Page 9 of Because You're Mine

Jay nodded, his eyes on her face. “You watch Kitchen Nightmares, shows like that?”

“Sometimes. I liked watching the cooking, but it gives me bad anxiety. And that guy… he swears too much,” she said, standing to clear the table. It looked like Jay was done eating, too. She was pleased to see he took seconds.

He stood to help. “What else did you do while I was gone?”

“Well… I walked a lot.”

“I know,” he said shortly. “Despite being told not to go out alone.”

“I love to walk!” she protested, licking spilled sauce from her finger as she transferred the leftovers into a glass container.

“I don't care,” he growled, “your safety is always going to be more important than what you want. You’ll have to learn to live with more restrictions in your life.”

“That… that’s stupid Jay. I’m not a child, I can make decisions for myself.”

“Not when it comes to your safety, you won’t,” Jay said with quiet menace, catching hold of her wrist and pulling her into the hardness of his body.

Allie’s breath strangled in her throat. She automatically tried to pull back but he held her tightly against his body and then slowly walked her backward until her ass hit the counter behind her. She was trapped. He lifted the fingers that she had licked to his mouth and slowly, under her wide-eyed stare, sucked them into his mouth. Allie’s lips parted in a strangled gasp. Her body froze under the shadow of his, like a bird that knew if she made the wrong move she would be eaten whole.

The heat of his lips and mouth scorched her, sizzling a path from her fingertips right down body toward her pussy and flooding her with need that she didn’t think was possible. Intimacy, the type that happened between men and women, just wasn’t for her. Yet somehow, Jay was coaxing a reaction from her. It frightened her. Allie whimpered, her knees buckling under the onslaught of sensation.

Jay was quick to reach out and catch her, holding her body up against his. He ran his long fingers over her hair and easily released the dark mass from the messy topknot she had gathered on top of her head while cooking. Wavy locks cascaded around her head and slithered past her shoulders, reaching halfway down her back. He lovingly smoothed them out, running his fingers through the long, dark strands.

“Jay…,” she whispered, staring up at him, both frightened and aroused.

She didn’t know what to do or say. She’d loved this man her entire life. Yet he’d abandoned her. More than that, he’d shoved her out of his life and walked away without a backward glance. He’d spent eighteen years watching over her and then he’d hurt her in the worst way. She’d been forced to forge a path on her own, to create a life that didn’t include the man that had helped shape her. Now he wanted her back? No, he insisted on having her back. He wasn't giving her a choice.

“Jay, I can’t…”

He touched his lips to hers, stopping her words. It was a gentle caress, but the depth of yearning, the years of withheld feeling was so savage that is made her gasp and try to jerk out of his hold. Jay’s grip tightened and his eyes hardened in the dimming evening light as he looked down at her. It told her without words that nothing she could do or say would ever induce him to let her go.

“It’s time for bed, Allison.”

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