Too Hard to Handle (Black Knights Inc. #8)(61)

“Eating the tissue dispenser?” she asked, one brow raised. “Well, I imagine it’ll cause some mad indigestion and probably won’t—”

“That I’m not subtle about what I want,” he interrupted, his voice wonderfully low. It made the tiny room seem even more intimate.

“D-did I say it was a bad thing?” she asked, putting the towelette to good use on his clean, slowly seeping wound while simultaneously searching through the first-aid kit for more butterfly bandages. You know, just to give her hands something to do other than sneak up under the hem of his sweater and run all over his corrugated belly and mile-wide chest. The iron-y smell of blood reached her nose, competing with Dan’s clean scent and the harsh, medicinal aroma of the antiseptic.

“Some women like a little mystery in their men.” He shrugged one big shoulder. “They like the not knowing. They think it’s exciting.”

“Pfft,” she snorted, tossing the last wipe away and then carefully pulling the two halves of his wound together with one of the bandages. The cut could probably use a stitch or two, but she hadn’t the skill or the stomach for that task. Needles? She shivered. No, thank you. “You mean some girls like it,” she corrected. Her proximity to him made her head spin and her knees tremble with the desire to straddle him and rock herself to completion against the huge erection straining the front of his jeans.

He didn’t even pretend to hide it from her when he shifted atop the toilet and her eyes automatically pinged down to his fly. “I-I…” She had to stop and lick her lips. Her throat had gone completely dry. “I stopped playing games, including hard to get, when I was in my twenties.”

“Mmm,” he grumbled.

Now he was Mr. Grumbly Grumbleton. She couldn’t decide who she liked better. Growlerton or Grumbleton. They were both sexy as hell. Applying two more butterfly bandages, she used a tissue to wipe away the few drops of blood that had welled out of the wound. She was in the process of backing away to study her handiwork when Dan tightened his hands on her hips.

“You have no idea how glad I am to hear you say that,” he rumbled. Mr. Rumbly Rumbleton? “’Cause I don’t believe in playing games either.”

“So what do you believe in?” Her voice was now so hoarse it sounded like she’d been eating glass. Some people didn’t have a poker face. She didn’t have a poker voice.

“Oh, I believe in a lot of things,” he whispered, a muscle ticking in his jaw beneath his beard stubble. It made the crescent-moon scar twitch.

“Like what?”

“Like buying American-made cars. Like fireworks on the Fourth of July. Like moms and dads who dance in the kitchen after the kids have gone to bed. Like the magic of moonlight. Like babies. Like love.”

And now not only was her heart pounding and her blood running hot, but there was also a lump sitting in the middle of her throat. The things he believed in were so pure. So simple. And to hear them come out of the mouth of such a complex, mysterious man who operated every day in a complex and mysterious world just made them all the more poignant.

“I also believe in asking for what I want,” he went on, a dark, carnal gleam in his eyes. He pulled a wad of gum from his mouth and tossed it in the little trash receptacle. Uh-oh. That’s telling. A thrill skittered through her. “I’ll even ask for it nicely,” he continued, “just like you said.”

She cocked her head.

“When we were standing on the street in Cusco and you told me I’d be amazed what asking nicely would get me,” he clarified.

She swallowed. Or gulped, really. And even though her lungs were working overtime, she couldn’t catch her breath. It was like all the air had suddenly been sucked out of the room. Where’s the mask that falls from the ceiling when a girl needs it?

“Wh-wh-wh—” Seriously? She gulped again and managed, “What do you want, Dan?”

He licked his lips, those wonderfully male lips, and caught the bottom one between his teeth. “Can’t you guess?”

“Tell me.” She wanted to hear it. Needed to hear it. It thrilled her when he said he wanted her, when he explained exactly how he planned to assuage that want.

“You, Brooklyn,” he murmured, palming the back of her neck and pulling her down until their lips were a hairsbreadth apart. As always, her heart tripped over itself at the nickname. “All I want is you.”

“Tell me more,” she whispered against his mouth.

“I want to kiss you on your soft lips and suck on your wet tongue until you beg me to do the same to the tips of your breasts.”

“Yessss,” she hissed the word, closing the distance between them until… Oh! Warmth. Liquid, bold, unhesitating warmth. That was his tongue plunging into her mouth to claim and conquer, to pillage and plunder.

Dan was not a man who hesitated. About anything. And he didn’t hesitate now, kissing her like he always kissed her, kissing her like she’d never been kissed before. With an intensity that spoke of his unwavering self-assurance. He knew what she wanted, what she needed. And he knew he could give it to her. Period. End of story.

She realized then, standing there while he made love to her with his mouth so expertly that her sex grew heavy and swollen with desire, that Dan’s nickname “The Man” didn’t have anything to do with him being loyal and upstanding and filled with the kind of macho knowledge that allowed him to build a rocket ship to the moon with a paper clip, a rubber band, and some C4. Or, at least, it didn’t just have to do with those things.