Hard Rules (Page 26)

“But I’m about to,” I assure her, dragging her hands to my neck. “Hold on.” I stand, cupping her backside, and start for the door, ready to be inside this woman. Her legs wrap my waist, exactly where I want them and plan to keep them, and as much as I want her in my bed, I just want her, and settle for the living room. Once there, I bypass the cold leather couch, and set her gorgeous bare backside on top of an oversized ottoman with soft faux fur on top. She grabs the edges and kicks off her shoes.

“I’ll do it this time,” I say, reaching for the buttons on my shirt, and working them free. She reaches forward to help me and I take one look at her mouth, and cup her head and kiss her. A deep, drugging kiss that I end far too quickly, and in a rare moment where impatience wins, I tug my shirt over my head and toss it on the coffee table. And her hands are already on me, one flat on my chest, the other on my arm.

It’s then that I realize she’s tracing the tattoo on my right arm, and I have no idea why I don’t just kiss her again and get on with fucking her. Instead, I kneel there, and I let her trace the lion with an eagle perched on its head, the bird’s wings spread, and pieces of a day I don’t want to remember coming back to me.

She glances up at me, her hand closing over my arm, her attention on me, not it now. “What does it mean?”

My mood darkens instantly, and I don’t even consider dismissing the question. “The eagle is knowledge, strength, and leadership. The lion is cunning and vicious. He’ll rip your throat out if you give him the chance.” Her lips part in shock, exactly my intention, and I twine my fingers in her hair, dragging her mouth to mine. “That’s why you never turn your back on the lion.”

“And your father’s the lion.”

My fingers tighten in her hair at the assertion that stuns me, and seems to infer she knows more about me than she should. She is the one who sees too much and she has unleashed my raging emotions. I turn her away from me to face the couch, my body framing hers, my hands cupping her breasts. “I’m the man who’s wanted to fuck you for hours and it’s time for me to be inside you.” I wonder what the hell has taken me so long in the first place. “Don’t move.”

She covers my hand over her breast. “Shane—”

“Talk later. Fuck now.” I lift off her, my hands on her waist, and as on edge as I am now, I do not want to scare her, or stir her demons because mine have decided to come out and play. I lean into her again, softly saying, “Right now—”

“I know,” she says. “So what are you waiting for?”

What am I waiting for? Again, she surprises me, but I’m not going to analyze her, or my reaction to her at this very moment. Not when I could be inside her, feeling her instead. “Don’t move.”

“Don’t take too long,” she counters, and that remark manages to bring me down enough to play her game. I press my hand to her lower back and gently, but not too gently, smack her backside.

She sucks in air, arching her back, that pretty backside lifting, my hand caressing. I bend down and kiss her spine. “I’m not sure what I think about that,” she says, glancing over her shoulder.

“Don’t think and I won’t either.”

I release her, and don’t even consider standing to undress. In all of thirty seconds my pants and underwear are down and I’ve rolled the single condom in my wallet over my hard-as-fuck cock, and I grab her hips, slipping between her thighs. At that moment my phone rings from somewhere on the ground, and I grimace, not about to let her go to fling the damn thing across the room the way I’d like to right now.

I stroke my cock along the seam of her body, preparing her and then, I’m done waiting. I press into her, driving deep, and reaching around her to cup her breast again, my already ridiculously hard cock now officially harder. “I’m not sure you could feel any better than you do right now,” I say, pulling back, the sound of her erratic breathing is only making me hotter. I drive into her and she gasps, spurring me to do it again. And again. I need more of her. I need to be deeper, to drive harder. I just need more, and still cupping her breast, I raise upright, and take her with me. She grabs my hands and holds on tight, and she can’t move like this. I know that, but she doesn’t have to do anything but hang on.

I free one of my hands to press it between her legs and stroke her, thrusting as I do. She leans back into me, trying to arch into my touch. I lean back to drive at another angle.

“Oh,” she cries out. “Shane I—”

She stiffens the way she had on the balcony and this time when she spasms, it’s around my shaft, not my fingers, and holy hell, it rocks me. She rocks me, and I pull her against me, that final hard collision of our bodies sending me over the edge with her. I shake, and she trembles, and everything is white space for I don’t know how long. I come back to the present, and I don’t want to let go of her. She isn’t just some new fuck buddy. She’s a drug I could easily call an addiction when I don’t have addictions, and at a time I’d be nothing but poison to her. That’s a problem for her and me.

EMILY

Shane is holding me from behind, still buried inside me, the aftermath of my orgasm leaving me with goose bumps all over my skin and a strange warm spot in my chest. Not ready for this night, or even this moment and the next to end, I don’t want to move, but Shane leans us forward, and I catch myself on the ottoman with my hands. He pulls out of me and I am instantly awash in a cluster of emotions that have me spinning around only to find his hands on the cushion on either side of me, his strong arms caging me.