Punctured, Bruised, and Barely Tattooed(32)

“Yeah.”

“You need anything?”

“No, I’m good.”

She started combing out her hair, amazed that the tangles weren’t difficult to work out. Then Stone said, “Can I come in for a minute?”

She frowned at herself in the mirror. She still had residual makeup on—she wore her eyeliner so heavy that it would take lots of scrubbing to get it all off her eyes—but her face looked strange and naked. Still, she had nothing to hide.

Stone had amazed her. When she’d gotten up, he’d already had a workout (but she didn’t know if he had workout equipment or had just jogged around his property), shower, and said he’d worked on some drawings. She wondered if he did that every morning or if she’d simply made it impossible for him to sleep.

She supposed she should maybe feel weird around him now, but she didn’t. She only wondered what his huge fucking secret was…and then felt a little stupid, because she wasn’t ready to give up her own secrets anytime soon. “Yeah, sure.”

He took his time as if to give her a moment to collect herself, and the door pushed open slowly. She continued pulling the comb through her hair, though, and she didn’t have to force a smile when he came in.

What was that look on his face? She couldn’t read it. Surprise, maybe? He grinned. “You sure everything’s okay? You’ve been awfully quiet since breakfast.”

She couldn’t help the smirk. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you wanted me shouting to you from the shower.”

He laughed. “No, that’s not what I mean.”

She finished running the comb through her hair and pulled the few strands in its teeth out so she could throw them in the trashcan next to the toilet. “What do you mean?”

Stone Bowman at a loss for words. Yeah, he was. He shrugged and got closer to her. Shit. She knew it. She must look like a fucking teenager without the makeup. Yeah, that had to be why he was staring at her.

Or…not. He cupped her neck and rubbed his thumb on her cheek. “Did you know you are gorgeous? Why do you cake your makeup on like you do?”

“Cake it?”

“Yeah. You’re hiding the best parts of yourself.”

“Ha. Bullshit.”

“Not bullshit.” He leaned over and brushed her lips with his. She felt a buzz pulse through her body.

She took a deep breath. “You are distracting the shit out of me.”

That smirk. God, that would be infuriating if it wasn’t so goddamned sexy. “I am?”

Kory swallowed, unable to mask her emotions from him. She simply nodded her head. His eyes searched hers, almost unbelieving, and then he grinned and said, “Your first class is at nine?”

A small breath escaped her lips as she considered him. “Yeah.”

“That’s a little less than two hours from now. I can still get you there on time…with a latte in hand.” She laughed then. He was obsessed with getting her that damned coffee. But then he touched her neck with his lips and the laughter ceased as her nipples pebbled under the damp towel in anticipation. He looked at her then, placing a warm finger in the dip just under her neck and tracing it straight down till it hit the edge of the white towel, and he followed his finger with his eyes. “I still want to lick you till you come.” He raised his gaze slowly, drinking in every detail of her skin, up her chin, until he burned holes in her eyes with the intensity. “Do you feel like you could let me try?”

At that moment, pinned in place by his laser stare, he could have done whatever he wanted. Having spent a secure night in his arms, in his bed, in his fortress had somehow made her feel stronger, had filled her with unforeseen trust for this man. Yes, he still had abundant secrets—the entire bottom floor of his house lay testament to that fact—but she felt like he had been as open and honest with her as possible. She had never in her life felt this kind of connection with a man before—hell, with any person—and she wanted to give herself to him, to prove to herself she could…to scale that wall of fear in her life and leave it behind her.

She couldn’t find the words to answer, though. Her tongue was woefully mute. She managed to nod her head ever so slightly, and he understood that. He hooked a finger inside the towel and kissed her again, and she expected him to pull it apart so it fell from her body. Not so. Instead, he pulled it like a harness, just enough that she used that momentum to propel her body forward.

He led her back into that spacious bedroom, now flooded with sunlight, and once they were beside the bed, he kissed her again. Part of her wanted him to be demanding, but there was no roughness, no hard kiss. Instead, he was as gentle as the air drifting down on her shoulders from the ceiling fan, causing a shiver to race down her spine.