Page 92 of Between Now and Always

“Really? Then what is?” Her lips thin and she raises a skeptical brow, and her eyes shutter even more.

“I paid that bribe because I don’t want the whole world to know our fucking business. I lied because I didn’t want you to know that I’d been bested by that fucking bastard, Duke. I’m telling you the truth because I’ve seen what a lie can do a family and because I want to always be worthy of you.”

She looks even more pained and I die a little from the hurt that floods her eyes.

I pull her into my arms, and she comes willing, and wraps her arms around my waist.

“He’s already taken so much,” her voice is muffled by my shirt.

“He took my virginity. He lured my brother to his death. He and my best friend set me up to steal my inheritance, and I had to leave my sister behind to get away from him. No matter how much I’ve been able to achieve, I’m also changed in ways that I wish I wasn’t. I don’t want him to have your dream, too.”

“Silly woman.Youare my dream. That’s just money. I can make more… or not. But there is only one you.” I cup her face and stare in wonder down at her. I can’t believe this beautiful revolutionary, whose secret weapon is forged by equal parts of the ambition, compassion, and imagination, is mine.

I kiss her, it’s a hard, bruising crush of lips.

“I can’t make what he’s broken like new again. But I would cut off my own arm before I did anything to hurt you.”

She pins me with an unflinching stare and draws her line in the sand. “You better fucking mean that, Carter. Or else I’ll kill you.” She grabs my head and presses her lips to mine for a fierce kiss.

Relief makes me giddy and horny and I grab her ass and grind my hardening dick against her. I wince at the friction from her less than yielding wool jacket. I step away, keeping my hands on her waist, and give her a once over. She’s wearing her boots, her jacket and nothing else.

“Were you going somewhere?” I ask with a smirk.

She glares at me, but her cheeks flame. “I was leaving.”

“Are you wearing anything under that?” I ask.

"No,"she releases her hold on the front of the jacket and it falls open.

One of her dark pink nipples catches on a buttonhole and it peeks out pebbled and mouthwatering.

My greedy gaze follows the slow, circular path of her middle finger over the tightly furled peak, and when it starts to swell, so does my dick.

Just like that, we make the seamless transition from adversaries to allies in the cause of getting off.

“Take it off. All the way, now.”

She lets to the jacket slide off and down her lithe body.

She stands there, bared to me like an offering and my mind shuts down.

"I like the way you’re looking at me.” She hold a hand out to me.

"How am I looking at you?” I ask, closing the gap between us with one step.

"Like you need me more than you need anything else,” she says and there’s a command in her voice.

“I do.” I admit.

“Then take me,” she says and grins as my arm slides around her waist and my hand splays against the small of her back.

I pull her flush against me, bringing us skin to skin, and our nearly simultaneous sighs of relief say “Yes. Let’s stay just like this, Always.”I wish I didn’t ever have to let her go. Then I’d be sure that nothing could hurt her.

She rises up on her toes, her greedy eyes on my mouth. Her tongue darts out to wet my lower lip. “Stop thinking and kiss me,” she whispers.

“I’m getting to it, but first…” I lean forward and nip her top lip. It’s plump and sweet and perfect. The nip becomes a suck, and then she growls, cradles the back of my head in her hands and captures my lower lip between her teeth. Our mouths duel and dance and then surrender to the kiss.

The kiss has the same alchemy as the conversation that preceded it. Defensive, with something to prove, a claim to stake, life or death. Her tongue slides over and around mine and I let her have me however she wants. Because that’s exactly how I intend to have her.

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