Tempted & Taken (Men of Haven #4)(45)

Chapter Seventeen

The dishwasher was loaded. The leftovers were put away and the casserole dish washed and stored in the same brown grocery bag Knox had brought it in. None of it should have been the stuff of foreplay, but with Knox teasing and touching at every turn, Darya’s sex was not only drenched but aching.

The television went silent and the lights in her living room went dark.

She wiped down the counters, skin prickling with awareness. Never in her life had she been so uncertain about how to act around a man. So ready and yet cautious at the same time.

Then again, she’d never been with a man like Knox.

A click sounded from her bedroom and a quick glance over her shoulder confirmed that he’d clicked on the lamp beside her bed.

He strolled into view a second later, a lazy jaguar navigating foreign terrain as easily as if it were his own. His hungry gaze locked on to hers and he flipped off the light switch to her pseudo office, leaving her only in the pool of light coming from the smaller fixture overhead.

Her heart kicked. She slid to the sink and rinsed out her sponge, desperate to affect the same casualness he portrayed.

He moved in behind her as she turned off the faucet, his hands unerringly slipping beneath her shirt’s hem along her thighs and skimming up to her hips. While he anchored one at her waist, the other splayed soft at her belly.

Beneath his touch, her muscles quavered, poised and ready for his fingers to delve lower.

Instead he nuzzled the back of her neck. “Place is locked up. You need anything?” The silent before I fuck you hung unspoken in the silence, twice as powerful than if he’d actually voiced the words.

She shook her head, too gripped by the moment to actually speak.

He inhaled deep, slipped his hands from beneath her shirt and turned her with hands at her hips. Still in touching distance, but not crowding her as before, he cupped the side of her face with a tenderness that stole her breath. “Moved too fast last time. Didn’t take the time to talk things out.”

Talk? She could barely think right now. Let alone string together a sentence that would make sense. “About what?”

His gaze dropped to her mouth and his hand drifted low enough he could skim his thumb along her lower lip. “I think you were clear you’re good with rough and open to dirty, but is there anything you absolutely don’t want?”

Oh, boy. Definitely a dangerous topic to traverse with her mind so distracted.

Trailing his hand lower, he traced tempting patterns down her neck then across the exposed skin above her neckline.

Her eyes slipped closed, every scrap of attention focused on his touch.

The fabric shifted and the first button slipped free, cool air slipping against the inch of skin he’d revealed. She swallowed hard and willed him to keep going. To peel the soft cotton off her over-sensitized skin and press his body against hers.

“Darya?”

She opened her eyes and his fingers moved on to the next button.

Right. They were talking. About things she didn’t like. Though it wasn’t as if she’d built up a wealth of experience to draw from before she’d run, and the last three years she’d settled on her toys versus potential exposure. “No pain.”

“That include my hand on your ass when you piss me off?”

“Bozhe moi.” My God, she whispered before she could stop it, clutching the counter’s edge behind her as a visible shudder rippled through her.

Knox chuckled at that and slipped the last button free. “I know zero Russian, but I think I can interpret that as naughty girl spankings getting a pass. Anything else?”

She shook her head. “I haven’t explored that much. I just know what we did felt good.”

He nudged her shirt, leaving her mound exposed and the sides barely covering her nipples. “You ever play with other toys? Nipple clamps? Ropes?”

She couldn’t look at him. Could only watch him drag the backs of his knuckles from her sternum down, down, down.

“Darya, look at me.”

It took every scrap of courage she had, but she did it, her lungs hitching as her gaze locked on to his.

He was hungry. Ravenous, despite what his outward confidence and calm alluded. And all of that need was aimed squarely on her. “You want to explore?”

God, yes. With him she’d try almost anything. “Yes.”

He held her gaze. “Saw the plug in your box. That something you get off on often?”

“Sometimes.”

“Toys only or men?”

“Toys. I never—haven’t been with anyone I trusted.”

Something fired behind his eyes. Challenge, maybe. Or perhaps a promise. He nodded, though whether it was for her or an answer to whatever dialogue was taking place in his own head, she wasn’t sure. “Fair enough.” His gaze dropping to his fingers skimming closer to her mound. “You promise me you’ll share if we do something you don’t like?”

Faster than she would have thought possible, she stopped his hand with her own and squeezed tight. “I will never allow a man to hurt me or push me into something I don’t want. Ever.”

He smiled in a way that said he wasn’t just relieved by her answer, but was proud as well. “That’s my girl.” He slid the hand she’d captured free and wrapped his arm around her waist. His free hand cupped the side of her neck and his lips whispered close enough her own tingled. “Anything in particular you want to go to the top of the list?”