Page 53 of Arrogant Bastard

“Come here,” he says. I walk over to him. He takes my hand and guides it to the base of his skull. He holds my finger against a raised three-inch bump. “Stitches from a tire iron that wanted to be intimate with my brain. From a guy whose truck I tried to steal when I got stranded in Minsk. He wasn’t very happy.”

My lips twitch, but the smile doesn’t quite make it. “You’re a billionaire who invented a chip to makes rockets go faster or something. You didn’t think to just buy the truck?”

He shrugs. “He wouldn’t take a bank transfer or my Audemars Piguet watch, which he thought was fake. Carrying cash on that op wasn’t really encouraged, so my options were limited. It was steal the truck or walk fifteen miles to the nearest rendezvous point in three feet of snow. I chose door number one. Turns out I wasn’t great at hot-wiring a vehicle in the middle of a blizzard.”

My fingers trace the scar. “When did it happen?”

He hesitates before answering. “Two years ago.”

I’ve thought about it over the years, whether he continued being an operative or not. I even imagined him with other partners. Other women. I’m not sure how I feel about having the confirmation.

As if he reads my mind, his gaze tracks and snags mine. “It was supposed to be an easy, solo, two-day mission. In and out, picking up a laptop a team member was forced to leave behind when they had to get out quickly. The data on the laptop was too important. I was in the mood for a change of scene so I offered to go.”

He doesn’t owe me any explanation. But fuck if the tightness in my chest doesn’t ease with relief. My fingers drift over the scar and over his warm scalp. I continue to gently massage, the joy of running my fingers through his hair a hypnotic pleasure I can’t seem to stop.

When my fist slowly clenches around a thick clump, he makes a sound under his breath.

“Baby, you know we’re not going to last much longer like this, don’t you?” he says in a guttural, barely discernible voice.

“Yes,” I answer simply. Because every second since that moment in the park last night has been leading up to this. It was the first thing that terrified me when I heard his voice. It’s what terrifies me now as I use my hold on him to tilt his head.

Our eyes meet. His upper body is bare. I know every inch of it. “Show me more.”

A definitive shake of his head. “No, it’s your turn.”

“I have only one.”

“Then show me something else. We can get to that last if you want.”

My breath catches. This is happening.

I trail my fingers through his hair, taking my time to rake my nails along his scalp before drawing them down his neck and across his wide shoulder.

He hisses under his breath, and his eyes drift shut for a moment, as if he’s absorbing and imprinting this contact into the very fiber of his being.

I love touching Killian. Something happens to me when we touch. It’s a chemical thing that defies logic. So I don’t fight it. He lets me play, down over his chest, between the crevices created by his impressive six-pack. He hasn’t let himself go in the last four years. Not one little bit. Sleek muscles bunch beneath my fingers, and I actually feel him shake the lower I go.

“Stop fucking torturing me, baby. Show me what I want to see,” he growls, his urgent demand hot against my cheek.

My hands reluctantly fall from his body. I shouldn’t feel this mild panic about undressing in front of him. But I’m suddenly nervous about exposing myself completely to him. Perhaps I know that there will be no turning back this time. No abbreviated session we can fool ourselves into thinking doesn’t really count. Or maybe it’s that little nugget of doubt that suggests he won’t like this new, thinner, maybe lesser, version of me.

But then I look down into his eyes, and all I see is the same out-of-control fire that’s raging inside of me.

“Now, baby.”

I go to draw my top over my head, but at the last moment, I change my mind. Instead I pull my arm through one strap and then the other. I don’t deny that the slide of the cotton against my skin turns me on. I hook my fingers in the bunched-up fabric and slowly pull it down over my breasts. Lower lip caught between my teeth, I hold my breath and raise my head.

One look is all it takes to reassure me that Killian is as turned on by this version of me as he was by the old version. “Move your hair over your shoulder, let me see you properly,” he commands.

Even the act of shoving my hair over my shoulders turns me on.

When my top half is fully exposed to him, he jerks his chair closer and settles his hands on either side of my hips. His face is level with my breasts, and his fevered eyes are riveted on my hard pink nipples.

“Fuck, they’re even more beautiful than I remember.”

“My girls?” I shakily joke.

“My beauties,” he rasps. Still keeping his hands on the desk, he leans forward and gently blows on one nipple. The sensation powers down my body straight to my pussy. He repeats the action on the other peak, and I feel myself getting wetter.

---