Page 23 of Grave Games

Before I could get the words out, he bent and bit my lower lip while his hands slid under my open jacket and beneath my work shirt.

The first stroke of his hand along my bare skin was like being touched by a live wire. I gasped audibly, and his lips smiled against mine before he shocked me again with an unexpectedly violent tug on my shirt. Buttons popped and went flying into the gloom of my minuscule entryway, and I gasped again at the move.

“God help me, I do love that,” he breathed, and I'd have to be deaf to not hear the yearning excitement thrumming through his voice. “Making you gasp out loud. Making you squeal. Moan. Cry out with pleasure. I get so hard just thinking about it.”

“So stop thinking about it.” Shaken and shockingly aroused by the way he'd loosened my shirt, I pushed his jacket off, then shrugged out of mine and my ruined shirt until my torso was only covered by my bra. “Stop talking about it. Just do it.”

“I'm getting that you don't like to talk while fucking, and you know what? I understand.”

I worked at the buttons of his denim shirt, then gave up and pulled it and the thermal Henley he wore underneath over his head. Stupid winter layers. “You do? Good.”

“I understand you don't want to make any kind of connection with me. When I'm fucking someone, I'm usually that way, too. Just shut up and bang because it feels good, then take off without an ounce of regret once you're satisfied. Sound about right?”

“Uh-huh.” I heard him with only half an ear, because skin had officially been bared now. With his jacket and shirt off, I had to stop myself from reaching for the entryway light in order to see the hard, sculpted muscles of what my hands had already told me was a warrior’s body. Even in the near-complete dark I could still see that his smooth, taut skin was decorated here and there with tattoos—tattoos I didn’t want to know about out of fear of glimpsing something that would bring all my nightmares back. “You get it. Nothing wrong with shutting up and banging, then leaving when you’re done.”

His soundless laugh feathered along my skin, making me shiver. “I bet you’d like that, huh? Yeah, you’d friggin’ love it if things played out that way.”

“You’re still talking. Why is that?” Really, it had to be asked.

“I’m talking because I’m not following your rules, Shy girl.” His mouth skimmed along the line of my jaw while his hands closed over my bra-covered breasts. It wasn't the sexy pink and black lace demibra I'd planned on wearing for him, instead just an ordinary white one that did nothing for my figure. Thankfully it was dark, so he didn't seem to mind. “Too bad for you, but also good for you.Verygood.”

All thought about bras screeched to a halt. “What?”

“I'm not called Romeo for nothing.” Without warning, he bent and picked me up, hauling me over his shoulder in a fireman’s lift that, for some reason, hit just as hard as if he’d been carrying me princess-style across a threshold. “I want all of you, so I'm gonna get all of you. Prepare yourself to be seduced in every way possible.”

Alarm tried—and failed—to push its way through a wave of excitement. “What does that even mean?”

“You'll find out.” He flicked on the hall light before entering my bedroom, letting the light from the hallway illuminate my personal sanctuary. “Damn, look at that. I knew you’d be a bed-maker.”

“A what?”

“A bed-maker. There are two types of people in the world, those who make their beds and those who don't. You make your bed. I don't.”

No surprise there. “Yep. Definitely a clash of opposites.”

“No way. More like a completed set that was meant to be.” He dropped me onto the edge of the bed, then smoothed a hand along my jaw in a surprisingly tender caress before moving around to cover the bun at the nape of my neck. “Take your hair down, Shy. I love how it looks when it's down.”

My hands were at my bun before I gave it a thought. “You want to talk, you want my hair down. Gotta say, you sure do have a lot of prerequisites before having sex.”

“I’m getting that you have no idea what I want.” His hands went to his belt and made quick work of the fastenings. “More to the point, you have no idea whatyouwant. But I mean to show you what it is you've been hungering for all your life, Shiloh McKeen. You’ve been hungering forme.”

A thrill went through me. “You really do think a lot of—” I stopped when he pulled out his dick from the trappings of his loosened clothes, because I suddenly forgot how to speak.

Well.

No wonder he thought a lot of himself.

Not to mention he wasn’t built at all like the bastard who’d kidnapped me, and for three days tortured me with the worst nightmare any woman could endure…

Stop.

Don’t think about it.

Live in the moment and don’t let that monster take this from you.

Don’t. Freak. Out.

“I got everything you need right here, but don't take my word for it.” As if he had all the time in the world, he reached down and took my hand to curl it around his erection. I bit my lip, hard, to keep myself there in the moment, and to make myself focus on the admirable girth and sizzling heat of his hard, silken flesh. “You're going to take my cock, Shy girl. In fact, I can guarantee that you’ll be begging for my cock before this night is through.”

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