Page 90 of Kiss Me Tonight

I rip my backpack off, slinging it down one arm and unzipping it a heartbeat later. The water can wait; the food can too. But the blanket . . . my fingers grasp the soft material and I waste no time in flicking it open and laying it flat over the ground.

“What was that?” Her hands comb through the air, searching for answers that she can’t see. “It sounded like a sheet or a tarp maybe?”

It feels difficult to breathe. Throat tight, I manage a guttural, “A blanket. It was a blanket,” before nudging my backpack closed with my foot.

“Did you . . . did you pack acarepackage for us?” comes Levi’s soft question, and even though she’s the one blindfolded and shirtless, I suddenly feel just as exposed. Just as naked.

Because this is not what I do.

Taking care of another person, seeing to their comfort first, isnot what I do.

My limbs are frozen, my heart thudding erratically, when she kicks off her shoes and feels around for a hint of soft fabric. The discarded flashlight illuminates her calves, her searching toes, and then, as she sinks to the ground, her knees cushioned by the blanket. She sweeps her knuckles forward as if to confirm her suspicions.

I’m bad boy, cynical Dominic DaSilva, and I planned us a romantic interlude under the stars.

I’m completely out of my element here.

I clear my throat. “Levi—”

“No.” The flat of her palms fumble around on the blanket as she pats around. “You promised me.”

My lids fall shut. “Aspen.”

“I take a risk; you take a risk.” Her hand finds my bent knee. “That’s how this works. I won’t be vulnerable without you, Dominic. I’ve done that. I lived that life foryears, and I won’t do it again. Not for you, not for anyone.”

“Rick.” I might as well spit out his name, the way it trips off my tongue like something to be spurned and cast out.

She doesn’t say yes, not quite. But her hands continue their upward glide, until she’s settled snuggly in theVof my spread thighs and her fingers are climbing higher and the heels of her palms are dragging over my quads. She pops the button of my jeans. “So, what’s it going to be?” she says, throwing my own words back in my face. “You going to do this with me—be all the way in—or are you going to drive me home and tuck me into my safe bed that won’t have you anywhere near it?”

My head drops back, eyes seeking out the thousands of stars twinkling in the clear night sky. I think back to all the times I’ve searched out the universe as I am now. Back with that goddamn ankle monitor tracking me like a savage, when there was nothing left to do but look out my window and make a wish on a fake shooting star. At every hotel we stayed at during my Tampa Bay years, when I’d find myself stepping outside and wondering the point of life when all the stats and Super Bowl rings and victories did nothing to alleviate how wrecked I felt inside. My last night onPut A Ring On It, when I overheard the producers and crew laughing about how they were positive Savannah Rose would accept Nick’s proposal over mine.

Since birth, loneliness has tagged me as its victim.

Not anymore.

I can’t—I won’t—give up this chance to be with Levi, just because I’m fucked up in the head.

Tonight, she belongs to me.

Like the savage I used to be, I tear off her blindfold and toss it aside. Reach behind me, fingers grasping the back of my shirt, and yank it over my head. Pull her flush against me, hard chest to hard nipples, and holy shit, she feels like bliss and salvation all wrapped up in a package designed to make me lose my mind.

“Yes.”

I hear her whimper just before I crush our lips together. My tongue wars with hers, meeting in an aggressive kiss that draws a groan from deep within my chest. I don’t go easy on her, but . . . Levi, I know she can handle me.Allof me. I spear my fingers through her hair, tugging sharply on the strands until her head is canted back and I’m free to kiss all that soft skin bared only for me.

“Say my name, Aspen,” I growl, my lips finding the curve of her jaw. I flick my tongue out, then move south to uncharted territory. “Say that you want me, that you wantthis.”

I cup her breast, my thumb cresting over her puckered nipple. And aw, fuck, that moan.It’s the sexiest sound I’ve ever heard, and I almost come right then and there in my jeans, like a prepubescent jerking off for the first time. It doesn’t help that her hands clutch the back of my neck to keep me close or that anytime I trace the rough pads of my fingers over her, that moan of hers comes again.

It’s all I can do not to unzip my jeans and give myself a little relief.

One glance up at her shadowed features and my priorities storm back in line: I’m gonna make Levi come so hard, she’ll be feeling me between her legs for days.

“Say it,” I demand again, pinching her nipple. I drop my mouth there to soothe the sting away, before I do it all again.

“Dominic.”

Her voice cracks on the second syllable of my name and I hiss when her nails bite into my scalp. Hooking one arm around her back, I lower her so that she sits at an angle that forces her to trust me, to give me her full weight to hold—and then I feast. I lave at one stiff nipple, swirling my tongue. Her back muscles twitch under my palm and, with my other hand, I track the curve of her waist.Beautiful.That’s how she feels in my arms, how she tastes in my mouth.

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