Page 48 of The Sleight Before Christmas

“Exactly, so, what, I just use you?”

“Who says I’m not using you?” She retorts.

“You don’t want that.”

“Yeah, ‘cause I’m a nice girl?” she licks her lips, her condescension clear.

“Maybe you aren’t, but you aren’t that girl either.”

“Are you asking?”

“Did it sound like a question?”

“Jesus, we’re going in circles here. Last night was—”

“Take one more step toward me, Serena—”

She steps up to me instantly, and I grip her arms, pinning them behind her back and bringing her flush to me. Pulse pounding, I issue my last warning.

“I’m no good for you.”

“Do it, Thatch,” she orders in challenge a second before I crush her mouth. Our kiss immediately goes inferno as she fights to free her hands, and I keep them idle, knowing her touch will be too much. It’s when I pull away to release her that she refuses me. Palming my neck, she kisses me with just as much behind it as the one I just delivered. My protest dies on the tongue gliding against hers as I deepen it. Her frozen fingers start exploring as she feverishly sucks my tongue.

Hands roaming, she works a path beneath my shirt and runs them up my sweat-slicked skin. It’s then I start thrusting my tongue into her mouth, like I would my cock, delving into every corner. Claiming and consuming while memorizing her taste. Embedding the curl of her reciprocal tongue into memory. She’s so goddamned perfect, every inch of her.

But what’s more perfect is the way she kisses me back. The way she seems to understand everything I’m refusing her. Hard, aggravated, and coming close to fucking her to within an inch of her life just yards from her father’s back door, I rip myself away a second time.

It’s her arresting eyes that recapture me again as I stare down at her. It’s possessive need which prompts the question that spills, unchecked, from my lips. “How many men have you kissed that way?”

“I think you know how many—”

“Then tell me again that it’s not that serious.”

“You kiss me back the same way,” running her palm back up my bare chest, she digs her nails into my skin, knowing full well what it’s doing to me.

“Fucking brat,” I utter as her lips lift in victory. “You want to ‘have fun’ with me, Serena, fine. But this probably isn’t going to end well,” I warn.

“Your worry, not mine. Tonight,” she whispers in order and without hesitation as she scores her nails once more down my chest. I’m so fucking hard for her that my cock is weeping in my boxers. “And since we can’t manage conversation, we don’t have to talk.”

“Stop,” I demand as she digs her nails in a little deeper, and my dick strains against my fly.

“Make me, Handy Man,” she chides before lifting and pressing her lips against mine again.

“Weak at best,” I drawl of her kiss, allowing part of the depravity I’ve been repressing to take over. “You’re going to have to give me a better reason to come back.”

“Didn’t I?”

“It’s a matter of incentive,” I challenge before she lifts, palms my neck, and kisses me ferociously, clawing my raging dick briefly before pulling away.

“See you tonight.”

Fuck. Fuck.

Fuck.

Not long after, Allen approaches me, an envelope extended in his hand. Hesitantly, I take it. Thanking him before pocketing the money.

“That should do it, right?” He asks as guilt threatens to swallow me whole.

---