Page 39 of Run for the Money

“Nowyou can say please? Seriously? Don’t pretend you don’t want me,” I argue, fighting a wobble in my voice.

Nick takes my face in his hands, thumbs against my cheeks. “Of course I want you. That’s the problem.”

“We have very different definitions of the word, ‘problem.’”

He lets go of me and takes half a step back, shaking his head.

“Explain it to me,” I say, fingers toying with the tie on my robe. “If it’s not simple, explain why wanting me is a problem. Pretty please.”

The knot in the tie slips loose and I drop the ends, letting the robe hang open. Nick makes a strangled noise in the back of his throat, then catches the sides of the robe and holds them closed over my sternum. The motion drags me closer to him, so if he’s trying to put a damper on the fire between us, he’s doing a poor job. His nose is millimeters from mine, and I can feel his breath against my throat. It would be so easy to lean forward and kiss him. Our eyes lock on each other and time slows to a crawl. Nick licks his lips, then swallows. I see it in his face the moment he decides to stop holding back.

“Miss Manners, if you drop this robe, I’m going to toss you on the bed and fuck those manners clean out of you,” he says in a low, dangerous voice, each syllable precise as it lands in my ears. “By the time I’m done, the only words left in your vocabulary will be, ‘more,’ ‘harder,’ and ‘fuck.’ If that’s not what you want from me, I suggest you keep the robe on.”

The bolt of anticipatory pleasure that shoots through my body has me pressing my thighs together. The nickname is a transparent attempt for him to take back control of the conversation and avoid explaining himself, but he’s offered me exactly what I want. He may be stubborn, but he seems to have forgotten who he’s dealing with, and how I feel about unfinished business.

“Sounds good to me. But I’m not going to curse,” I tease.

Hedoescurse, because while he’s been distracted by the task of keeping me dressed, I’ve been easing one end of his belt out of the buckle. A gentle tug on the leather is enough to pull the fabric of his jeans against the bulge straining his zipper. His eyes flick down to my hands, then to his, and I can almost see the calculations play out across his forehead. He can either hold my robe closed or hold my hands still, but not both.

“Melanie,” he warns.

“I might beg. Whimper. Plead. But I don’t think you can make me curse,” I taunt. “There’s only one way to find out.”

I finally get the belt free of the buckle. When I flick the button underneath open and pull down the zip, he lets go of the robe in favor of my wrists. He eases them away from his open jeans and the undeniable erection he’s sporting. We stare at each other a moment. I’ve already won. He’s going to kiss me again. But I want him to be the one to make the move—to un-pause this and make good on his tantalizing promise.

“Tell me to fuck you,” he challenges. “If this is what you want, you have to say it.”

It’s a last-ditch effort to call my bluff. But if he thinks I’m going to let a four-letter word stop me now, he’s about to find out what being wrong feels like. I’m not bluffing.

I slide my wrists out of his grip. He steps back to give me space. Before he can misinterpret that, I shrug the robe off my shoulders and let it pool on the floor. His pupils are so wide I can only see a sliver of his irises. He tries to keep them glued to my face, but as I drag my hand over my chest, between my breasts toward my bellybutton, he loses the battle and his gaze drops to my fingers. He’s glassy-eyed and slack-jawed as he takes in my naked body, and a groan sneaks out between his lips as I skate my fingertips past my navel. I stop just shy of the hair between my legs, clinging to my last shred of bravado.

“Fuck me, Nick, or I’ll do it myself.”

He’s fast, I’ll give him that. My wrists are caught in his hands again before I realize he was reaching for them. Then I’m flat on my back on his bed, arms over my head and my thighs spread so he can stand between them. Eyes fixed on mine, he leans over my body slowly. His t-shirt brushes against the hard points of my nipples and my lungs forget what they’re supposed to do.

Nick hovers, his lips just out of reach. “Say, ‘please,’ baby. Where are your manners?”

I’ve never been so turned on in my life. His cock pokes through his open fly to nudge at the top of my thigh, hard as steel and hot as embers. My skin is peppered with goosebumps and aching for more of him—for him to touch, taste, squeeze, obliterate. I want him to fuck me into the mattress, and then keep going until the mattress crashes through the floor of the hotel, straight to the center of the earth.

But he isn’t moving a muscle.

“That wasn’t rhetorical.”

His words land with the kind of control that betrays the storm they’re protecting.

“I mean it. I need you to say please, because I’ve spent the last two days trying not to think about this. I’ve made a Herculean effort to look at you like some kind of sexless athletic robot. I’ve tried to forget how your lips taste and how your hair feels sliding through my fingers and the way your gasps sound when I’m kissing you—and I can’t do it. There is nothingsimpleabout the way I want you, Melanie.

“I drove for nine hours yesterday thinking about that fucking black dress and how perfect your tits looked in it. Every time I saw your mouth, I thought about how much of your lipstick was smeared on my face after that godforsaken dinner, and how much I want you to wear it again just so I can kiss it off you properly. If you could’ve seen inside my head, seen all the things I’ve imagined us doing, you would have hitchhiked home before we made it out of Colorado.”

Oh my God.

“Then, just when I thought I had a reprieve, these bozos fuck up the reservation,” he continues, every word a hoarse growl. “So, I’m stuck lying in a bed three feet away from you, hearing every goddamn rustle of your sheets, wishing you were lying under me, and I was the cause of all the sheet-rustling. I was up half the fucking night, hard as hell, taunted by your perfume and the sound of you breathing. I’ve been desperate for you since I walked you to your door on Wednesday. Hell, longer, if I’m honest. Of course I want you. But I need you to know that if we go down this road, I can’t turn back. I can’t stop myself again.”

I’m pinned by his words as much as by his body. I’m a butterfly in a shadow box. I’m going to combust if he doesn’t start showing me exactly what kind of things he’s been imagining.

“I need you to say please, baby,” he demands. “I need you begging. I need you to be as desperate as I am, which means you need to tell me right now, while I’ve still got half a chance at processing the information, exactly how you want me to touch you. Tell me how you want me to make you come. I’m done fighting this. I’m not strong enough to resist you, so tell me how to drag you down with me.”

My vocabulary shrinks to a single word: “Please.”

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