Being Me (Inside Out #2)(66)

I feel a pinch in my chest, a hint of the ice returning. “I thought you might think I’m too delicate for such things.”

His hand slides over my breasts, caressing my nipple, and a sound of pleasure slides from my lips. How is it possible that I never get enough of Chris?

“Why don’t we find out?” he asks, and he nips my ear, settling the thickness of his erection against my backside before pressing between my thighs.

“Yes.” I reach between my legs and stroke him, challenging him. Pushing him the way I burn to have him push me. “If you dare.”

He covers my hand on his shaft and leads it to the silky wet heat of my sex. “If you dare. Because, baby, just because I protect you doesn’t mean I’m not going to f*ck you. I’m still me and I’m still going to f*ck you in all kinds of ways you haven’t imagined.” He squeezes my breast and pinches my nipple and I hold his hand there, not wanting him to stop. His voice is as rough as his touch, both like sweet cognac that burns going down and leaves me wanting more. “I’m going to tie you up the way I painted you, Sara. Does that scare you?”

“No. Nothing with you scares me.”

“No?” His hand curves my backside.

I remember his palm on my backside, the erotic sting. The moment his thick cock pumped into me, the pleasure. “No.”

“You should be.”

His finger slides down the cleft of my backside and I gasp at the intimate intrusion, and then pant. “Are we back to this again? You warning me away?”

He explores me from the front and the back. “Last night earned you one last warning. One chance to run while you still can.” His lips press to my shoulder, teeth scraping, nipping. “But know this, Sara.” His fingers slide deeper, between my cheeks, while his other hand teases my clit, flickering it with delicate fingers that contrast the near hard command of his voice. “I’m going to own you, body and soul. I will bind you. I will f*ck your ass. Your mouth. I will do what I want. And none of this even comes close to where I’ve been and where I will never take you.”

My body reacts to the primal erotic promises, and I am hot and wet, and more aroused than I have ever been in my life. I fight the haze of arousal, the deep ache in my sex, threatening to become an orgasm. He’s testing me, trying to scare me, and it twists me in knots to know it’s because last night made him doubt me and us.

“This is who I am, Sara. I will protect you from everything and everyone else, but I can’t protect you from who I am or who we will be if you stay with me.”

“I know who you are,” I whisper, and I am more clear of mind than I have been in a very long time. I need him. I’ve needed him from the moment I first met him. Even then, that first night, I felt free to let go with him, to be me, when I didn’t even recognize me. “But you need to know this, Chris. I know who I am now, too. I know what I need to stay with you. If you own my body, I own yours.” I’ve walked away from too much to be willing to settle for less than everything now.

His body stiffens, tension rippling through his muscles. Anger and hurt spike in my chest and I try to turn. He holds me, his arm a vise around mine. “You own as much of me as I have to give,” he says, his voice hoarse.

“No, I don’t. Not until you take me to those places you say you never will. I need to know that one day you will.”

Suddenly he is gone, no longer touching me, and I roll over to find him sitting at the edge of the bed, the muscles in his impressive shoulders bunching.

I scramble to my knees and reach for his arm. “Chris—”

The instant I touch him, he pulls me around into his lap. “I love you, Sara.” He strokes the hair from my face. “But there are parts of me that I hate. We don’t go there. We won’t ever go there. Understand?”

No, I don’t. But I do understand the self-hate. I understand the emotion. “I love you, too.” I cup his cheek and he leans into it, his lashes lowering, his jaw softening. “And there is nothing you can do that will change how I feel.”

His jaw flexes and his eyes dilate. “Yes. There is, and I should walk away before it happens, for both our sakes.” He rests his forehead against mine. “But I can’t.”

My fingers tunnel into his hair. What is so horrific that it haunts him this completely?

He picks me up and carries me toward the bathroom. We shower together, but we don’t make love and we don’t even just plain f*ck this out of his system. We just hold each other. Where I was once lost, he’s found me. But I know now that I have only begun to truly discover Chris. He’s still lost.

? ? ?

I stand at the bathroom sink next to Chris, and it’s an odd, wonderful, intimate moment to be finishing my hair while he brushes his teeth. I’m dressed in jeans and a green V-neck T-shirt to show off the emerald necklace I don’t want to take off, and I can’t stop peeking at Chris, who even with a toothbrush in hand looks anything but domestic. I can already tell I’m going to spend the day deliciously distracted by my intimate knowledge of the sinewy muscle and hard perfection beneath his brown Harley T-shirt, faded jeans, and boots.

I unplug my flatiron and wrap it up while he closes his travel bag, and I stare at our reflections in the mirror. I am a good foot shorter than him and my dark hair contrasts with his light chin-length hair, which is damp and wavy by his ears. There is a confidence about him, a power I find addictive. He is masculine and hard in all the right ways and he makes me feel feminine and soft, and strong.