Out of Love(29)

I. Couldn’t. Fucking. Breathe.

It was like he lit me on fire and pointed to the extinguisher ten yards away.

I grunted a painful laugh through a long exhale, bent down, and gathered my boots and stockings. “You’re such a head case,” I mumbled. Shoving my way out between the caged area of his legs and the table, I headed to the door instead of his sofa. “I’m going to go fuck the first guy I find with a condom in his wallet. Night, Wylder.”

The second I got the door open six inches, his hand landed on it above my head, slamming it shut. I remained unblinking at it while he hovered so close to my backside, heat radiating from his body. My eyes closed when his forehead rested on the top of my head, rolling slowly side to side like he was in some sort of agony.

I didn’t move. I wasn’t lying … I would not seduce him. He would seduce me.

He would touch me.

He would kiss me.

He would surrender to me after months of holding his shield of emotionless bullshit.

His hands gripped the material to my onesie, his breaths quickening as he lifted his forehead pressed to the top of my SWAT hat. I stood stone-still, letting him peel the stretchy material down my body to my hips, leaving my breasts completely exposed. I sucked in a sharp breath when his hands covered them, my back arching to press my body into his touch.

It was torture. So slow. His grip firm, touching me with a need that felt like it was teetering on the edge of losing control.

My heart tried to have a full-on heart attack. My breaths chased each other so fast my lungs nearly exploded. When his head dipped, lips grazing my ear, my neck, my bare shoulder, I dropped my boots and stockings, pressing my hands flat to the door to keep from surrendering to my weak knees.

When his tongue flicked my skin, my breath hitched and released on a low moan. One hand slid from my breast to my neck, forcing my head back for him to plant his face in the crook of my neck as his other hand slid down my stomach—under my onesie and into my panties, stopping just shy of my clit.

He sucked and bit the skin along my neck, and my hat fell to the floor with my boots and my stockings. If he didn’t hurry up and put those lips on mine, I was going to self-combust. After months of dreaming about that mouth on me, those veiny arms and hands possessing me … I needed to know if he tasted like the drug I imagined him to be.

Turning my neck as far as I could, his gaze locked with mine. Those intense eyes drowning in agony. Why did he always look at me like I was bad for him?

I didn’t stop long enough to ask. I lifted onto my toes and forced him to let me turn around. My fingers thrust into his hair as I took those lips.

When his tongue slid into my mouth, giving me a taste of perfection, like mint and beer and months of longing, I closed my eyes and lassoed that moment.

The moment I realized I’d kissed a million wrong people in my journey to him.

The moment I realized Slade Wylder would take me so completely I would never be the same.

The moment I knew he killed another human to save me.

Not a million bouquets of roses.

Not a ten-carat diamond.

Not a mansion in Malibu.

Nothing would ever mean more than that night behind the dumpster when he literally slayed the beast.

Lifting me up, he guided my legs around his waist and pressed my back to the door. Deepening the kiss, he found my hands and pressed them above my head, interlacing our fingers.

I devoured every inch of his minty-flavored mouth, humming my pleasure while breathing heavily through my nose as we twisted and turned our heads to explore each possible angle of the kiss.

My fingers went numb, squeezing his hands so hard, desperate to have him … all of him. As if he read my mind, he guided my arms around his neck and planted his hands on my ass before peeling my back from the door.

Our kiss broke and we paused—him holding me with my arms and legs wrapped around his body. A whisper of fear slithered up my spine. Would he overthink it and release me to the floor with a hard “go home?” I didn’t want that to happen. My heart wouldn’t survive the rejection at that point, so I ducked my head and kissed his neck, working my way up to suck and bite along his earlobe.

He gripped my ass harder and carried me upstairs, but just barely. When we reached the top, he laid me down, kneeling on the stairs while sliding my onesie and panties completely off.

“Wylder …” I clenched his hair when he kissed his way up my naked body. Arching my back, I writhed beneath him while clawing and yanking at the hem of his tee. He lifted his mouth from my breast long enough to shrug it off with one arm before sucking my nipple into his mouth and trapping it with his teeth until I hissed.

Who needed alcohol? Months without sex … months with Slade Wylder crawling under my skin … had me out of my mind.

Need.

Want.

Need.

Want.

I yanked his head from my chest to my mouth. The feast wasn’t over for me. As he hummed into the kiss, I wrapped my legs around his waist. He rested his body weight on a forearm while his other hand grabbed my ass and worked me over the bulge in his jeans.

My brain begged for his bed, but I couldn’t say it.

My other thoughts involved begging him to remove his pants and find a condom, but I couldn’t articulate those thoughts either.

With his tongue in my mouth, his chest brushing my nipples, and his erection stroking between my legs, all I could do was take what I wanted.