Page 77 of The Witch is Back

She chewed her lip. It made him light-headed with the need to take over. To take. At least this, his attraction, was simple. It was just acting on it that would make it complicated. More complicated, he absently amended, tensing as her lip slid from her teeth, wet and plump.

“I’m just not used to that.”

He’d lost the thread. “What?”

“Family.” She said it in such a wistful tone, his poor heart squeezed again.

He drew her toward him, not stopping until she was a few inches from his chest. “Well, you’re stuck with us now.”

Her smile was hesitant, shy. “You think they liked me?”

He gazed at her, everything compacting in his chest, in his stomach, until that light-headedness evolved into a dizzy feeling. And the truth came out, complex and thorned. “I like you.”

It felt like a monumental admission, but all she did was laugh.

“I’m serious,” he insisted. He looked into eyes he’d once described as ordinary brown. “The more I know you, the more I like.”

“Read that in a romance novel?” But the blush was back.

It gave a man ideas. His mind went a little hazy.

He began to reel her in, lost to those twin flags of color. “I like how you speak and how you move and how you care about people.” And how that said louder than words that she couldn’t have been involved in the contract. Surely. He heard the hitch in her breath as her breasts brushed his chest and knew his breathing wasn’t too steady either. “I like your eyes and your smile and your legs.”

“M-my legs?”

“Mmm.” He lifted his free hand, thumbed her bottom lip again. He didn’t know if it was intentional, but when her tongue grazed his thumb, he went rock hard.

“I like this mouth, Emma.” His voice was raw. “I really like this mouth.”

“Bastian...”

He knew an invitation when he heard it. He bent down and took that mouth like he’d been aching to do ever since that night. Gentle, he told himself, even as he quivered. Easy.

She opened for him at his nudge. Their tongues entwined, sending a shot of desire through his blood like aged whiskey.

His hands tangled in her hair as the heels of her hands dug into his waist. It drove him crazy, the feel of her body against his. The sweet pressure made him nip her lip, soothe the action with his tongue. She made the sexiest sound in her throat and her mouth became more aggressive. Just like that, the kiss spun out of his hands and flung him into a sensual tornado. His hands tightened on her as she rocked against him. It was like holding fire and he considered himself lucky to be burned.

He only lasted a few heartbeats before he groaned, ripping his mouth off hers to press it to her forehead. “Come home with me.” Screw complicated.

“We live together.” He was gratified to hear the tremble, how breathless she was.

He laughed softly against her neck. “Decision made easier, then.”

He couldn’t stop kissing her, her forehead, her cheek, down to her neck. He bit gently and felt her shudder echo through his own body. She felt so good against him. He could only imagine how amazing it would feel without all these clothes in the way.

She clutched him as he kissed the base of her throat. Then tension—and not the good kind—crept into her shoulders. “Bastian. We can’t.”

“I think we just proved we can and we should.” Still, he pulled back, breathing ragged. If he’d thought she was red before, she was lobster at this point. Even more so when she glanced down at the grass and the mass of wildflowers that had bloomed at their feet.

He grinned; she glared.

“We talked about this,” she said. The snippy tone didn’t work considering how she was still breathless.

“So? Let’s put it back on the table.”

“Table?” Her lids drifted closed as he stroked a finger across her collarbones.

He stared at the pulse in her throat, how it fluttered. “Hell, anywhere you want it.”

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