She did get turned on, though. Her warm, soft flesh kissed his palm. He eased his fingers inside her. Slim thighs clamped his hips. “You are. You know why?”
“Stop talking.” She tore at his fly. He kept up the slow, shallow strokes while she freed him from his pants. A second later he nudged the head of his cock down her center. She fell back onto her elbows.
“Do you know why?” he repeated, and retraced the path. She refused to answer, but her legs fluttered impatiently.
He surged into her, deep enough to bow her spine and send her head tipping back. Her knees lifted. He hitched them into the crooks of his arms and pulled her toward him. More flour filled the air. “Because you’re not pretending anymore. This is real.”
She whipped her head back and forth. “No.”
He withdrew and thrust again. “This thing between us is real.”
Her fingers dug into his scalp and she drew his head down to hers. “I don’t get involved…”
“Until me.” He drove into her again.
She gasped. Inner muscles fluttered around him. “No.”
Flour stung his eyes. He ran his mouth along the side of her throat and tasted it on her skin. “You want this to be real.” He risked another thrust, even as he felt his balls draw up and a familiar heat flow down his spine.
“You’re wrong.” The words were a desperate whisper. She reared up, so suddenly their foreheads would have collided if he hadn’t straightened. White flecks danced in the air between them. “Right here, right now. This is as real as it gets.” She squeezed her eyes shut and shuddered.
One semi-sane part of his mind told him to stop trying to bully her into adm
itting her feelings. It wasn’t the right approach. But he couldn’t stop. Screw patience. Screw fairness. He was in love with her, dammit, and he needed at least this much in return or he was letting her limit them to sex. This was going to hurt like a motherfucker, but he couldn’t settle for just sex. He pulled out.
“Booker!” Her eyes flew open, and she grabbed onto his shoulders. “Don’t.”
He shook his head. “Right here, right now, isn’t enough. Not anymore. You have to do better.” Need closed in on him like a predator, mocking his threat.
“I can’t. I—” Her voice cracked, and then, thank Christ, her resolve. “Oh, God. I want this to be real.” A tear leaked from the corner of her eye and ran down her cheek, leaving a wet trail in the flour dusting her skin.
He caught it with his lips. “I know. I know. Don’t cry.”
“I can’t help it.” She pressed her face against his neck. “I’m terrified.”
“You don’t have anything to be afraid of. I’m going to make you feel so good.” He pushed back inside her and they both groaned. “So fucking good.”
Burying his fingers in her hair, he drew her head back until her watery gaze met his. Then he plunged deep.
She cried out at the impact. More tears rolled down her cheeks.
“Is that good, Lauralie?”
“Yes.” She nodded. Wide, dark pupils focused on him.
He rocked into her again, and again. She matched the pace, bracing her weight on her hands and surging to meet him. Holding there longer as the intensity mounted. “You know why it’s so good?”
“I don’t know. I don’t…know.” On the last, gasping word her body pulled tight. She threw back her head and cried out as the tension dissolved into long, helpless shudders.
Before the sheer power of it sucked him in, too, he managed to say, “Because this is real.”
Chapter Fourteen
Laurie let her arms flop to either side of her head, and opened one eye. Her view consisted of the old, fluorescent tube lights in her ceiling. She stared at them through a fog of sweat, tears, and flour. Her words, Booker’s words—the whole tangled mess—echoed around her in her head. Which scared her more, the words or the man who wrung them out of her?
Hard to say. The man had her pinned under him, his heart asserting its slow, steady rhythm on hers. Big hands cupped her ass and her legs dangled over his arms.
This is bad. The thought rushed into her mind, triggered a surge of adrenalin that made her muscles jump. A flight instinct. You’re in over your head.