Ripped (Real, #5)(50)
“Tell me something, Pandora,” he commands huskily. I know Mackenna, and what he’s really saying is “Distract me before I do something I’ll regret.”
On his thighs, his hands are clenched into fists, and I know he wants to make the car stop and jerk Noah and his camera out of here. He’s mad because he was being set up, and I somehow think he’s mad because they used me to get to him. He’s mad because they can get to him by using me.
“You’re a Herculean masterpiece with a penchant for trouble,” I say.
He’s not appeased. He leans over and grabs my face, then whispers, “Tell me something you mean, Pink. Say it. Nothing silly, nothing angry—something real. Can you do that? Or you only dress like a badass to hide the tenderness within?”
Strangely, my throat is starting to thicken.
He wants to open me up? To open the box in me and let all the bad stuff out?
He reaches out and cradles my face in his palm. I struggle to tame a shiver building at the base of my spine.
“Tender. Right. Pfft!”
“Come on,” he presses, leaning forward, elbows to knees, his face as persuasive as his music is.
I can’t answer that. I can’t even open my mouth while thinking of the answer, so I leap into the first subject that comes to mind. “I’m mad you pulled that guy away when I was so ready to smash my knee between his legs.”
“Seriously? You’d kick his nuts?” he asks with obvious delight.
“You think I wouldn’t bust his balls? That I only busted yours?”
“You don’t only bust mine . . . you lick them too.”
“I do not! Ohmigod, Noah, erase that!”
Noah grins and shakes his head behind the camera.
We’re laughing now. “Mackenna!”
“See the way she says my name right there, Noah? She sounds guilty, doesn’t she?”
“Mackenna, shut the hell up!” I reach out with my hand to shut his mouth, but he licks my palm and bites my finger gently and playfully. Then he twists his head and kisses me, hard. We moan as I allow myself this kiss. One second . . . two . . . three . . . then I push him and arch away. “Mackenna!”
“What, Pandora?”
We’re laughing, and even Noah is trying to stifle his own laugh.
“I don’t want to kiss you. Not here.”
“Don’t worry, I know where,” he says playfully.
My eyes widen when I realize he’s implying I want to kiss his cock, not his mouth. “MACKENNA!” I cry again, laughing hysterically.
When we get to the rooms, Noah’s still following us as Kenna keeps his arm around me. When I open the door to my room, Kenna tells him, “Night, dude. Bet you really want to be me right now, huh?” and shuts the door on Noah’s camera. He spins me around in the middle of the room, saying, “Come here now,” and I’m smiling, because his eyes are smiling at me too. But suddenly, his lips aren’t.
The atmosphere turns deadly serious, and the air begins to crackle with whatever it is that always—always—leaps between us.
I love that Kenna knows it’s hard for me to ask for what I need. Sometimes even I don’t understand why it’s so hard, but he does. I suddenly wonder if maybe he left all those years ago because I could never say I loved him.
What if I still love him?
He takes a breath and reaches up to stroke me, temple to chin. “You all right?” he asks seriously.
I nod. “I am now.” His eyes watch me as his fingers trail my skin. My body starts throbbing. Right now, there is no past. There’s just now. I want to climb onto him, or want for him to climb into me.
Without warning, he moves his mouth over mine, devouring the softness of my lips, his kiss sending new spirals of need swirling in my tummy. When we embrace and I make a soft whimper, he tears free, takes one ragged breath, and looks at my wet lips with those glimmering wolf eyes. My lips still burning from his kiss, he promptly recaptures my mouth, more demanding this time.
“Yeah,” he rasps. The touch holding me against his body is both firm and persuasive, and as his mouth becomes more commanding, my eager response makes him groan.
“Spend the night,” I whisper as I clutch his shoulders and sink my teeth into his lower lip, a lower lip I’ve been watching through the night. Before he can answer, I add, “Spend the night with me, you won’t regret it.”
“Finally the lady sees the advantages of having a strong, capable man by her side.” His voice is all satisfaction and teasing huskiness. He has no idea who I really am—scared, lonely, vulnerable, and full of regrets—as he lifts me up in his arms and carries me to the bed.
I swear he acts like I’m this big prize . . .
A part of me wants to tell him I’m a big empty prize with nothing inside.
But another part just aches for him to fill it and help me finally heal it.
The thought that I might be hurtling past the point of no return briefly crosses my mind. But only briefly, because his slow, drugging kisses are back on my mouth, my face, my neck, sending the real world spinning on its axis. The bed nearly swallows me as he sets me down and spreads out over me.
His hands work faster as he uses them to strip his beautiful body of his clothes and then strip me of mine, his erection thrilling me as he leans over to scrape his hands over every inch of me. Every hot touch tells me that tonight will be an act of raw possession. His possession. I usually take back as much as I give, but right now Kenna seems determined to take—and I am trembling.