The minute the words left her lips she knew she’d pushed him too far. His eyes narrowed and burned with a heat that practically singed her skin. The hands at her waist tightened, and for a minute she thought he might push her off his lap and walk out the door.
Her lips trembled in spite of her best efforts to lock her smile in place. She held her breath.
…
Jesus effing Christ, nobody on earth could piss him off like this woman. His vision actually went red. A part of him he barely recognized wanted to shake her until whatever goddamn block she’d put up in her head against their relationship rattled loose. Another part—one he recognized as raging and hurt and ravenous to pay some of that back—burned to give her the good, hard, anonymous fuck she claimed to want. He’d give it to her until he had her crying for mercy again, and then, when he had her ready to do anything…promise anything…to get some relief, he’d pull the damn mask off, look her square in the face, and make her say his name like a prayer while she came.
“You got it, sweetheart.” With that, he slammed his mouth down on hers and kissed that infuriating smile right off her lips.
She moaned. Her hands dived into his hair, and she held on and kissed him back with the same fervor. He felt himself sinking under and fought to stop the descent. Hell no. This was not going to be a duel for control. He was going to have her.
He wound her hair around his hand, jerked her head back, and proceeded to dominate her mouth. When she wrestled against him, and helpless sounds came from the back of her throat, he lifted his head a fraction.
One look into her big, stunned eyes and his anger warped into something painful and unstable. Six weeks ago they’d been as close as two people could be, known each other inside and out—or so he’d thought. Now all she wanted was a good, hard, anonymous fuck. She enjoyed the thrill of giving herself to a nameless, faceless stranger. Didn’t she miss him? Didn’t she think about him at all? Apparently not. He should get the hell out of here. Immediately. Before he did something they’d both regret.
She must have sensed his mood shift, because she wrapped her arms around his head, pulled him in close and said, “Help me forget. I’ve got this man stuck in my head…or my heart. I can’t take it anymore. Just for tonight, help me forget.”
His heart sped up, and the rest of him froze. She knew it was him. She had to. Maybe she was playing him—God knew she had a sadistic streak—but he let himself believe the words anyway, and his anger eroded like sand under a wave of hope. Maybe now…finally…they were getting somewhere?
“You love him?”
She pulled back, looked him straight in the eyes, and his earlier doubts disappeared. She wasn’t playing him. Not here. Not now. “It doesn’t matter. He and I—we’ll never work.”
Two seconds ago he would have bet his gun arm she couldn’t inflict any more damage on his battered heart, but he’d have lost the bet, because it broke a little more now. For whatever reason, she honestly believed what she said. “Why won’t it work?”
She stared at him. He could feel the answer forming in her mouth and wished for the power to pull it out of her. But she closed her eyes and shook her head, and her look of utter hopelessness tore his trampled heart right out of his chest.
“Why doesn’t matter. Please. This—” She writhed against him. “This will work.”
He wanted to argue, but the hopeless look haunted him, and he wasn’t sure he could face it again. Later. Ask her later, when her guard is down and her filters are off and she won’t hold anything back. He handed her the condom. “I’m here. Take what you need.”
Somehow he managed to hold himself together while she rolled the latex on. He kissed her throat, her breasts, skimmed a hand down her stomach and between her legs, just to make sure she was ready for him.
“Oh, sweet heaven.” She reached down and grabbed his wrist. “Don’t touch my clit. Please don’t…I’ll come.”
“I want you to come.”
“I want to come with you inside me.” She wriggled down onto him.
His eyes closed. She felt so good, so amazingly, incredibly right. The words “I love you” threatened to pour out of him. To stop himself from opening his mouth and screwing everything up, he leaned in and captured her lips.
Talk about coming home. He filled his hands with her gorgeous breasts. He plunged his tongue into her mouth at the same time he buried his grateful cock to the hilt in her unbearably hot, tight body. Her inner muscles clenched around him like a welcoming embrace.
This might be the last time he sat there, buried inside her. The unbidden thought floated through his pleasure-warped mind. No matter how good this was, afterward, she’d try to shut him out again. She’d walk.
The only connection he could count on was right here, right now. The only thing she’d willingly share with him was her body, and he intended to exploit it to the utmost one last time. Own every part of her. Claim her so completely that any time anyone else so much as brushed up against her, she thought of him. He ran his hand down her spine. She moaned and worked herself on him with renewed vigor while he gently circled the one part of her left to possess. “A good, hard fuck, I think you asked for?”
She shivered, broke the kiss, and mumbled something against his neck that sounded like “Yes.”
“A good, hard, anonymous fuck.” His next move was going to shatter that ruse, but he really didn’t care. He had to have her. All of her. In a way that was unquestionably theirs, back when they’d had trust, and some measure of honesty, and she’d wanted him and not some anonymous fuck. Using his index finger, he traced her lips, and then slipped past them and into the silky heat of her mouth. She knew exactly what to do. She swirled her tongue over the tip of his finger, down the length, past the knuckle and all the way to the base, and she sucked for all she was worth. Slowly, he withdrew, put his hand under her skirt, ran his wet finger along the tight seam of her ass, and then circled her again.
She arched her back and murmured, “Don’t make me sore.”
“I want you sore,” he said, and bit her earlobe as he pressed his way into the tight opening, barely penetrating her, “so every time you move, you remember this, and you remember me. I plan to be the first person you think about in the morning, and the last goddamn man you dream about at night. You are never, ever getting me out of your head. Understand?”
She shuddered against him and wrapped her arm around his neck. Before he could guess what she intended to do, she pulled the ski mask off. He returned her gaze for a long, tense moment, trying like hell to hold her in place with the sheer weight of his stare, because he didn’t want to think about what he’d do if she tried to break away now. Then she closed her eyes and, with a low, wrenching sob, surrendered. She cupped his face with both hands, and plunged into the kiss. His mind spun while she owned him, claimed him. He felt her shudders. Tasted her tears.
Determined to drive everything from her mind except what they did to each other, what they meant to each other, and how perfectly they fit together, he clasped his other hand under her, dug his fingers into her soft flesh and forced her hips up and down at a fast, furious pace. When she started to rock against him with the precise, rapid thrusts he knew meant she was about to come, he locked his arm around her waist, realigned their mouths, and plunged deeper. She attempted to break the kiss, even as the rest of her body clung to him. Textbook Stacy, trying to pull him in and push him away at the same time. He recognized the move as an attempt to hold some part of herself back, but he refused to allow her retreat. He cupped her jaw and kept her with him, sharing breath, sharing everything, until she stiffened in his arms, threw back her head, and released a long, keening cry.