Stripped (Stripped #1)(41)
Author: Jasinda Wilder

“No!” I scramble off the bed, away from him, putting the massive California-king bed between us. I’m a mess of emotions that I can’t begin to sort out, not with him right there, watching me, calm, quiet, determined, beautiful, and all man. He distracts me from my own anger. “You can’t just demand that I quit my job. It doesn’t work that way. What, you’ll pay my bills until the end of the internship, and then what? What if things at Fourth Dimension don’t work out? I’m supposed to just—just depend on you? I don’t think so, Dawson. No.”

“Don’t you want to quit?” He’s maddeningly calm.

“Yes. More than you could ever possibly comprehend. But I can’t.” It comes out “cain’t.”

“Sure you can. You can make the choice to trust me. Let someone help you.”

“I’m not a charity case. I can take care of myself.”

He stands up and paces away. Even his back is sexy and seductive and hypnotic. “I know that, Grey. Goddammit. I’m just trying to—”

“To what? Tie me to you? Make me one of your booty calls?”

He whirls, and before I can blink he’s across the room, around the bed, and has me pinned to the wall with his body. His eyes are blue, angry, hot. His body is hard and huge and he’s breathing heavily, and his hands are on my arms and his mouth is inches away. “I’m trying to be kind.” He hisses the words. “It’s called generosity. You hate what you do, and I hate you having to do it. I can take away your problems, Grey. You just have to let me.”

“I can’t.” I have to look away from him. I can’t bear to meet his eyes, can’t take the intensity.

Except I look at his mouth, his lips, the pink tip of his tongue running over his bottom lip, and I know what those lips feel like, taste like, and I… I want that again. Even in the midst of my weltering boil of emotions, I can’t help the confused desire I feel for him.

“You can. You just won’t. Big difference, babe.”

“Don’t…don’t call me ‘babe,’” I say. “I’m not your babe.”

“You could be.” He drops this bomb calmly.

“I…what?” My eyes flick to his, stunned.

“I said: ‘You could be.’”

“What does that mean?” I wish I had the fortitude to move away from him, out of his embrace, away from his touch.

I don’t.

He stares down at me, into me. “Do I have to spell it out?”

“Yes.”

“Be mine. Be with me.” He’s whispering. His hands are rock steady, but his eyes flick back and forth, the only sign of nerves.

“Have sex with you, you mean. Be a one-night stand, you mean.”

He growls. “No. Fuck. No, Grey. I mean, yes, I want to be with you. But…in every way. With you.” He runs his hands down my arms, to my waist, to my hips, and he lifts me up. My legs instinctively go around his waist and his hands are on my backside, and I feel him all around me, so, so close. “I want to kiss you whenever I feel like it. I want to tell you when you’re being ridiculous. I want to make love to you. I want to f**k you. I want to hold you. I want to be yours. I don’t know you, like, at all, but I want all this. It’s total craziness. I feel like I should be admitted for saying this to you. Fuck, I should have my man-card revoked for being all emotional and girly and telling you my feelings. But…I’m nothing if not honest. So there it is.”

I can’t breathe. I’m not hyperventilating; I’m whatever the opposite of that is. My lungs are burning because I’m literally not breathing. I’m staring into his eyes and hearing his words and completely at a loss. I can’t believe it.

“Say something, Grey. Jesus. I just put my goddamn heart out on a wire for you, and you’re not saying anything.” His voice is a harsh whisper.

“You want that?” I swallow. “With me? But…you don’t know things about me. You don’t…you don’t do that. You don’t have girlfriends.”

He frowns. “No, I have—rather, I’ve had—a shitload of girlfriends. Girlfriends are a dime a dozen. I could snap my fingers and have six girlfriends, one for every day of the week and Sunday off. I don’t want that. I’ve had that. It’s boring. I want you.” His eyes are going thundercloud gray, dark, threatening. “I don’t know anything about you. But that’s the point: I want to know.”

All I can do is kiss him. It’s necessary, more than breathing. He kisses me back tentatively, as if not quite sure I’m really doing this. But I am. I’m kissing him because it’s the only answer I have. My legs tighten around his waist, and my hands feather through his hair and cup the back of his head and pull him to me, and I’m beyond desperate.

This man wants me.

He spins in place, and suddenly I’m on the bed with Dawson above me. It’s so right like this. He’s delicious. He tastes like coffee and bagel and the faint trace of toothpaste. His tongue slips between my lips and my teeth and touches my tongue. I’m holding on to him for dear life and kissing him with everything I have, letting him capture my mouth with his, letting him possess my tongue. He pulls away gently, and I’m lost briefly, spiraling with need to have his kiss, and then his teeth take my lower lip, nibble, bite, and then my lip is in his mouth and he’s shifting his weight. His hand brushes my hair away from my face, and his eyes are a thousand shades of gray and blue and green and brown, indefinable, indescribable and he’s gazing at me as if I hold the answer to every question in his mind. His palm brushes down my neck, and his thumb skates over my jaw, and then down my arm to my waist. His shirt is bunched under my br**sts, baring most of my belly; he touches my hip, his palm hot and strong and callused against my soft, white skin. I suck in a breath as he dares upward, touching my ribs. His knuckles brush the underside of my right breast, and I let my eyes fall closed, but he doesn’t take my breast in his hand. He just pushes the shirt up a little, and stares down at me. My eyes are closed, but I feel his stare. I let him look. It’s not like on stage, though; his gaze is tender. It’s too much, and I have to kiss him again, before I completely lose myself in him.

He kisses me, and then pulls away and lowers his mouth to plant a kiss between my br**sts. I’m terrified, my heart hammering. His mouth is hot and wet on my skin, and now he’s moving his slow kiss down the slope of one breast and my heart beats wildly against my ribs—surely he can feel it pounding?—but he shows no sign of noticing my terror, he just slowly and carefully continues his small, slow kisses all over the round weight of my right breast, until he’s ringing my nipple with kisses. My nipple is erect, hard, almost as if begging him to plant a kiss there.