to keep ending up in this position.

  And hell if I’m going to complain.

  “What’s wrong, Haddie? Was that answer a little too real for you? Did you realize that we are, and you can’t handle it once again, so you want to bolt?” He leans down and hovers over me as the truth in his words hit my ears. “Guess what. I have the only car keys. We’re not going anywhere or doing anything until you give it a chance.”

  I stop moving beneath him, let the anger burn out when I hear the emotion in his voice. There are so many things I want to say to him, to explain to him, but the fear and its ever-constant presence are the dam preventing any deluge of truths.

  “Haddie …,” he says, and I wonder what it is he sees right now as he looks at me. Does he see the fear—the scared little girl needing someone but afraid to get too close—or does he see the confident woman who’s playing a game with his heart?

  I wonder which one I’d see if I were in his shoes. Because neither one is attractive or admirable.

  He leans forward and rests his forehead on mine, my eyes drifting closed with our lips barely touching. “I’m not going to make you talk. I could never force you to when whatever it is that puts the look in your eyes you have right now breaks my heart.” He pauses for a beat, and I’m not sure if he does so for him or for me, but I appreciate it. It gives me time to try to clear the look from my eyes and inflate my lungs since he just robbed them of all air. “Give us today. Forget whatever it is that’s making you push me away over and over again, and give us a chance. We’re good together…. Can’t you see that? Push whatever it is aside, and if after today you still want to fight against this connection we have, then I say go ahead. Walk away without your goddamn strings tied tight because I know you won’t.”

  I don’t even realize that I’m holding my breath again or that my body has gone completely lax from his words. My mind skips and homes in on the key words he’s speaking, unable to fully process the generosity behind them because all I can focus on is my own desperation, which they evoke. I want this. I want a chance not to think and feel and fear, and yet I know the chance to do that will only lead to the ties I fear are already there. The ones he’s already tying into double knots so I can’t walk away.

  I want the ability to feel, to think, to hope without the fear tingeing the edges. Even if for a day. I want to give myself this one thing, give us this even though I know how selfish it is.

  He mistakes my silence for discord and continues. “Whatever this is between us is worth a shot, Haddie. You’re worth it. I just want you to give me the chance to prove I’m not going to hurt you. I just wish you’d let me in to show you that I mean it.”

  Chapter 21

  The emotion I feel is so strong that I don’t think I can speak, so I try to show him. I press my lips to his as my hands roam down the strong lines of his back. I’m desperate as hell to take and sate and feel, but at the same time I want to linger and memorize every sound and taste and sensation.

  “Haddie.” He murmurs my name, an oath and a curse at the same time, and I steal anything else he planned on saying by slipping my tongue between his lips and taking everything I need to keep the seams holding myself together from unraveling.

  “Make me feel, Becks.” And this time when I ask, when I whisper it against his lips, it’s not to make me forget the grief of Lexi’s death but rather to own the emotions I now feel for him. The ones I can’t deny anymore.

  Together we begin the slow dance of undressing, removing his shorts, lifting up my skirt, and pulling down my panties because right now we both need this connection between us more than anything. I sit up and push him back, my hands on his shoulders, my lips on his. I move my hands ever so slowly so that my fingernails scrape down the firm lines of his chest until I hold his cock in my hand. And the feeling, the notion that I can make him so hard, so fast, is a powerfully intoxicating one.

  He groans out as I encircle him and stroke my hand up and back over his steeled length. I drag my mouth from his, my lips tasting the salt on his skin, my nose breathing in his scent, my hands feeling him pulse and ask for more witho
ut words. I lick and nip at the flat disks of his nipples, earning me a hiss of breath and a hand fisted in my hair in response. His hand urges me farther down his body with a hurried desire while I prefer to take my time. To lick, and kiss, and tempt him with my mouth. To kill him with the slow descent so that by the time I reach the crest of his dick, the anticipation is so intense, he’ll lose that stoic restraint and cry out my name like he owns it.

  I slide my mouth over his infinity zone, and when my nipples scrape through the fabric of my bra over the top of his thighs, I moan at the eroticism that just heightens every single incredible sensation. I finally reach his cock and pump it once in my hand while I close the wet heat of my mouth around the crest. Becks’s hips jerk in reaction and “Fuck, Had,” falls from his mouth, and his hand fists even tighter in my hair.

  I position my body so that I’m sitting astride one of his thighs, my own sex grinding against his leg with each draw up and down of my mouth on his dick. I lick my tongue along the underside of his shaft, adding pressure there before sliding back up and circling the crest. I tease him like this a bit more, only allowing my lips to close over his head and denying the rest of his length the suction of my mouth while my own body trembles from the sensations I’m creating for myself.

  His fist in my hair urges me to slide him all the way in my mouth while his other softly caresses my cheek and underside of my chin in an oddly intimate way for this carnal action. I take my time with licks, my fingers teasing his balls with scrapes of fingernails and then a gentle pulling motion down and away when they tighten up.