Dare To Run (The Sons of Steel Row #1)(62)

But I ruined it by laughing.

Instead of looking annoyed, her lips twitched, and she laughed, too. “You’re way too cute when you’re drunk.”

I ran my thumb over her mouth, watching as it swiped over that full lower lip of hers that had driven me insane countless times. Her breathing quickened. Despite the way she’d been acting earlier, during our fight, she wanted me now. That much was clearly evident. “Cute enough to get away with this?”

Before she could reject me, I closed my mouth over hers, kissing her. Her lips parted on a sigh, and I took full advantage of that opening. My tongue swept inside her mouth, seeking and finding hers instantly. She tasted as good as I remembered.

Hell, probably even better.

And she still smelled like peaches.

I’d expected her to tense. To pull away and tell me to keep my hands to myself. She should have. So when she moaned and climbed on top of me, I reveled in it.

But the stupid, noble part of me wouldn’t shut up. Breaking off the kiss, I groaned and gripped her thigh, digging my fingers into the soft flesh. “You don’t have to do this. I know I’m not your type. Don’t feel you have to take pity on the wounded drunk.”

What was it about this girl that made me want to be something I wasn’t? Shit, I’d had more moments of regret over the last three days than I’d had in the last fifteen years combined. I was turning into such a *.

“About that?” She played with a piece of my hair. “I don’t know what the hell’s been running through your brain all day, but if you’ve thought about last night half as much as I have, it would’ve proved to you that you’re totally my type.”

Gritting my teeth, I arched my hips up into her. Her heat pressed against me, and it took all my control not to roll her underneath me and take her, hard and fast, right now. The only thing that stopped me was the fact that the excruciating pain I was sure to feel would kill my hard-on.

The reminder about my injury, and how I’d gotten it, made me make one last-ditch effort to get Heidi to see reason. “I’m no good for you, sweetheart. You deserve Prince Charming, not the villain. Whoever the f*ck the villain was in that stupid story.”

“You’re not a villain. Not to me.” She rested a hand over my heart. “You’re a Prince Charming who’s suffered in defense of his kingdom. You did what needed to be done, no matter how dark it might have gotten. And you won. That doesn’t make you a villain. It makes you a survivor. It makes you you.”

Her open acceptance filled the cracks in my soul. I’d needed to hear that. My arm gripped her tighter and she gave me a watery smile. Shaking my head, I swallowed back the words I’d never let myself say. I was drunk, and now was not the time to spill my guts. Yeah, I had some regrets right now, and that was a new feeling. Fucking up Scotty was one of them. But there was one thing I wouldn’t regret. Not in a million years. And that was her. “I want to take you again. I want to make you mine.”

She nodded. “Yes. I am yours, Lucas. All yours.”

“God help us both.”

I tugged her down and kissed her again, closing my eyes and letting go of all the reasons I shouldn’t be touching her. Claiming her. I was in an impossible situation with no way out. We were doomed. Hopeless. Screwed. Even so, I couldn’t have stopped if someone held a gun to my head.

She was worth dying for.

Skimming my hand down her leg, I slipped my fingers up the inside of her thigh, creeping closer to what I wanted. But she had too many clothes on, and I didn’t have enough hands available to take them off properly. “Take your clothes off for me, sweetheart.”

“Yes, sir,” she teased, straightening and tugging her shirt over her head inch by tantalizing inch. “Are you naked under that sheet?”

I smirked. “Take one guess.”

“Good.” Tossing her shirt on the floor, she reached behind her back and undid her bra. After shooting me a naughty grin, she let it slide off her arms and hit me in the face. “That’s the way I like you. Naked and helpless in my bed.”

My bed. That’s what she’d said. The fact that she considered my bed to be hers, with everything that had happened between us over the last four days, filled me with that unfamiliar warmth all over again. And it felt good. I dragged her bra off my face and tossed it over the edge of the bed, smiling way too big considering all she’d done was call my bed hers. “Tease.”

“You know it.” Shimmying off me, she stood and pulled her pants down. Every inch of skin she bared stoked the fire in my blood higher and higher. “You love it.”

The second her pants hit the floor, I yanked her onto my lap with my good hand. Our lips fused and our tongues entwined, and everything felt right. Being in her arms felt like coming home. A home I hadn’t had in a long damn time. Growling low in my throat, I deepened the kiss.

Her nails dragged down my chest, circled around my piercing, and then slid under the sheet. When she closed her soft, warm hand over my cock, I knew I needed her. Now. I didn’t usually rush through sex. The act was a display of discipline and skill. It wasn’t a time to get lost in the moment and forget yourself. But with Heidi, I wanted to.

I wanted to lose myself so f*cking bad.

Tugging the sheet down, I hauled her onto me so she straddled my hips. Breaking off the kiss, I demanded, “Condom. Now.”