“I feel safe with you. Nothing bothers me, not the crowds, the noise, the cameras, the fear of Jesse finding me. It all goes away when we’re together,” she said, stopping to look at him.
“I hope you always feel that way. Sometimes,” he paused and took a breath. “Sometimes, things aren’t always black and white. Not everything can be placed in a box and neatly tied together with a pretty bow. Just know that, no matter what, I have your best interests in mind,” he said. He hated to have secrets between them, and he was working up the courage to tell her about the DNA testing.
“I can’t imagine feeling anything different. You are a hero in my eyes, and I have never trusted someone as much as I trust you,” she said as they resumed walking and neared her door.
“I just hope that I’m worthy of your trust,” Bryson said, stopping and pulling her into his arms.
“Let’s only worry about tonight for now.” Misty looked meaningfully toward her door.
“I should kiss you goodnight. You’ve had too much to drink, and a gentleman would let you sleep it off,” he said, his voice low and full of need.
“I’m not looking for a gentleman,” she said, rising on her tiptoes and kissing the corner of his mouth. “I’m looking for a lover.”
She was too tipsy to be shocked at her own behavior. And when he pulled her against him with a low growl issuing from his throat, and lifted her easily into his arms, she was glad to have pushed him to take her.
When the door swung open, she sighed in anticipation.
Chapter Twenty-One
He was nearly losing control. And he was still on his feet, walking. Yes, Misty was high in his arms. Her breathing was deep, and her dress was so low, he could almost — damn! not quite! — see her perfect ni**les. How he wanted to taste them again, watch as they turned hard and wet.
But he wanted a lot more. He wanted to make her feel special. Because she was. She wasn’t just another woman he would be enjoying beneath him. She was flinging open doors to emotions for him, doors that he hadn’t known could be unlocked.
He was thinking of forever with this woman, and to lose that was unthinkable. He should hold off making love to her again and proclaim how he felt about her, but as he set her on her feet and she took a step back and reached behind her, he could do nothing but hold his breath.
This new, bold Misty was driving him almost to distraction. Tonight, she’d been transformed from the shy caterpillar to a beautiful butterfly. Not in looks — she’d always been beautiful, from the moment he’d first laid eyes on her with a Taser in her hand, no less. No, the transformation was in her confidence, in her self-esteem.
Bringing her back to Washington, making it possible for her to meet her family, to see the possibilities of where her life could go — that’s what had made her blossom. She was no longer alone in the world. She’d no longer have to be afraid.
Bryson knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that with or without the Andersons, Misty was meant to shine. She had found her own way so far in life, and even with all the obstacles in her way, as he’d told her before by way of high praise, she’d managed to rise above the streets, with their attendant drugs, prostitution, and violence.
With the added benefit of her family — and not to brag, but him — there was nothing she wouldn’t be able to achieve. He was grateful that he would be there to watch her break away from the shell she’d been in for so long.
But those thoughts inevitably gave way to other, more pressing matters, like the unzipping of the back of her dress. When her hands came back around, and she opened the sides…the dress still stayed in place. Bryson held his breath in anticipation.
“Tape,” she said with a giggle, and she looked down at the fabric in front, which was hanging on just to torment him.
Unable to be out of her arms for a second more, he approached, commanding himself to take this slowly, to savor every taste, every gasp, every ripple of pleasure, and to make her fly so high that she wouldn’t ever land again. Except, perhaps, on his bed, again and again and again.
“I will have to thank the designer of this dress personally,” he murmured, then leaned down and kissed her…softly…slowly…with a tenderness that had her sighing in his mouth. He was determinedly taking from her all she was willing to give.
“Bryson,” she moaned, before capturing his bottom lip with her teeth and sucking on it, sending jolts of electricity straight to his groin.
He could take her now and die a happy man.
When she ran her hands across his shoulders, slipped inside his jacket and tugged, he released his grip on her and let her send the garment to the floor. Better and better.
He felt her fingers flutter against his neck and loosen his tie before it floated to the ground. Then, one by one, she was undoing the buttons on his shirt, the sensation of her hands against his skin scorchingly sweet.
In his turn, he ran his hands along her exposed back, the silk of her skin hot to his touch — so satiny, so perfect in its imperfection. He reached the top of her bu**ocks, and his control almost abandoned him when he felt the minuscule piece of fabric covering that lush behind.
“You are so flawless, Misty, so unbelievably perfect,” he groaned as she kissed his jaw, then sucked the skin of his neck before her mouth followed the course of her fingers and she kissed along the smooth planes of his chest, and the rigid muscles of his shaking abdomen.
She pulled his shirt free, then bit the skin of his stomach, nearly making him jump right out of his pants — and he certainly wouldn’t have minded such a time-saver.
With calculated movements, she licked the skin of his stomach as her slim fingers began undoing first his belt, then the top button of his slacks. The sound of his zipper descending was oddly loud in the room, where the only other thing to be heard was their breathing, deep and desperate.
Reaching down, he gripped her head, holding himself steady as she slipped her hands under the waistband of his slacks and tugged. The material slipped easily from his h*ps and fell to the ground.
His erection stood out under the black underwear he wore, reaching for her touch. She shifted and kissed him through the silky material, making him groan as his legs fought to keep him upright.
No other woman had ever had this kind of control over him. And he loved it, loved feeling as if he were going to explode, loved knowing this was the last woman he would ever desire to touch…to sink inside…to pleasure.
When she rose back up his body, his stomach shook, his muscles tensed. He told himself to go slowly, to restrain his animal impulses. He was barely able to contain himself, but when she was standing and he found himself looking into her eyes, a calm fell over him.
Yes, his body was hard, yes, he was more than ready to complete their coupling, but, also yes, he could be happy just to hold her close the entire night — the rest of his life.
“You make me…feel. I’m falling in love with you, Misty,” he whispered. He bent forward and kissed her, keeping his eyes open to look into her mystified gaze.
“We don’t know each other well enough,” she said, confusion and hope fighting for supremacy within her fragile psyche.
“I know all I need to know, Misty. I know you love with all your heart, though you’re afraid others won’t love you the same way. I know you like to make little doodles on paper when you are sitting somewhere and bored. I know you can’t keep still, that you have to move. I know you like sappy movies and sappier books, though you try to hide your obsession. Yes, I’ve looked at your shelves. I know that you are the most beautiful, caring, strong woman I’ve ever met. And I also know that I can’t go a single hour without thinking of you, and when I tried to stay away from you, I could barely function. I want to be with you — not just tonight, but forever.”
Hope was the winning emotion in her eyes.
“I think about you all the time, too, Bryson,” she admitted. She kissed his jaw, her body trembling in his arms. It wasn’t quite an undying confession of love, but from her, it was a lot, and he appreciated her words.
“Then why should we fight this?”
“I can’t think when you touch me,” she said, sighing when he kissed her neck, then trailed his tongue along her shoulder.
“Then don’t think. Just feel.” His hands slipped inside her dress and he pulled it slowly away from her br**sts, letting the fabric float to the floor, leaving her standing before him in nothing but a scrap of lacy black fabric covering her core.
“Oh…” he said in a long rush of breath.
She smiled at the passion in his gaze, confidence now shining in her eyes as she spun in a circle in front of him, letting him get a good view of her rounded derrière, then facing him and showing him the perfection of her br**sts, her ni**les peaked with desire.
Unable to keep himself from touching her, he brought his hands to her hips, slid them over the curve of her behind, slipping his fingers under the soft material at her hip, moving higher, covering her stomach, and then caressing her br**sts, his palms rubbing across her hard ni**les, making her gasp, making her entire body shake.