Sweet Seduction Shield(77)

"You've got me," I assured him, no hesitation on my part at all.

He stared at me for a suspended moment and then lifted his hand up, palm open in invitation.

I took the last step necessary to reach him and clasped his hand in mine.

"I've wanted you from the first moment I saw you, and every second since," he murmured, holding my gaze as his free hand came up to cup behind my neck. "I'd planned on this being a little different. Please forgive me." He sounded genuinely pained. "But I need to get lost in you. I need..."

He stopped, closed his eyes and let a shaking breath of air out.

My hand came up and cupped his cheek, his beard scratching my naked palm. His eyes flicked open, such depth of pain evident in the deep brown that stared back at me. I didn't know what caused it, but I didn't need to in order to give him a life line right now. And Ryan Pierce was a man drowning, in desperate need of being saved.

I started pulling him in the direction of the hallway, where I guessed the master bedroom ran off, somewhere near Daisy's room. It wasn't hard to find. The main bedroom was at the back of the house with a stunning view of the tiny twinkling lights on darkened Coromandel Peninsula far in the distance and the closer Waiheke Island in the foreground. The odd buoy light breaking up the view, and a container ship lit up like a Christmas tree wending its way across the Hauraki Gulf.

I turned my back on the vista and looked at the man before me, preferring this view to any other, any day of the week.

"I'm yours," I semi repeated. He held my gaze for one single beat in time, that felt like an eternity.

Then pulled me hard against his chest. A pained, but excited groan sounding out as his lips met mine, the heat of his body fuelling the inferno inside.

How could I ever feel like ice again if I had this man in my life?

The answer was simple. I couldn't. And I embraced that reality with fervent desire, as I embraced the man before me, melting into his touch.





Chapter 22


Change Of Plans

He touched me like I was a fragile treasure. Or perhaps a prize he'd coveted for too long, which he knew could be stolen from him at any second. One moment his lips were firm and unyielding. Taking everything he wanted without pause. The next they'd skim across my flesh, tentative and questioning.

Did I want this? Would I push him away?

Every stroke of his fingers along my neck, across my cheek, over my jaw sent electric jolts of desire through me, which were swamped by uncertainty in the next instant through the tremble in his arm, or the hesitation in his movements.

He was a dichotomy of longing and fear. I wondered if that reticence had anything to do with his role as my police protector, or if it was to do with where we were.

But a hunger burned beneath the surface of his touch. Beneath the press of his lips. Ryan kissed like he was dying, like the world was about to end and he had to taste a little more, lick a little more. Have a little more of me. Before it all was taken away from him.

One hand cupped the back of my head gently, the other spread flat against my spine, above my hips, pressing me close. Then in a flash the hand at my nape fisted fingers in my hair securely. The one at my spine moved to grip my hips, fingers across my butt cheek, thumb digging into the crease along the top of my leg.

I couldn't tell if he was fighting his attraction for me, even now when we'd both succumbed. Or if he truly didn't know how to handle me, how he should act, what he should do next. I hadn't expected this from Ryan. He'd been so controlled, so in charge of his environment. But the moment I stepped into his embrace, accepted his desire, offered him mine, he'd floundered. Want and need warring with something else. Propriety and decency?

I did not want Ryan Pierce to be decent with me. That was not what I saw when I looked at the goatee wearing bad-boy cop. It was not what I had come to know of the man either. Ryan worked in law enforcement. He lived and breathed it. But he was not above finding justice however he could within the confines of the law.

He made an erotic sound when I nipped his bottom lip in an effort to send a message home. Hey, I'm yours. Take me. His hand in my hair tightened and he tipped my head deepening the kiss. I groaned into his mouth and his body shook in answer. The kiss took on a life of its own. Our bodies moulded together, still standing, still in the middle of the dark room. But we could have been anywhere. That kiss. Dear God, that kiss was all I needed to stay alive.

Then in the next second his hands were coasting across my back; gentle and calming, when all I wanted was hard and hot. I let a breath of frustrated air out as his lips trailed down my neck, slower and slower still.

Exasperated, my hand slid over his taut stomach muscles and delved beneath his trousers. He sucked in a breath of surprised air, allowing more space between his belt and skin, making it easy to snake my fingers around their goal. He wore stretchy fabric underwear. Not satin boxers. I wondered if they were tightie-whities, or those skin tight boxer ones that showed off every attribute the wearer had.