A Harmless Little Ruse (Harmless #2)(27)

“In four years.”

“Yes.” She doesn’t look away. She doesn’t get mad. She doesn’t look uncertain.

Instead, she kisses me again.

“Plus,” she adds as she comes up for air, the electrical charge between us almost visible, “he didn’t see it coming. Those *s are taunting me. They think they have all the control.” A calculating smile turns those red lips into something diabolical. “But they have no idea what’s coming.”

“If anything’s coming, I want it to be you, first. Then us, together,” I groan in her ear, blowing lightly until she shivers. I get serious. “If you’ll have me.”

“I’m ready. That’s why I asked you up here. More than ready,” she whispers. Shoulders back, body language clear, this is a more confident Lindsay. Punching Blaine turns out to have been a move that puts me at a strategic advantage. Not against the scarves.

But in terms of my heart.

Lindsay trusts me now.

Enough to let me into her body, at least.

“You’re in control,” I tell her, stripping out of my running shirt. She gasps at my naked chest, flattening her palm against my pecs, sliding down.

“Sorry for the sweat,” I apologize.

“Don’t. It’s hot.” She reaches down and bites one of my nipples lightly.

“Hot as in sexy?” I hiss into her ear, picking her up and covering her body with mine. “Or hot as in heat.”

“Both.”

“I like both.” She touches the ear she bit the other day, eyebrows knitting with regret.

“I want everything, Drew. Everything. Make me feel. You already make me want you.” A gentle kiss on my ear punctuates her words.

“I do?”

“God, yes, you do.”

“Lindsay, I don’t want you.”

She tenses.

“I crave you. I need you. You’re like a drug and I’m an addict. You’re an obsession that won’t stop looping through my mind. I wish all I felt was want. This would be so much easier. Every second I’m not touching you is like being tortured.”

“Then stop torturing yourself.” She shimmies out of her nightgown.

She is completely naked underneath. Not even panties.

“Oh.” I swallow, throat suddenly dry. My running shorts tent. She looks down at my erection.

“Take those off.”

“Are you sure?”

“Are you going to ask me that every step of the way?”

“What do you want, Lindsay?” I comply with her request. It’s the least I can do.

We’re naked before each other. But are we truly stripped bare?

Her shoulders rise and fall faster, breasts pert and perfect, her breath quickening as she takes me in and says, “I want you to shut up and make love to me, Drew. I want to claim what’s ours. I want what we lost four years ago.”

“I’m not sure I can give all that to you.” I step forward and touch her arms, pulling her close, hip to hip.

“Then let’s at least try,” she rasps in my ear.

“That I can do, with tremendous pleasure.”

Or die trying.





Chapter 9





This time, the kiss holds expectation tinged with belief, the very real feeling that this is about to unfold. We’re naked, pressed together in a tangle of skin and limbs, hair and fingers, tongues finding secrets between us and making them come alive, exposing them to the air where they evaporate.

She tastes like salty sweet hope, like an unleashed temptress who finally gets to test the world, who can push and see how powerful she really is. I am not about to be an obstacle as Lindsay finally, exquisitely, reaches for what she wants.

Wholeness.

We can find it together, I know, as her hair tickles my jaw, our abs brushing together, her belly going tight as I cup one breast and revel in the fullness. It’s light and heavy, a globe of agile heat, and my fingertip skims the nipple, making her moan.

My cock pushes against her thigh, her legs shifting as I cradle her jaw with my other hand and kiss her until I can’t tell the difference between her breath and mine.

“You taste perfect. You taste like everything, Lindsay. I’ve wanted to kiss you a million times a day, every day, for four years. How do you do it?” Before she can answer, I kiss her again, a slow, languid kiss that takes its time, as if it’s separate from us, an entity that has its own agenda.

“Do what?” she asks, breathless. I slide my hand down her ribs, the sweet curve of her waist, the swell of her hip, then forward and lower, one finger sliding to a point that makes her gasp and cling to me, shuddering with pleasure.

“Taste so good.” I kiss her shoulder, touching her with slow, wet circles. Her knees bend and she gives me more of her weight as her lips part. I kiss my way down, until it’s my turn to bend my knees, lowering myself before her.

I worship at the altar of Lindsay.

“Spread your legs,” I order.

“What?” Her voice is hazy, a million miles away.

I use my hands to move her. She threads her fingers in my hair as I reach up, my tongue finding what I seek, my hands cupping her ass as she moans and widens her legs, standing before me as I kneel.