No Perfect Hero(50)

I’m so confused. Flynn Bitters? That old drunk? He’s more likely to hurt himself than anyone else. One day the drink’s going to be too much, and something’s going to go wrong. I shake my head, curling my hand against my chest.

“I don’t get it,” I say again. “How could Flynn hurt someone at the inn?”

“Don’t,” Warren grinds out. “Don't, Hay. You're not in this circus.”

“Warren...”

Heart beating hard, I take a risk, stepping closer, reaching out to rest my hand lightly against his arm. It’s rock hard underneath my palm, hot as forge-fire.

He turns his head just enough for one burning-bright slit of blue to look down at me, scoring into me. It’s a terrifying, exhilarating feeling to have him looking at me that way, because even though I don’t know him, even though we're nothing, I just sense something.

I feel him.

Feel the man I know he is.

And the man I know would never turn the bristling violence his body is capable of on someone like me.

So the thrill that rushes through me when he hooks his arm around my waist is only part fear. The rest is charged adrenaline.

Climbing a man like Warren is like climbing Mount Everest, a rush to the senses and a high to the soul. My heart slams against my chest like it’s trying to rip out to reach him, and he comes right in to meet it as he crushes us together.

There’s no breath. No space between us, only thin fabric and body heat, and I realize I’m still in my thin pajama shorts and they don’t do a thing to keep the fire of his flesh from whispering between my thighs.

Suddenly I'm too warm and wet. Too hot everywhere, this fire surging in my blood.

Part of me wonders if all of this anger and animosity has just been a vicious, futile struggle against raw animal attraction.

The rest of me can’t wonder anything at all. I can’t think when he’s looking down at me that way, suddenly leaning in to capture my lips.

One moment I’m aching to soothe that wounded look in his eyes.

The next, I’m caught up as if I’ve been captured by a wild creature and devoured.

Holy fricking hell.

His kiss comes hard. All savage teeth and claws and hellfire. Utterly consuming, leaving me bleeding desire from my pores.

Instead of pain, he gives me pleasure as he shreds my senses with dominating, captivating caresses of lips to lips, and a searching tongue that asks, and yet seems so very sure I’ll give in.

For once, he’s so right.

I’m trembling, clutching his arms, a confused and smoldering mess of heat and longing and igniting need.

He tastes like the forgetfulness I need. He tastes like everything that'll leave my run of crappy luck behind and just feel something good, and I want to find amnesia with my legs wrapped around his thick, powerful body, muscle moving against my inner thighs while he plunges against me with all that raw power channeled into every thrust.

I need it. I want it. I want him.

Every last bit of Warren Ford and that blue-eyed wild he calls a soul.

With a low moan, I push myself up on my toes, leaning into him hotly. My lips part for his tongue, letting him have me. Claim me.

Letting him stroke inside my mouth and taste me in ways that I feel all over my body.

Letting him explore me so intimately it feels like we’re doing something wrong.

Oh, and damn right we are.

I shiver with the delicious thrill of it.

He’s so tall I can barely reach, but then those thick, strong hands cup my ass, lift me up, dig into my flesh so hard it’s a wonder I don’t come right then and there.

I’m honest-to-God melting. Slick. Squirming.

And as I push my fingers into his lush black hair and drug myself on the scrape of stubble against my skin, I can’t help a begging whisper, “Warren.”

But it’s like I threw cold water over him.

He stiffens with a shudder, growling as he rears back, his hands still hot and hard, sending conflicting messages when he’s looking down at me like I did something wrong, accusatory and sharp and...guilty?

Then there's this plunging feeling in the pit of my stomach.

I hate that I’m putting myself in a position, yet again, to let a man jerk me around.

And I’m already closing off, bracing myself for the sting when he lets me go with a curse, not quite dropping me on my feet.

He gives me a second to steady myself before he pulls back completely. Pacing back and forth, all prowling tension, he rakes his rough hands through his hair, spiking it into an inky mess.

“Fuck,” he swears. “Fuck, Hay.”

I tried, idiot, I think to myself. I wanted to.

But of course I don't say it.

I don’t say anything. I’m just trying to take deep breaths, calm myself down, and still my whirling thoughts when that kiss practically threw my brain in a blender.

Maybe he's right to prevent another huge clusterfrick neither of us need in our lives.

He flings me another of those tiger looks. I swear, if he does it again, he’s going to get punched.

But he stops my little fist dead in its tracks when he bites off, “Get what you wanted?”

I blink. Did I...what?

Now I'm just confused. Second-guessing.

I know I followed him in here, but he’s the one who dragged me in, who kissed me like the war just ended. I have no idea what’s going on. Only that every bit of heat inside me goes cold and sick.