Hell Breaks Loose (Devil's Rock #2)(55)

She moistened her lips. “Just give me the keys to the van. I’ll walk out of here.”

“I can’t do that.” Tempting as it was to let her go, a pang punched his chest at the thought of her walking away. And it had nothing to do with failing Sullivan.

She wiggled the fingers of her free hand. “Give them to me and no one gets hurt.”

He lifted his throat slightly, offering her even greater access. He felt that prick of the blade. The slight pinch as warm blood trickled down his neck. “Go ahead then. Do it.”

Her eyes brightened, gleaming wetly, unnamed emotion brimming there. “You said you’d kill me . . . like it was nothing.”

“You heard me lying.” He held her gaze, ignoring the pressure of the knife at his throat. “Look at me. If you think I’m that man . . . if you think I would truly kill you, then do it. Use the knife.”

Her hand started to shake, but she didn’t move the knife away from him. Her lips trembled, and he knew she was waging a war with herself. He leaned in, moving slowly, holding his breathing, ignoring the sharpness digging at his throat. Hopefully he wasn’t about to get his throat cut.

He stopped his lips a hairbreadth from hers. “Gracie,” he breathed.

A whimper broke from her lips, and he dove that last inch in and kissed her quivering mouth, and then it was easy to forget the knife because there was only the softness of her lips. Her taste. The way she opened to him. Her sigh as he licked his way inside her mouth.

He reached between them and covered her hand where she gripped the knife. Her fingers loosened around it, allowing him to take it from her. He watched her silently as he held it between them. He turned the knife over in his hand, the tip grazing her T-shirt. She glanced down at the blade now fully in his control and back up at him.

She didn’t blink, her wide gaze traveling over his face as though memorizing him. Those eyes of hers messed with him. Burrowed deep. And there was that tiny mole at the corner of her eye that highlighted the chocolatey depths, beckoning him.

He arched an eyebrow at her and gripped the neckline of her shirt. Using the edge of the blade, he ripped her shirt right down the middle, the renting fabric loud on the air.

She sucked in a sharp breath. He brought the knife back up, laying it flat between the deep valley of her heaving breasts. Leaning in, he claimed her mouth again. She was ready. Meeting him with open mouth. The kiss went deeper, hotter. It was tongues and teeth and gasps.

He broke away from her and traced the tip of the knife over the lacy cup of her bra, scraping the fabric and watching her nipples harden against the barrier. She ceased to breathe. Her breasts didn’t so much as rise or fall.

“I’d fall on this knife myself before I let it hurt you,” he vowed, holding onto her gaze.

She nodded jerkily.

He dropped the knife on the island behind them and grabbed her by the waist, lifted her up onto the surface in one move. Then they were back at it again, kissing. Savage kisses that he couldn’t temper. Even as his head told him to slow down, his body urged him on. That voice that had always commanded him to stop before had gone silent. The possibility didn’t even enter his head. There would be no stopping this time.

He tunneled his hands into her hair, dragging through her loose braid, unraveling the dark sections of hair. He grabbed fistfuls of the soft, fragrant mass, reveling in it. The back of his fingers brushed her bra strap and his fingers turned, diving to unclasp it. The straps slid down her shoulders, the bra falling away between them. He stepped back to examine her.

He swallowed a moan at the sight of her full breasts. “I’ve dreamed of these.” The same flawless skin as the rest of her except the skin of her breasts looked delicate, baby-soft. Olive-hued with deep plum nipples. “The reality is so much better.” His hands closed over the lush mounds, holding their weight, thrumming her nipples between his fingers.

Her head dropped back with a long gasp, exposing the arch of her throat. Another thing he couldn’t resist. He nipped and kissed and tongued his way up the gentle slope, his hands still molding to her breasts, his thumbs dragging over her nipples in steady strokes.

“More,” she sighed.

He squeezed and massaged the heavy swells, his fingers plucking and rubbing at her nipples until they grew pebble-hard. She pushed out her chest and made these wild little sounds that knocked him over the edge. He dropped his mouth to her chest, pulling a nipple deep into his mouth. She released a small shriek, surging up off the counter. Her hands went to his hair, gripping the short strands and pulling him in tighter, as though she couldn’t get enough of him.

He laved that nipple with his tongue, tasting and sucking and feasting on it like a starving man. She cried out again when he scored his teeth across it.

He turned his attention to her other breast and treated it to the same worship. “Please,” she whimpered, writhing against him. She slid her hand between them and rubbed his dick through his pants. “Reid, please . . .”

He looked down at her, his chest clenching at her desire-clouded eyes, her puffy, kiss-swollen lips. She should look this way all the time.

Just as soon as the thought entered his mind he killed it. No. He didn’t want her to look this way all the time. He didn’t want the world to see her like this. He wanted to be the only one to see her like this. The only one to know her.

Instantly, he was reminded that there was another man. A fiancé who could see her like this anytime he wanted—who probably had and who would continue to in the future. The reality of that crashed over him and fury hissed through him. He should probably respect that. She belonged to someone else. Her fingers clawing through his hair, her sweet sighs and moans for more, weren’t his to have.