Page 130 of Last Shot

‘Is it just so you look big and scary?’ she teased, drawing herself down his legs so she could kiss a trail from his belly button to the edge of his jeans. ‘So everyone will think twice before throwing a punch at the Barbarani Fixer?’

‘No,’ he grumbled. ‘I like lifting weights.’

‘No onelikeslifting weights.’

‘It’s for everyone else’s safety,’ he said. ‘It’s a way to release—’

‘Feelings?’

‘Annoyance.’

‘There are other ways to release,’ she said, undoing the button of his pants, her fingers shaking, her body alive like she was made of thousands of electrical sparks.

‘Max.’ His voice was hoarse as his hand covered hers, stopping her from going further. ‘Not yet, I’ll ... I don’t want it to be like in the mud room.’

She leant back on her knees, feeling her lace top fall slightly. His eyes glazed over as he took in her exposed skin.

‘It was over too soon,’ he said. ‘I need to take my time with you. And if you ... I won’t be able to control myself.’

‘I don’t want you in control,’ she said. ‘Not with me.’

His frustration had reached its peak. He dragged her back down and that rough stubble – he hadn’t shaved since the night of the gala – felt like the sharp, hot sensation of licking salt from the rim of a margarita glass on her lips.

She drew a breath and circled the round red mark on his bicep. ‘Gang war?’

‘Dog bite.’ He took her breast in his mouth. ‘Nine years old. Why the tattoos?’ he asked, circling the thorny rose on her bicep. His touch was curious and gentle but his mouth returned, hungrier than ever.

‘Why no tattoos, really?’ she countered.

‘I hate needles.’ He held her at arm’s length, his face so full of admiration it made her head spin.

‘I thought they would make people leave me alone,’ she said. ‘I thought they’d be a cage I could hide in, after my parents died. My mum always said tattoos were for people who’d been in prison or ugly people who were trying to paint themselves pretty. So it was partly because I was mad at her too – for dying.’

‘You screwed up big time, Conrad,’ he whispered, his lips pressing a trail of flames on a part of her upper arm she didn’t even know could be turned on. ‘They just made you even more fucking irresistible.’

‘You resisted pretty well.’ She tried to keep the vulnerability out of her voice, but he caught it, as he always did, and growled in protest, gentle hands rough as he rolled on top of her. The indents of his unnecessary arm muscles deepened, turning her blood to molten syrup.

Necessary. All of them.

‘There were a lot of cold showers you didn’t know about,’ he said. ‘And if you’d stayed on top of me for any longer after we fell from the trellis you’d have knownexactlyhow much I wanted you, even if it was against my will.’

She rolled her hips, warmth pooling in her abdomen, hunger shaking through her bloodstream as the animalistic need to touch him, have him, tokeephim here against her, forever, overcame her in a surge of power.

They’d never been allowed to want each other before.

His fingers slipped inside her in an explosion of heat and pleasure. She arched against the couch, her body pressing against him as he answered every one of her silent pleas.

‘Bed,’ he managed, teeth scraping against her neck as he worked her harder, faster – she was a star, building with cosmic, molten pressure, about to explode at the end of its life.

‘Couch,’ she murmured, breathless.

He didn’t slow, even as she became nothing but light and heat and sparking energy beneath him. ‘We’re doing this right,’ he said. ‘No mud room, no kitchen bench, no couch.’

‘Don’t you dare stop.’ She reached for his jeans, not bothering with the zip that felt like it was going to split anyway. She took him in her hand, fingers blistering against the hard, hot heat of him.

‘Max.’ She wished she could bottle that sound – her name, straining like the last grips of fingertips on a cliff’s edge, his final hold on his willpower. She worked her hand up and down the length of him, his control edging out of his skin with every stroke.

‘I don’t care, Greyson,’ she said. ‘I don’t care where we are. I just want you and I’m not letting you go so unless you—’

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