Faked (Ward Family #2)(43)

My bones melted like slowly heating metal, and he wrapped his strong arms around my body to keep me firmly against him. His lips were sure and firm, and he sucked on my bottom lip like it was candy, growling when I licked into his mouth.

He was strong and hard and warm, and my arms went up around his neck as he tasted me deep, deep, deeper. This was no typical first kiss where he danced around me, or I danced around him.

We moved together perfectly, slick and sweet, as he took my lips again. And again.

His hands were tight against me, fitting along the curve of my rib cage and down, down until he filled his palms with my ass. I rolled closer to him, inhaling through my nose when I couldn't even dream of pulling my mouth away from his to get a breath.

My fingers curled around the back of his head as I held him to me, and he smiled against my lips.

"So good," he murmured. "So sweet."

Bauer ran the edge of his nose along mine, and I tried not to whimper pitifully that we weren't kissing because why, why weren't we kissing?

I wanted this feeling to last forever. It was the closest I'd ever come to skydiving, to bungee jumping, free-falling through the air, and my blood sang violently in my veins at how heady it all was.

He went back in with a growl, tilting his head so he could sweep his tongue against mine. We were wound so tightly around each other; my leg curled around him when he used his hand, gripping possessively around my thigh to hitch it higher.

The way that he fit my hips to his, I broke away from the kiss with a gasp.

Shooting, sparking little fires erupted when he rolled against me, pressing my backside against the counter.

It was a thousand degrees in that cabin, and I had the indistinct, hazy thought that with one press of his hand, one movement of his body between my legs, I'd explode like a lit bomb.

His mouth trailed down my neck, sucking kisses that would surely leave a mark, and I hissed my pleasure. My fingers found their way up underneath the soft cotton of his shirt, and I purred at how hot and smooth his back was, how unbelievably strong those shifting muscles felt underneath my hands.

He licked up the side of my neck, stopping to drop a gentle bite against the line of my jaw, which made me smile. "Since the moment I turned around," he murmured in a dark, rough voice, "and saw you in that yellow dress, I've wanted this. And shit, Claire, it's so much better than I thought."

I blinked, so caught up in the maelstrom of what he was making me feel, of how everything that had happened in the past couple of days had led to this inevitable moment that I'd forgotten about why I was here in the first place.

It wasn't really because of Lia. She was the catalyst, not the reason.

For years, I'd imagined what it would be like to kiss Finn. But never once had my imagination conjured something like this.

And I didn't feel guilt, not precisely. Because I was nothing to Finn, and the man holding me like he could hardly keep himself in check, he was touching me and tasting me and looking at me like I was everything.

This man, who was the opposite of anything I'd ever imagined.

Bauer paused and pulled his head back, clearly sensing the way my errant thoughts ushered tension into my body.

It just ... wasn't the kind of tension he probably worried about, when he'd cautioned me to be sure.

Kissing him, it made me more sure.

More certain.

This ... him, that was what I wanted.

But I saw the moment he read something on my face he didn't like.

"No, Bauer," I begged, sliding my hands from his back and up the rigid lines of his abs. "I'm not stopping."

Gently, he tapped my forehead. "Something happened here."

I glanced down because I wouldn't lie. "I know, but ... I'm still here. I'm so here with you."

Going up on tiptoe, I sipped on his lush bottom lip, trying to draw him back into that decadent moment with me. His eyes fell shut, and he allowed it.

"So good," I told him. "It's so, so good."

My hands curled up behind his neck, and I pulled his head back down, sucking at the tip of his tongue when it dipped into my mouth. His chest reverberated with a hungry sound that had the hair on my arms lifting.

Bauer slowed the kiss and rolled his forehead against mine. "Princess, I would love nothing more than to take you up into that loft and rip off every single article of clothing between us."

My mouth fell open because yes, please.

His eyes bored into mine, and I knew what he was saying to me was important.

"And if you regretted it tomorrow because you got caught up in being stuck here with me, I'd never forgive myself if I felt like I pushed you into this."

I laughed under my breath, but his face stayed in that serious mask. My palm cupped the side of his face, and I relished the way his dark facial hair felt under my skin.

"Bauer, you've done nothing but tell me how much you want this," I said.

"I do." He turned and pressed a kiss into my palm. "Trust me, I'm past a hundred percent even though it drives me insane when people say things like one thousand percent because it's mathematically impossible."

My loud laughter took us both by surprise, but it broke his face into a small grin.

"Why are you so sure I'd regret this?" I asked him.

He used the tip of his finger to trace a line across my forehead and down along the edge of my cheekbone. My eyelids fluttered shut at the gentle caress, so different than how he'd been kissing me. "Because of how your face looked about two minutes ago. Something stopped you. Something you can't mute"—he tapped my forehead again—"in here."