Page 49 of The Love Bandits

But she doesn’t have to. She’s a hellcat, a woman of fire, and even without knowing the first thing about him, I’m not surprised he couldn’t keep up.

I take a half step toward her and stop, wanting to see if she’ll move toward me.

She doesn’t.

“I abhor what you do,” she says, still holding my gaze, her chin held high. “It’s despicable.”

It’s nothing that hasn’t been said to me before. By multiple people. Which isn’t to say it doesn’t affect me. I meet her gaze—one stare-off champion taking on another—and say, “I agree. That’s why I wanted to quit. But you have to admit…whether or not someone is despicable has nothing to do with physical attraction.”

I want to ask if she thought about me in her shower—if she slid her hand between her legs under the driving water and touched herself with my name on her lips.

I’m losing what few brain cells I have left. It’s just…

I’ve never met a woman I can be wholly honest with. A woman who knows my secrets. It’s surprisingly addictive, and that adrenaline from earlier is still pounding through me, asking for release.

Then she takes a step toward me—the sight sending my blood from a simmer to a boil, because she’s tipping her head up to me, revealing the long slope of her neck. Fuck me, I want to kiss it. To bite it. To lose myself in her and forget everything except for how damn good it feels.

“No,” she says. “I suppose it doesn’t.” She leans in closer, her voice the purr of an undomesticated cat. “I have to admit I am a little curious about what better uses you can make of that mouth.”

A near feral sound escapes me, and I pull her to me and then back her into the counter, my mouth already on her. Her lips open to me, and she tastes likefuck you very muchcookies, and I’m already so hard it hurts.

It’s the adrenaline, I tell myself again. Adrenaline has always made me feel more alive. And, God knows, this woman has driven me to distraction since Tuesday. I can tell the same is true for her. She hunted me earlier; she caught me. And now we both get to claim the prize.

Our teeth clash, and then she sucks in my bottom lip and bites. Her hands tug my shirt out of my pants. They trail up against my flesh again, to the same places they branded when she gave me her pat down earlier.

I pull back, needing to see the look in her eyes—intent on burning and destroying. “You liked feeling me up earlier, huh? You want more, hellcat?”

“Shut up,” she says, then pulls me to her by the bottom of my shirt, not being at all gentle. I’m not going to complain. Right now, the only thought in my head is to take as much as she’s willing to give me.

I kiss her again, pushing her into the counter as if it’s that wall from earlier—because this is what I wanted then and also what I want now. I’m possessed by a pressing need I couldn’t even hope to put into words, beyond this… Her,now. Her,here.

I kiss down her chin, her neck, I push down the front of her shirt to kiss the tops of her tits, captured in a sports bra that tries to hold them back, and her hand reaches down to feel my hard dick through my pants. It’s straining to get closer to her.

I swear into her mouth as her hand works me. Then I push at the band of her sweatpants, desperate to get them down. I want to find her wet for me. I need it. I need to know I’m affecting her the same way she’s affecting me, because I don’t think I’ve ever felt this desperate to have a woman before. To touch her. To make her moan and lose control. Maybe it’s because she’s the only woman who’s ever shared this part of my life with me. It figures that she thinks I’m contemptible, but I’ll take her desire as the best consolation prize I’ve ever been given.

She reaches for the band of her pants too, and for a second I think she’s going to pull them back up—party over—but she helps me get my hand inside. The feeling of her, slick and wet and so fucking ready for me, nearly makes my eyes roll back in my head.

The sound she makes as I rub her clit, my fingers exploring, is unreal. Her hand stalls on my dick, hot through the fabric of my Jake Jeffries pants, and the other one spears into my hair, gripping it until I’m looking at her—our eyes meeting and holding as I fuck her with my fingers.

“Do you like that, Elaine?” I say, my voice someone else’s.Out of control. Out of control.And does it ever feel good. “Do you like being finger-fucked by the thief you caught?”

“Shut up.” Her pupils are dilated, and I can feel her flexing against the fingers I have inside of her—her pussy so deliciously wet, so ready, and I know she’s going to come for me. She’s going to come for me, and then I’m going to lick my fingers and suck her down.

I hope to God there’s no karmic justice in this world, because if there is, there’s no way she’s going to give me what I want and tell me to fuck her. I want to take her right here in this kitchen, even though those P.I. friends of hers could come home any minute, and should have been home an hour ago.

I want to bend her over that counter, and have her that way. I want her to sit in my lap and ride my dick. I want to fuck her against the wall of Mrs. Rosings’s house.

I want—

She tugs me to her by my shirt again, not gentle at all, and her mouth works against mine while her pussy squeezes my fingers, and I know I’m going to feel her come around them. She’s going to moan into my mouth. The expectation has me so hard, I’m in danger of coming in my pants. Then she makes a little sound in the back of her throat, and I know the moment is nearly here…

That’s it, hellcat, that’s it.

Except it isn’t. Because she abruptly pushes me away, her eyes wide, a surprised exhalation escaping her.

“What just happened?” I ask, totally thrown. “Did I…did I hurt you or something?”

The thought’s a poisonous one, because I wanted to show her a good time. Still want it.

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