Rebel Hard (Hard Play #2)(10)

6





Reason #1 Why All Naynas Should Invest in Running Shoes





Bracing one hand against the wall beside her head, Raj squeezed her breast as if he had every right to fondle her.

Nayna shivered, unable to look away from the penetrating darkness of his eyes. He was the one who looked down… to focus on his hand on her breast. Teeth sinking into her lower lip, she followed his gaze and her thighs clenched around him.

His hand was marked by multiple nicks and scars, his nails cut bluntly. Veins stood out on the back of his hand and along his arm, and she had never seen anything sexier than Raj’s hand on her breast. She watched, barely able to breathe, as he rotated the pad of his thumb over her suddenly excruciatingly sensitive nipple.

She dug her nails into his shoulder.

Lashes rising, he leaned in closer and said, “Do you like rock climbing?”

Dazed and aroused, Nayna had to decode the roughly spoken words one by one. “I’ve never been rock climbing.” It was surreal having this conversation while he was fondling her breast and she was petting his chest like it was her most favorite thing on the planet. “You must be good at it. You’re so strong.”

“Climbing’s not just about strength, it’s about strategy too.” Serious words followed by a line of suckling kisses down her throat, complete with a light graze of teeth. “Like this,” he said after kissing his way back to her mouth. “To please you properly will take time. I’ll have to learn what you like. You don’t build a house on faulty foundations.”

Nayna was caught by the blazing intelligence in his eyes as he spoke. She’d known from their first minute together that he was no vacuous hunk; there were too many layers to him, his unsmiling shell hard and armored and fascinating beyond compare. This was not a man you could get to know in a single night, or even in a single year.

Raj was a mystery a woman would only solve if he decided to let her.

Nayna wanted him to let her.

A second after that thought passed through her mind, she mentally shook it away in panicked desperation. If Raj was smart as well as gorgeous and sexy, she might not be able to walk away, and she had to walk away. Her parents were looking for a “suitable” boy for her. So far, that had meant two other accountants, one lawyer, one high school teacher, and one financial advisor. Clean-cut. Besuited. Strictly white collar.

Construction workers need not apply.

Frantic to stop him talking because with each word he spoke, he became ever more attractive, she kissed him. Desperate and needy and wanting him to be hers for this one night.

But Raj was like a force of nature. He took the kiss, stroked his hand back down her body to grip her under one thigh, and said, “Do you like Egypt?”

“What?” Nayna couldn’t think when he had his hand that close to her naked core—a couple more inches and he’d discover her lack of panties. “Egypt?”

He began to move one finger in a stroking movement so close to the crease of her thigh that she held her breath, waiting for him to discover that she was his for the taking. But he stopped. When she opened her eyes, she was caught once again by the dark intensity of his.

“The art gallery has an exhibition on Egyptian art,” he said, serious and intent even though his cheekbones were flushed with color and his pulse hammered in his neck.

Nayna realized she had her hands in his hair. “Kiss me,” she said, because it was all she could say that wouldn’t break the dream.

Pushing back with both hands braced on the wall on either side of her head, he said, “Answer first.” No give in his voice, nothing but a quiet resolve that was like a hurricane.

Nayna loved everything about Egypt. She wanted to visit the pyramids one day, was fascinated by the hieroglyphics and the architecture, had even done a history minor at university just so she could take the classes on Egypt. And none of that mattered because her path was set—and it didn’t involve Raj.

Leaning in, she kissed him again. Nayna might not be a femme fatale, and Raj might be a stubborn rock of a man, but Nayna was good at picking up new things. She’d learned how Raj liked to kiss and now used that new knowledge ruthlessly to distract him. Of course by then his fingers were playing along the crease between her thigh and the heat between her legs and her head was buzzing.

No one had told her sex could be this stressful. If he didn’t touch her there soon, she was going to start begging.

But Raj broke the kiss to say, “Is that a yes on Egypt?”

On the razor edge of need and desperation, Nayna snapped. “Be quiet!” She couldn’t take him wanting her enough to ask her out; this fantasy night was supposed to be a treasure to look back on over the cold, practical years to come. It wasn’t supposed to break her heart by showing her a man who made her body sing and intrigued her mind and who liked her. “I just want your body! Nothing else!”

Sudden winter between them, Raj’s face going glacial.

If she’d thought he was difficult to read before, it now became impossible.

Nayna wanted to crawl into the dirt. What had she just said? Throat dry, she went to try to say something, anything, else when Raj set her down gently on her feet. Then he turned away, put his hands on his hips, and took long, harsh breaths. She could see those breaths but not hear them, the music from the party spilling out to flood the garden.