Brave Enough (Tall, Dark, and Dangerous #3)(18)

“Say yes.”

I don’t have to ask what he wants me to say yes to. I already know. I think I might’ve known the instant he showed up in my bathroom doorway and stole my breath, my logic, my caution.

He waits. But not patiently. I can feel eagerness, anticipation radiating from him like sound waves from a speaker, tickling my senses, teasing my sensibilities. He wants me to say yes. I need to say yes, but still he’s leaving it up to me.

I take one step toward him, bringing my chest flush with his, my stomach pressing to his all the way to the impressive bulge I feel below his waist.

“Show me,” I murmur. The moment the words leave my lips, I feel him tighten against me, as though his every muscle is straining to get to me, but he’s holding himself back.

Tag bends and sweeps me into his arms. I can see the wicked flash of his teeth in his tanned face before he says, “I hope you don’t mind getting dirty.”

Before I can answer, he drops to his knees and lays me gently on my back in the soft, wet mud. When he stretches out on top of me, I sink ever so slightly as though we are cocooned within the earth itself. Protected. I smell only the sweetness of the grapes, I hear only the muted patter of the rain, I see only Tag. Feel only Tag. It’s as though, in this grove, on this night, we are hidden away from all the world.

Resting his weight on his forearms, Tag cups my face with his hands. In his eyes is all the desire I feel for him, harnessed carefully so that it doesn’t lash out and hurt me. “You’ll never look at these grapes the same way after tonight,” he whispers. “I promise you that.”

And then his lips find mine. They brush once and retreat, brush again and retreat. His tongue slips out to tease the crease of my mouth and his fingers hold my face prisoner. Not that I would want to escape. I want this with everything in me.

I can’t resist sneaking out to taste of him with my tongue, too. He lets me line the inside of his lower lip, holds perfectly still so that I can explore him. I revel in the irresistible essence of him. When he’s had enough, he draws my tongue into his mouth and sucks gently, sensually. I moan reflexively and, just like it did earlier, my reaction seems to unleash something within him. His demeanor goes from quiet curiosity to fierce need.

He drives his fingers into my hair and fists them, tilting my head just so in order that he can devour me. He wedges one knee between my legs, forcing them apart to accommodate him. The feel of his body pressed so intimately to mine is nearly my undoing.

But there’s more. So much more.

As his tongue tangles with mine, Tag flexes his hips, rubbing the long ridge of his erection into the apex of my thighs. “I want you so damn bad I can’t even sleep,” he hisses between clenched teeth, as though his need of me is more than he can bear. And to be wanted like this . . . by a man like him . . . it sets free a burning wildness within me that I never knew existed.

I raise one leg to wrap around his waist, tipping up my hips to press into his hardness. He wrenches his mouth away from mine and levers his upper body away from mine, up onto his hands so he can arch his back and rock his cock against me.

I gasp, sensation running through me like the rain is running down my face. I close my eyes for a few seconds, exulting in the abandon that has taken over me. When I open them again, I see Tag staring down at me, hunger written all over his face.

He lifts one muddy hand and palms my cheek, dragging his fingertips down my neck to the thin strap of my nightie. He does it purposefully, passionately, like he’s marking me, each streak the bold evidence of his possession.

He tugs down the strap, exposing one pleading nipple, baring it for his ravishment. And ravish, he does. With his hips circling against mine, he pulls my flesh into his mouth and sucks. Sucks so hard that I gasp again, unable to censor my body’s response.

Suddenly, he sits up. He fists both of his filthy hands in the low neck of my top and jerks, splitting it all the way down the front. His chest heaves as he watches warm rain splatter on my naked flesh. It softly pounds my breasts and gently teases my spread folds. The wet stimulation coupled with the hot flames of Tag’s eyes on me brings moisture flooding to the ache between my legs.

“No panties?” he asks, his voice gruff. “I love a dirty girl, but I want you dirtier,” he growls, rubbing his hands in the mud and dragging them from the valley of my breasts all the way down my stomach. He stops just below my navel and soils his hands again, rubbing them in the mud and then grabbing my hips. Roughly, he digs in with his fingers and he pulls me toward him, bringing my body into sharp contact with his denim-clad erection again. “I want to see my hand prints all over you. When you look in the mirror, I want you to remember what it feels like to have my hands on you. My mouth on you.”

He dirties his hands one last time and presses them to the insides of my thighs, spreading me further as he slides down between them. The first scrape of his tongue over my throbbing sex is like lightning. I jerk against him, my legs clamping around his shoulders. That only fuels Tag. He presses his open mouth to me, opening and closing, opening and closing, as though he wants to consume me. And I want to be consumed.

He licks with long, slow strokes and then sucks my clit into his mouth, his fingers digging into my butt to hold me still for his sensual assault. And when I can’t take it for another second, writhing in the wet, slippery mud, he relents, moving down to slip his tongue deep inside me as if in apology for driving me mad.