Page 1 of Hold Me Until Morning

PROLOGUE

My eyes devoured the outline of his perfect shape.

His big body roiled in sharp restraint and caused a constant wave of strength that battered against me.

He held onto the steering wheel like it might be the one thing that kept him contained.

The only thing grounding him when the world had floated away from us.

Each thirsting for what we knew better than to chase, but right then, after everything that had happened tonight, all rationale ceased to exist.

“You need to stop looking at me like that,” he warned in a rough, low voice.

“I don’t think I can stop.” There I went—a fool who was begging for it.

Heartbreak.

Every muscle in his body flexed, a bristle of repression and a rush of greed. “I’m not sure I can give you what you need.”

“You told me last night you knew exactly what I needed.”

His tongue stroked out over his lips, and that energy swelled.

Need rose up from the depths to consume.

My thighs pressed together, and his gaze dropped to the action. I squirmed beneath the weight. Beneath the potency that lured me in his direction.

“That’s right. You need to come.” His words were harsh. A rough scrape of seduction.

“Just once. Tonight.”

I thought I could handle it, but I should have known my love for him would grow and he’d become my world.

And him loving me?

It was going to cost everything.

ONE

CODY

It was just before six when I took the left into my neighborhood. Rain was pouring down, a deluge from the sky. It was a summer storm that had built for the better part of the afternoon, the clouds gathering high and thick, before it’d finally unleashed its fury just as the sun had begun its descent toward the horizon.

I fucking loved storms.

Loved the energy.

Loved the blinding flash of lightning before the crack of thunder followed.

Loved the way the earth smelled afterward, like it was promising something brand new.

Though I personally preferred watching it with my boots kicked up on the railing of my porch while I tossed back a couple beers rather than to be standing in the middle of it.

So, I was grumbling out a disbelieving, “Shit,” when my headlights cut across the U-Haul that sat in the driveway of the house next to mine.

It was parked facing out, and it wouldn’t have caused such a stir except for the fact I caught sight of a woman running out of the house and down the sidewalk before she disappeared into the back of the U-Haul.

Racing through the driving rain with her head angled toward the ground like it offered her any hope of not getting drenched.

---