Fight or Flight(20)

My eyes wandered over the muscles of his six-pack and those broad, delicious shoulders to the other tattoo. It was of a skull sitting on a huge black rose.

His large bicep flexed as he began to unbutton the top button of his jeans. I licked my lips as I dragged my eyes back over to his muscled stomach. Lust flooded me. “Oh dear God.”

Caleb’s smile was full of ego. “Did he finally answer your prayers, babe?”

“Depends on what you’ve got in the pants.”

It was unclear who was more surprised by his sudden bark of laughter, me or him. It made me smile, though. Laughter suited him. He should laugh more. I grew steadily more turned on as I took in the sight of him and thought of all that masculine beauty becoming mine. Not that I dated, but when I did find myself attracted to a guy, he usually had lean muscle rather than brawn.

But I wasn’t complaining about Caleb’s physique in the least.

My eyes dropped to where the Scot’s jeans, now open at the top, hung low on his narrow hips, the hard-cut V of his obliques so goddamn sexy I was about to self-combust.

“Please take those off now.”

“Always so well mannered.”

“Just take them off.”

His answer was to kneel down and quickly unlace his boots. Staring at me, that arrogant heat in his eyes really far too attractive to be fair, he kicked them off.

I physically shivered, shuddered even, at the sound of his zipper cutting through the tense silence of the room. Caleb curled his thumbs into the waist of his jeans and his boxer briefs (black, of course) and shoved them down. He kicked them off too.

“Oh my.” I practically wheezed at the sight of his straining erection. “That … well … that’s …”

“I think the word you’re looking for is ‘impressive.’ ”

“It seems a little unfair actually to all the other penises.”

Caleb’s grin this time was just all pure boyish amusement, and I decided it was my favorite of his smiles so far. He reached toward me and grabbed the heels of both of my shoes and slipped them off.

Every inch of me was a live wire, restless, too hot, sensitive. I never knew it was possible to be so sexually hungry. I’d had great sex in the past but I’d never felt like I might just explode at his first touch.

“We need to have sex. Now.”

Caleb placed his hands on my knees, his thumbs on the inside of my legs, and he slowly coasted them upward.

“Oh boy.”

His lips twitched but he was too focused on his destination to really smile. He reached the apex of my thighs but he kept going, his thumbs meeting in the middle over the lace of my underwear. I gasped as he pressed his thumbs down.

I immediately flopped back on the bed and let my legs fall open. “Oh God, yes.”

“You keep calling me God, lass, and my ego might get out of control,” he murmured.

“Your ego is already the size of Mars—nothing I say can make it any worse.” My hips arched off the bed into his touch, but he only rubbed his thumbs over me once more before he stopped. I lifted my head to glare at him. “Why did you just stop?”

Caleb didn’t reply. He didn’t need to. I could see all patience had fled his expression. Suddenly his fingers were brushing my lower belly, curling into my underwear. He wrenched them down my legs. A little huff of excitement escaped me.

Caleb’s eyes darkened. He moved over me, straddling me, his hands braced at either side of my head. The heat of him engulfed me as he stared into my eyes and smoothed his hand up my naked thigh.

“Caleb.” I breathed, any vulnerability I should have felt at lying so small beneath this big stranger obliterated by the voracious need I felt for him.

He reached between my legs, watching me with an intensity that caused my breath to catch as I lifted my hips into his touch.

“You’re so beautiful.” He stopped teasing my clit and slid three thick fingers into me. My inner muscles clamped around him in desperate need. “You feel beautiful too.”

Something about the words didn’t sound like a compliment. “Your tone suggests that’s a bad thing,” I gasped out.

“It is.” His gaze was suddenly calculated. “You think your beauty gives you power over me. It doesn’t.” He thrust his fingers in and out of me and my toes curled into the bedding.

“You are such an ass—Oh!” He caught my clit with his thumb again, sending sparks of pleasure shooting through me.

“You were saying?”

I reached for him, laying my small hands flat against his hard chest, and I stared him straight in the eye, attempting to push through the fog of lust. “We don’t like each other. For a second I might have thought otherwise in the glow of champagne. But we don’t. So let’s not pretend that physical attraction isn’t the only reason I’m letting you touch me right now. You think I’m beautiful and I think you’re hot and that has power over both of us even though we’d rather it didn’t. So stop being an imperious prick.”

For a moment he appeared pissed off. Then the anger melted. “True enough.” He removed his hand and then gently took each of my wrists in his hands and pinned them to the mattress at either side of my head. I felt overwhelmed by the size of him. We were two people giving in to the power of physical attraction, and in that we were even.