Fade Into You (Shaken Dirty #3)(27)

She tasted like honey mixed with the spiciness of cinnamon, and he couldn’t get enough of the taste. Couldn’t get enough of her.

Especially when she made those little noises deep in her throat, noises that were half moan, half desperate plea. They went straight to his cock—straight to his head—and he knew getting her off wasn’t going to be enough this time. He had to have more of her. Had to have all of her.

Keeping one hand on her ass, he slid his other hand up her back to the nape of her neck and tangled his fingers in her hair, then gently twisted until the pins holding it up started to loosen. It didn’t take long—there was so much of the stuff, and it was so heavy and full of body that it only took a few tugs before her hair was slipping its restraints and tumbling down over his fingers and her shoulders like a waterfall of rich brown silk.

He pulled away then, just a little, so that he could get a good look at her. She was breathtaking, her lips swollen with his kisses, her skin flushed, her eyes glazed. And her hair was a tangled, tousled mess falling in waves nearly to her ass. Her very round, very inviting ass.

“You’re so beautiful,” he told her, sliding his hands inside her jeans. He wanted to feel that ass under his hands, with no fabric to get in the way. Wanted to slip her jeans and panties off so that he could see her in the light of day. And then he wanted to bury his face right between her thighs and f*ck his tongue deep inside of her. At that moment, he wanted it more than he wanted heroin—more, even, than he wanted things to work out with the label. The need to taste her was a razor scraping away at his insides, the need to watch and listen to her fall apart even more so.

But her hand was on his as he started to pull on her panties, her fingers tangling around his and stilling them even as her body arched toward him.

“We shouldn’t,” she told him, her lips moving against his.

“We should,” he countered, skimming his mouth down the slender column of her throat and over the top of her chest to press hot, open-mouthed kisses against the nipples he could feel pebbling beneath the thin fabric of her tank top. “I’ll make you feel so good.”

She moaned as his lips closed around one nipple and he started to suck. “We need to talk about the band,” she finally managed to choke out. But her hands were tangling in his hair to hold him in place as she arched her back and thrust her nipple more firmly into his mouth.

“We will.” He bit down gently on her nipple, relishing the soft, broken sound she made. “Later.”

“This is your career. You need—” Her protests were broken and her body hot as it arched against him. That, combined with her hands—which were clutching at him like a lifeline—was all it took to convince him she wanted him as badly as he did her.

“I need you,” he said, pressing his advantage as he dropped to his knees in front of her. “Please, Poppy. I need…” He broke off, clamping his jaw shut on the words that were swimming around in his head, just waiting to tumble out. He couldn’t say them, not now. Not ever. Not when what he’d already said had made him more vulnerable than he’d allowed himself to be in months. Years.

Fuck, maybe even forever.

As the thought washed over him, he closed his eyes, tilted his face down so Poppy couldn’t see. She wasn’t having it, though, her hands tangling in his hair and tugging at the stuff, hard, until he had no choice but to once again look up at her.

As their gazes met, locked, he tried to cover up all the shit he was feeling, tried to keep his face blank and his eyes veiled. But he could tell it wasn’t working, could tell she could see right through him, and for a moment, just a moment, he wished for a hit. For a drink. For something, anything, to keep him from feeling all the emotions currently battering around inside of him.

The shrinks at rehab had warned him about that, had told him if he kept using avoidance as a coping mechanism he was going to find himself right back where he’d started. But they didn’t get it. He didn’t want to feel, didn’t want to face everything that had happened all those years ago. If he did, he was afraid he’d unravel so completely that he’d never be sober again.

He waited for Poppy to turn him away, told himself the last thing he needed to be doing was using her to hide from his other, darker cravings. It wasn’t fair to her, or himself.

Besides, hadn’t he learned his lesson yet? Trust him to kick heroin only to turn around and get hooked on a whole different kind of poppy. He really was a f*cking moron.

He started to apologize, to tell her to forget the whole thing. But then she was stroking a hand over his cheek, her thumb rubbing back and forth across his mouth, each swipe a little harder. A little more insistent. A little hotter. Even as he called himself every name he could think of, he parted his lips and nipped at the fleshy part of her thumb before sucking it inside of his mouth.

She gasped, shivered, but she never looked away from him. Never took her eyes off of his.

Watching her pupils dilate with arousal, watching those golden brown eyes of hers turn almost completely black, was the last f*cking straw. It broke his control, broke him wide open, until all he could think about was tasting her, having her. Fucking her.

And then he was pulling her pants down, ripping her panties off and tossing them to the ground by her feet as he buried his face in her sex and just breathed her in for several long, perfect seconds.

She cried out then, a loud, desperate sound that made him want nothing more than to hear it again. And again. And again. That made him want nothing more than to spend the rest of the afternoon getting her off any and every way she would let him. Starting with her * against his mouth.