Promise(38)

The strange desire to grip her throat and control her breath overcomes my more rational thoughts, but I pull back. The fast pace of our breath becomes warm between us, and I realize my fingertips are still gripping around the back of her neck, harder than intended.

“Sorry . . .” I loosen my fingers and close my eyes, trying to find my control.

Promise is shaking, and I realize I’m covering her with my body, bending her back over the edge of the countertop. I pull her up and into me as I rest my forehead atop the part of her ivory hair, taking in a deep breath of her.

“It’s okay.” She sounds nervous, her words automatic like she doesn’t know what else to say.

“No, it’s not okay. You said you didn’t want to kiss me again. I guess I’m not a very good listener.”

A musical breath of muffled laughter comes from under me, and I want to hear that sound for the rest of my life.

My hands are on her cheeks, brushing the heat with my thumbs, steeling my eyes to hers. There’s an unusual lightness in my head, a jerking and stabbing near my heart, and my breath won’t sink far enough into my lungs to satisfy my need for oxygen.

“I want you to kiss me.” It’s a whisper, but it’s the loudest whisper I’ve ever heard.

She doesn’t look away, those swimming-pool blue eyes as steady on me as mine were on hers.

“What else do you want? What is most important to you?” I ask.

Fuck, you idiot! Just kiss her.

No, I don’t want to just kiss her. I need it all.

She becomes stiff as a board under my fingers, but I need the answer.

“To not be afraid.”

A silent thunderclap deafens me. My sixth sense that knows the truth when I hear it just sent the needle into the red.

And I want to give you that. I’ve always wanted to give you that, even when I didn’t know what it was I wanted.

Her lips aren’t just soft. They don’t just taste good. They are uncharted territory in some pleasure center in my brain. She drifts into me when I bring my mouth down. I leave my lips hard and unmoving on hers for a long moment.

I feel the tension drain out of her, and something else comes in its place—a lightness that is somehow pulling in my gut, like a long dormant sickness beginning to rise and rule over everything that came before.

Her fingers are digging into my shoulders.

She’s not trying to pull me closer; she’s trying to hang on. There is a desperate child inside her, and I’m only beginning to realize what it feels like to be responsible for someone again.

I taste her, her tongue moving with mine now as gasped, tiny breaths come out of her, my hands covering her cheeks, willing her to stay right here, to decide I’m the one she’s needed.

I need more. My arms are around her waist, lifting her in one, smooth motion to sit on the counter in front of me. An explosion of some crazy desire heats my skin as her knees open, and I center my body between them, our kiss turning our heads one way, and then the other, then back, and I draw her lip into my mouth, holding it there, so she knows I have her.

A drawn out moan escapes her lips and I almost freaking lose it.

I made her do that. She moaned for me. It’s going to be one of the first of millions of the best moments of my life with her.

I hope. But how can it?

I’ve got her caged and the rampant blood flow down into my dick is making my damn eyes water. I don’t remember ever having this kind of hard-on for someone before. And, it’s not just the relief I want, it’s something new.

Something so much more encompassing.

Her hands are on my hair, eyes studying my face, and I want to give her all of me.

“Do you want to know?” I ask because she is clearly staring at my scars.

I’ve lived by a lot of rules.

They keep as much order in my life as possible. And, one standing order has been to never tell any woman or girl what happened to my face. My SEAL brother’s know. Louis of course knows.

Dad.

No one else. I don’t share that shit. I lock it up and seal it in a cinder block room with deadbolts and razor wire. I don’t go there, especially not with a chick.

But, Promise is not a chick. What she is, I’m not sure, but she’s not even close to anything I’ve had before.

I’ve heard dudes talk about owning a woman. That shit always sounded like a load of elephant crap to me.

But, not anymore. Sometimes you have to see the color to understand, and that is exactly what this feels like—a new dimension that exists for two people somewhere beyond any place you’ve been before.

A simmering need to consume someone else. To claim them in front of the world as yours. As a possession so precious you vow to protect and cherish them like nothing else that came before or will ever come after.