Page 56 of Strangers in Love

No, that was a lie. I would’ve looked twice. More than twice. I just never would’ve talked to her, let alone touched her.

No matter how much I wanted to.

But then she’d kissed me and –after I’d mostly gotten over the shock –it’d taken all my self-control not to respond. Hell, I’d been sure she felt my erection right under her ass. I’d already been thinking of everything I possibly could to keep from getting a hard-on just from her being curled up on my lap. When she’d started to pull away, I’d wanted to hold on, had even started to, but then I’d remembered what she’d looked like the first time I’d seen her. That ransom video where she’d looked so delicate and fragile. Someone to protect.

Not someone tofuck.

I let her talk because she seemed to need to do it, but the more she said, the clearer it was that she put the entire reason for my not kissing her back in the absolutely wrong place.

She thought I didn’t want her because she wasn’t attractive enough or some other shit like that. The way she was talking, it sounded like she actually thoughtIwas out ofherleague. Even if she’d been talking about me before the ambush, I would’ve disagreed. I knew I’d been good-looking, but I still wouldn’t have even been close to being worthy of dating her, let alone having sex with her.

“It’s all right. I wasn’t thinking,” she said. “If I had been, I would’ve realized that a man like you would never want me like that.”

I had enough ofthat.

“Aline.”

I planned on telling her not to be stupid because she was gorgeous, but as soon as she raised her head, I saw that she had tears in her eyes. My self-control and my desire had a brief battle before desire won, and I reached for her.

When I was ten, Da took the whole family back to Scotland for vacation. We’d visited some friend of his who raised cows, and I hadn’t paid attention to the warning about the fences being electrified, so when I’d grabbed the wire, it’d taken me a minute to realize that the tingling sensation was, in fact, electricity.

The kiss was like that, but a hundred times more powerful.

As my tongue explored her mouth, my fingers flexed around the back of her neck, and my free hand went to her hip. She made an eager sound and leaned into me, her hand grabbing onto the front of my shirt. She tasted like my toothpaste, and damn if that didn’t turn me on even more.

I’d gotten laid less than a week ago – the first time since March – and this kiss felt better than all of that had. That was new to me. Sure, there were times I’d had shitty sex, but that’d usually been because one or both of us had been drinking too much, or she just didn’t get into it. I’d also had great sex with women who loved fucking and were great at it.

I’d never had my mind completely blown away with a single kiss.

It was almost painful to pull away, but I had to do it. I had to make sure this was what she wanted. I couldn’t take advantage of her. I had to know before this went any further. I brushed back a few strands of hair that’d come loose from her braid and let my thumb run along the side of her neck.

“I can help you forget, if you’ll let me.”

My voice and hands may have been steady, but my insides were a mess. I hadn’t wanted a woman this badly in I didn’t know how long. Honestly, I wasn’t sure I’d ever wanted a specific woman like this before. No face or name came to mind, not even from when I was a teenager. I’d never cared who the woman was, just that she was hot and willing.

But Aline was different.

For reasons I didn’t want to think about too much, it wasn’t about getting laid. If she turned me down, I wasn’t going to find someone else. I only wanted her.

“Yes, please.”

She practically whispered the words, her eyes flicking up to my face and then away. Even though she was the one who’d made the first move, she seemed almost…shy. Maybe it was because she still wasn’t sure that I really wanted her, and if that was the case, I’d just have to prove her wrong.

“Are you sure?” I asked, moving the hand on her hip up to her waist, my fingers creeping under the bottom of her shirt to find bare skin.

She took in a shaky breath and finally met my eyes. Her pupils were so wide that I could barely see the thin ring of green around them. “Yes.”

I pulled her back onto my lap and took her lips again. She ran her fingers through my hair as I situated her legs on either side of my waist. A quick fuck wasn’t what she needed to get out of her head for a bit. She needed me to take my time.

And, if I was being honest, as much as I wanted to be inside her, I didn’t want this to be over too fast.

I slid my hands under the back of her t-shirt, her skin soft and warm. She made a pleased noise as I lightly bit her bottom lip. I was so absorbed in the kiss that it took me tracing her spine twice to realize that she wasn’t wearing a bra. That brought my hands around to her sides, and I ran my hands over her ribcage, my thumbs just barely brushing her breasts.

We had too many layers between us.

I broke the kiss and smiled when she gave me a puzzled, but definitely dazed, look. When I reached behind me to pull my shirt over my head, she figured out what I was doing and shifted to give me the room I needed. Her gaze was locked onto my chest as I reached for the hem of her shirt.

“Wow.”

---