Beneath The Skin(155)

My trapped hands find his chest. He is so firm and smooth that even through the tight shirt, I feel every ripple of muscle on his sinewy body, especially as they flex in his effort to destroy my mouth with his kiss. He is a mountain of meat and fury, and I want to explore every inch.

My fingers graze over his nipples daringly.

He moans in response, bucking under my touch.

Then his big hands grip me at the hips and, in one powerful thrust, he pulls me off the coffee table and throws me to the couch. I gasp against his kiss just as he pulls away, his animal eyes observing mine.

Is he asking permission?

Clayton Watts, you have it.

As if I need more convincing, he straddles me, then grips the bottom of his shirt. Oh god. He slowly tugs, sliding the material up his torso and giving me a show. Inch by inch, I’m exposed to a spread of abs—yes, there’s six of them, the whole sexy pack is there—and then his two hills for pecs that are simply perfect. The tattoo that crawls up his neck also crawls down his chest in a thorny nest of ink that makes him look exotic and dangerous.

He casts the shirt to the side, and the sight of a shirtless Clayton atop me is too much to behold. This kind of stuff doesn’t happen to me. This isn’t real.

His slender, dimpled hips disappear down into his loose-fitting jeans, drawn tight over the meat of his big thighs, which trap me in place on the couch.

I am utterly pinned and totally at his mercy.

Then he bends down and nibbles on my neck, sending shivers of joy up and down my body as I squirm against him in pleasure.

The weight of his body presses down on mine, nearly taking the air out of me. I’m so dizzy with what he’s doing to my neck that I hardly notice. In fact, I welcome it, clinging to him in an animal effort to somehow fuse our bodies together.

Pressed against him, I experience a split second of wondering if we’re moving too fast.

The next split second, I’m crying out, “Oh my god!”

Clayton’s worked his way up to my ear, his tongue tracing my jawline. When he reaches my mouth again, the animals are reunited and I throw my arms around his shoulders, crushing his face into mine.

“Dessie,” he whispers when he pulls away for one fleeting breath.

“Clayton,” I agree to nothing in particular, each of our breaths blasting against the other’s face, before plunging our mouths back together.

Our lips locked, he lifts his chest and runs his hands down the length of my body until they reach my hips. His fingers tease under my top, tickling the sensitive skin there.

Oh god.

Slowly, cruelly, his mischievous fingers work their way back up, taking my top with it.

I sit up for one moment.

My top’s gone the next.

His face hovers over me as his hand trails down from the top of my lace bra to my exposed stomach, then traces the waistline of my jeans, flirting with the buttons. I feel a quiver of anticipation below. My legs squeeze together and I feel a jolt of excitement.

“Wait.”

Clayton saw my lips move. He lifts his eyebrows, breathing heavily.

“Wait,” I repeat, placing a hand on his warm, bare chest. “Wait, wait, wait.”

He obeys, his dark eyes locked on me and waiting, for whatever reason, he doesn’t yet know. The only sound in the room is our erratic breathing. I watch my hand rise and fall as his chest does with his every breath. His body is so perfect, I can’t even compare it to anything or anyone. The shape of his pecs, the definition of his abs, the subtle ripples of muscle that work down his sides, his artful tattoo … There’s just too much for my eyes to drink in all at once.

“Too fast?” he breathes.

I nod once, warily looking into his eyes.

What I see isn’t frustration. In fact, he seems to agree, like a thought or two has worked through his brain. He holds himself up with a hand pressed into the cushion on either side of my head, his face over mine as we each catch our breath.

His lips twist into a smirk. “Can’t handle me?”

I laugh, despite our circumstance. “You are a lot to handle.”

He pulls away, giving me room to sit up. I fetch my top from the floor and slip it back on. It doesn’t escape my attention that Clayton watches my every move. At some point, he had managed to undo the top button of my jeans, so I fix them up as well.

I give him a smirk of my own. “Quit staring.”

He shrugs. “I like what I see.”

After a moment of staring into his eyes, feeling oddly powerful, I grab his shirt and throw it at him. He catches the sleeve with his teeth, biting it like a dog and growling at me.

I can’t help but laugh.

Clayton holds up the shirt. “Put this back on?” I nod in response. “That’s a first,” he says teasingly.