Inspire (The Muse #1)(55)
Author: Cora Carmack

“What is it?” God, it actually hurts not knowing what’s going on in her head.

“I need to ask a favor of you.”

Not what I expected to hear. “A favor?”

Her touch lightens against my chest, allowing me just a tiny bit closer.

“Well, favor might not be the right word. It’s more of a request.”

“Anything.”

She takes a deep breath, and her dark eyes search my face for a moment before she adds, “I need you not to touch me.”

My spine turns to steel, and my eyes narrow. Not touch her? That was the exact opposite of everything I wanted to do.

“What I mean is … if we’re going to do this, I need you to let me be in control.”

Her expression is guarded, careful. I blink a few times, trying to wrap my head around this. We’d been in bed together before. We might not have had sex, but she hadn’t shown any inclination then that she wanted or needed to be dominant. If anything, it was the opposite. I could still remember joking about tying her to my bed so she wouldn’t run away. Her reaction had been instantaneous. She’d liked the idea. So then why now did she seem to be asking for the opposite?

“I don’t understand. You want to …” I wasn’t even sure how to put it into words.

“Just this first time.”

Clenching my teeth, I can’t make any sense of what she’s thinking.

I push forward against her hand, and she lets me. She doesn’t drop the barrier completely, but I get almost close enough to kiss her.

“Tell me what you’re thinking. I hate not understanding you.”

She tilts her chin up to better look me in the eye, and our mouths are an inch apart.

“I have—there’s something …” She trails off, shaking her head and then trying again, “I can’t explain it. But for this first time, for my sake, I need to always feel like I can pull away. Like I can stop it.”

I stiffen, and on gut reaction alone, I wrap my arms around her waist and pull her tight against me.

“Kalli, I would never force you. Never make you do anything you didn’t want to do.”

She lifts a hand to my face, running her fingers along my forehead and then my cheek, making a quiet shushing noise. “I know. I don’t think that.”

“Then why …” Oh Christ. My heart clenches. “Did something happen to you?”

“It’s not that either. I need you to trust me. I’m okay. I just need it to be this way the first time.”

I don’t like it. Not one bit. And it has nothing to do with who’s dominant and who’s not. I don’t like that there’s a piece of her, something this big, that I don’t know. I can feel the absence of it in my chest, of all the things she hasn’t told me, and they burn like bullets stuck underneath the skin.

“You know I’ll give you anything you want, do anything you want. But can’t you tell me why?”

She lifts up onto her tiptoes, kissing me lightly on the mouth. “I love you.”

I wait for her to say something else, but it appears that’s the only answer I’m getting. I sigh and drop my forehead against hers. She plucks one of my arms from around her waist and laces our fingers together.

“Come with me.”

I follow. But the frantic need I felt to have her is buried under worry. There’s something wrong. I know there is. She’s afraid, and it’s shredding me inside that she won’t let me do anything about it.

She nudges the door to her bedroom with her foot, but doesn’t turn the light on. There’s just enough residual light coming in through the window from the street light outside to make her bed visible. It’s neatly made, a deep plum color, the headboard a design of curved and curled metal. She pulls me closer to it, and then nudges me to sit down.

“I’ll be right back, okay?”

I don’t say anything, and she leans down to crush her mouth against mine. Her lips are hard, almost desperate, and a few seconds later I get pulled into the kiss, unable to resist. Her hands thread through my hair, yanking slightly as she steps between my legs. I grip her thighs, needing to feel grounded in her after the confusing request she’d made in the living room. Her mouth moves faster, exhaling a few tiny moans against me when I drag my hands up to cup her ass.

She pulls away, breathing heavy, and says, “I will be right back.”

She leaves the room and I hear another door open and close before running water follows. The bathroom. I suck in a breath, trying to shake off the anxiety still clinging to me. Needing something to do, I bend to untie my boots, kicking them off when they’re loose enough.

Well, damn. That took all of fifteen seconds.

I shuck off my socks too, tucking them inside my boots and throwing them close to the foot of the bed. I drum my fingers against my knee for the moment, and then decide to go ahead and pull off my shirt, tossing it on the floor too. It’s not like I don’t know where this is heading. But I still feel … hesitant. What if she doesn’t really want to do this? What if she’s just doing it because she knows I want to, and that’s the reason for … everything? I sigh, scrubbing my palms over my face in frustration.

The door creaks open, and the beam of brightness on the floor from the hallway light blinks out.

I look up. My eyes have adjusted a little more to the dark, but only enough to tell that Kalli is standing back in the doorway. The door clicks shut behind her, and her soft footfalls move closer. When she’s about three feet away, I get my first good look at her. And my mouth goes dry.

She’s naked. No clothes. No underwear. Nothing. Completely bare.

She walks toward me, arms by her sides, not the least bit shy or unsure. My heartbeat picks up, and lust swallows up my earlier worry in a giant wave. Her dark hair is loose around her shoulders, a few long strands trailing down to curl against her breasts. My eyes get stuck there for a long moment, watching the way they move as she walks. The skin of her stomach looks silky smooth, and I know from memory how soft she is. Her hips curve outward, and she’s a foot away from me being able to feel my fingers dig into the flesh there. I love the way her body looks. Not too thin or bony, her curves flow smoothly into the next part of her form, proportioned as if she were designed to be perfection.

I reach out for her as soon as she gets close, but her steps stall, just out of my reach.

“Wilder,” she whispers.

Something between a groan and a growl sounds low in my throat.

“I can’t touch you at all?”

“I’ll touch you.”

I do growl then. “Not fucking good enough.”

The smile she gives me is dark and sexy enough that my cock pulses within the tight confines of my jeans.