Bane (Sinners of Saint #4)(63)

I opened my mouth, and he clamped his hand over it, crowding me against the wall. My breath shook against his hot palm. A surge of adrenaline ran through my system.

“In the interest of full disclosure, I have no idea what the fuck I am doing here.”

All I could do was nod, slowly and sharply, telling him that I understand. He plastered his body to mine, his erection digging into my stomach. Every muscle in his body was tight, his skin hot with sun and lust.

“Kiss me.” My voice came out muffled under his hand.

Love freely, Juliette had said. I want to, Mrs. B. And that scares me. A lot.

“You kiss me,” he said, rolling his forehead against mine in frustration. He removed his hand from my lips.

I grinned. “Why?”

“Because I need you to be proactive about this shit, Jesse. I want the old Jesse, baby. The one who made decisions. The new one just won’t fucking cut it.”

Something ignited inside of me. I’d like to think that it was her. The old Jesse accepted the challenge, rose within me like a hurricane, and came out in a rush of need and determination.

Whether it was because I was a rape victim.

A woman who knew he was an escort.

Or just because he wasn’t sure whether I was going to regret it or not didn’t matter.

I swallowed hard and realized that I was looking at the man I was in love with. The man who was set to ruin me.

It was in that moment I realized that I’d survived many things, but Roman Protsenko was probably not going to be one of them.





SHE STARED.

I stared.

This was bad. Six million bucks kind of bad. So bad it ought to be really fucking good for me to stand there like an idiot and let Jesse rise on her tiptoes, her lashes, thick and long, fanning across her cheeks. I wanted to kiss the curve of her lips and dip my tongue between them and conquer her inch by inch, like a hidden continent. Mine to explore and reign. Mine to rule. Mine to hold. She tipped her chin up, her lips a breath from mine. I liked Jesse a lot, but watching her make the first move was killing my fucking balls, and I wasn’t too keen on kids, but I liked having the option, you know?

Finally—Jesus, fucking finally—her lips locked on mine, and the urge to grab her face and kiss her the way I knew, the way I was used to, the way I wanted to, burned every cell in my body. I itched. I burned. Yet I stood there, still as a brick, giving her the power as her mouth shyly explored mine.

“Is this…am I doing it okay?”

I nodded slowly. Moses on a cracker, yeah. It was more than okay. More than okay for her to fuck up my deal with her stepdaddy. It was more than okay for her to fuck up my plans. And my dreams. And my life. It was more than okay because it was me who’d come to her. Who’d crawled to her, really, sporting zero self-control.

I inched down, closing the space between us. My blood pounded between my ears, and I wanted to punch my own face for feeling the way I’d felt about a closed-mouth kiss. I needed to get laid. Soon. Shit, right now. We kissed like kids. One peck. Two pecks. Three pecks. Again and again and again, the world around us vanishing into a thick cloud of nothing, until the kisses became one long kiss.

And then she opened her mouth. Gently. Timidly. A baby’s first step in the world. Her tongue swept my lips, silently asking for permission, which I granted. She tasted warm and coconut-y, and we stroked for a while, just kissing, just fucking kissing, before I realized I’d wrapped her hair in my fist like the savage that I was and yanked her into me. Her body responded, wrapping around me like ivy. She bobbed her head into our kiss, as if giving me the permission to go ahead, and that’s all I needed to open my mouth all the way and demolish her. I ate her face, and I might be talking literally here. I licked the corners of her lips, biting and tugging at her lips until they became puffy and sensitive. Our foreheads crashed as I sucked her tongue into my mouth, until it stopped being a kiss and ventured deep into tongue-fucking territory. She whimpered into my mouth, and I nearly let go of her, worried that it was too much, but then her little fists balled around my neckline, and I grabbed her by the back of her thigh and curled it against my waist, grinding against her in a mixture of agony and need I’d never felt before.

As I boxed her in with my arms against the wall, I realized that I didn’t have anyone to blame but myself. I’d sprinted past every single red line and broken every rule on my way to so-called healing her, all while creating the biggest junkie to walk on earth.

Yeah, that would be me.

My hard-on was aligned with her pussy, and I bent my knees a little, fucking her through her clothes. She clawed into my shoulders as I ground against her like I was trying to drill her into the wall. Her pussy against my cock felt like dark magic.

I was fucking her through our clothes. Literally fucking her without a condom. My dick was halfway inside her pussy, the only things separating us were her yoga pants and my trunks. I was going to remove my lips from hers for the first time in forty minutes when her little hand slipped into my waistband and grabbed my shaft. My dick jerked in her fist and sprang out of my trunks, and even though this was the definition of stupid—fucking the girl you signed a six-million-dollar contract not to fuck mere feet from the front door of the man who’d made you sign it—Jesse inspired the idiot in me. I was about to protest and mumble something about needing to calm down a little before my dick exploded, when she slipped my cock between her clothed thighs and rubbed them together.