Page 13 of Defended By Love

“You have some—” He reaches up and swipes his thumb across the corner of my mouth.

I should be embarrassed, mortified, ashamed, humiliated, and red-faced. I’m not, though. Instead, an incredible calm radiates through me that starts at his thumb, still touching my lips, continues to the rest of his hand that he’s wrapped around my cheek, and then permeates the rest of my body. The rest of my soul.

It’s electric and entrancing. It’s the type of feeling that births endless poetry and infinite love.

It’s special.

I know he’s worried about my state of mind after what I went through tonight, but nothing has ever been so clear to me. This moment, however fleeting, was meant to be. Everything led us to this point.

It may not be in my fate to keep a man, but this is one I can have now. That I need to have now.

“I’d really like to kiss you,” I say in a voice too soft to be my own.

I don’t even realize that I’m holding my breath until his lips meet mine.

Then, I lose my breath completely to a kiss that’s too perfect for my racing heart to comprehend.

Chapter 7

I can hardly concentrate on the kiss because electricity zings through my body, alighting every one of my sensory receptors. My toes curl, my skin goosebumps, my nipples harden, all as a rush of warmth floods through me.

His lips are soft, but his kiss is commanding. His hand on my cheek tilts my head back to give him the perfect angle to dip his tongue into my mouth and brush against my own. The moment his tongue touches mine, it unlocks a new level of tingly current between us.

I fall off my stool as I move to get closer to him. Without the slightest of faltering in our kiss, he swoops me up and against him, definitely using some of his superpowers in the process. I wrap my legs around him and push closer until we’re so close that our hearts beat up against each other.

By painfully slow degrees—almost like he’s trying to stop himself—he lowers his hand to grip my ass. When he does, he groans and slumps with the release of tension. It’s just enough of a change of position for me to feel his spandex-clad erection brush just the faintest bit against me.

If there was electricity when we kissed, the feel of his cock against me is an all-out storm. Like a woman possessed, I squirm to get a better angle of him against me. When I finally do, when I finally grind the tip of his cock against my clit, I shudder in the ecstasy of a core-clenching sigh.

A sigh that’s cut too short when he suddenly pulls away and sets me down onto the floor.

“I’m so sorry,” he gasps, turning away to stalk towards the balcony.

I follow him, swallowed up in the magnetic pull of our attraction, led on by the pull of my heady lust.

“Why are you apologizing? That was the best kiss of my life,” I say to his fleeing back.

For a brief second, I think I’ve gotten through to him. He pauses mid-step and turns his body just a fraction towards me. If he continues to turn, I can see how it will all go: he’ll swoop me up into his arms and kiss me until my lips bruise. He’ll throw me down onto the island and touch me until I scream. Then, he’ll bend me over against one of the stools and fuck me until I’ve had the most toe-curling orgasm of my life.

That doesn’t happen, though. With a snarl of frustration, he turns back towards the balcony and continues to walk.

I catch up with him when he reaches the glass door. Reaching forward, I grip his hand in mine. The connection startles me as energy streaks through us. Evidently, it feels the same for him.

He turns, staring first at our connected hands and then into my eyes. His face softens into an impossible vulnerability. He’s trying so hard not to give into whatever this is between us that it’s causing him almost pain. It’s almost enough for me to let this lie.

Almost.

“This sort of thing, this connection, doesn’t happen for me,” I say, letting my guard impossibly down. “I don’t connect with people. With you, though…”

“You’ve had a traumatic experience,” he says, but I notice he doesn’t pull his hand out of mine. Instead, his thumb slides up and down my own in a movement that I had no idea could be so erotic.

“I did,” I admit. “But that’s separate from this. I promise I’m thinking clearly. I’m good. I just want to take that horrible experience and turn it into something else. Instead of dying in that building, you saved me. The first actual superhero to ever exist, probably, just happened to be where I needed one and saved me. That’s something to celebrate. I want to celebrate. I want you.”

His thumb stops roving along my own.

A couple of long seconds pass by in silence.

“I didn’t just happen to be there,” he says quietly.

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