Sweet Sinful Nights(15)
This was not only a kiss. It was crashing back into orbit. It was gravity reinstated. In the press of her lips, in the slide of her tongue, in the gasps she made, they hurtled back in time. All mistakes were erased in this moment.
He dropped a hand to her lower back, yanking her close. Kissing was not enough. Lips would only get them so far. He had to feel her, touch her, taste her. She was his, and even though they were kissing in front of the entire city, he was all alone with her.
He couldn’t get close enough to her. She pressed into him, a full body collision, grinding against him. He groaned as he reclaimed her mouth, his entire body consumed with a lust so powerful he didn’t know how he’d make it out of the bar and back to his house, to a room, to her place, wherever, anywhere, without f*cking her along the way.
As she rubbed her body against him, he could feel the heat between her legs. It fried his brain and short-circuited his skull. The desire to touch her enveloped him. He wanted to watch her undress, to stare at that to-die-for body that he’d missed so terribly, to roam his eyes over her curves as she lowered herself onto him and rode him the way she liked.
Hell, the way she fused her body against his told him all he needed to know. She wanted the same things.
He kissed a line along her jaw to her ear as she breathed hard. “Come home with me tonight,” he said, skimming his hand along the outside of her thigh.
Her hand connected with his cheek, and his head snapped to the side.
His head rang. His skin burned from the sharpness—the unexpected sting from the slap that came out of nowhere.
“What the f*ck is wrong with you?” she asked, pulling away.
“What the f*ck is wrong with me?” he repeated, shock reverberating in his bones. He opened his mouth to say more, but no words came.
She leaned in close and whispered, “Let me give you a tip, Brent. When you haven’t seen a woman in ten years, maybe say you’re sorry for breaking her heart before you try to f*ck her again.”
Frustration seared his nervous system. “Fuck,” he said in a low hiss. “I’m sorry, Shan.”
She narrowed her eyes and shot him an icy stare. “That would have been a lot more believable if it didn’t require a prompt.”
Without skipping a beat, he gave it right back to her, firing off a retort. “How was I supposed to say it when your mouth was on mine? Tell me that, Shan. Tell me that,” he said, jutting out his chin, waiting for her answer.
She grabbed her silver scarf from the chair and glared at him as she brandished it. “Next time you want to see me you’ll need a better excuse than sitting on my scarf.”
She stormed off, but when she was a few feet away, he called out, “It’s called a wrap. Don’t forget that. It’s a wrap.”
She stopped in her tracks. He swore red clouds billowed off her, and as she clenched her fists, he was willing to bet she was fighting every urge to give him the finger.
She resumed her pace.
As he watched her walk away, this time he was pissed off too. The woman wouldn’t cut him a f*cking break. She’d avoided his phone calls those first few days. She’d ignored every attempt he’d made to contact her. And now, she was kissing him back, then getting pissed at him for wanting her.
What the hell?
He used to think he understood her. He used to think he was the only one for her.
But she gave new meaning to the word whiplash.
CHAPTER SIX
She was one of two women in the gym, and the only one wearing heels.
“You can’t behave that way.”
The directive came from her brother Michael, who was in the middle of a workout.
He hoisted the barbell high above his chest with a measured exhale. A few feet over, a beefy guy in a muscle tank grunted as he raised his weights then dropped them in a loud clang on the floor. With pinpoint precision, Michael lowered the bar to his chest, inch by inch, then pushed up again. “You need to keep that temper of yours in check,” he continued in a controlled breath.
“I know,” Shannon said in a tiny voice, her head lowered, her hair falling in a curtain around her face. She’d unclipped her French twist on the drive home, gunning the gas and blasting pop music to drown out her thoughts as she sped along the highway, putting distance between Brent and herself.
But really, the space she needed was between her own untamed anger and the person she wanted to be. A person who should be in control of her emotions, of her feelings, and of her matchstick temper. She wasn’t in control, so as soon as she’d pulled off the highway near her home, she’d spotted the sign for the gym where Michael went and turned in.
Ever disciplined, Michael was exactly where he usually was at ten-thirty at night—lifting weights, after having logged an hour on the cardio machine. Michael owned a security conglomerate and ran it with their brother Ryan. Michael arrived at the office at eight every morning after his five-mile run? worked a full day, then headed to the gym nearly every night for a second workout. Call him a workaholic. Call him an athlete. Call him a machine. He was all of that, and he was also the moral compass of their foursome.
The eldest of the siblings, he’d been their rock, and their leader.
He lowered the weight once more, then raised it for a final rep before placing it on the rack of the bench press. Sitting up, he draped a strong arm around her.