Page 7 of Rush of Insanity

“I certainly don’t think you missed me.” She stated as fact, but she looked at him in question, demanding clarification that he couldn’t give just yet. He’d had too much pride when she left, and he was still overflowing with it now.

“As fun as this exercise is, I’m going to have to leave.” She walked the perimeter of the room, the hint of her vanilla perfume tempting his senses. He reached for her again, and she pivoted to deflect the connection. His fingers drifted over her stomach, to her hip, and into painful thin air as she continued to the door.

“No.” He jogged after her, panic infiltrating his veins as she clasped the handle. “We need to talk.” He shoved his palm against the door and settled his chest into her back. She was warm. Soft. Perfect. She was his, he only needed to remind her.

“Please, Judd.”

Her plea was a shock to his senses. He’d never been exposed to her vulnerability before. It was foreign and delicious. He wanted to poke for more. To make her defenseless in the exact same way she did to him.

“Please what, princess?” He smoothed his cheek through her hair, inhaling her sweetness into his lungs. “Are you asking to leave or begging to stay?” He placed his lips below her ear and trailed a path to an unfamiliar silver chain resting against her neck.

A whimper brushed his ears as she placed her head against the door. “What do you want from me?” She pushed back and turned to face him, her eyes now glazed with lust and something less inviting that he refused to believe was sorrow.

“I told you, we need to talk.” He leaned in to take her lips but she turned her cheek, denying him.

She’d never denied him before.

Not once.

She was as addicted to his kiss as he was to hers. Unless… “Are you with someone?”

She looked at him, holding him in place with unblinking eyes. Thoughts flickered behind those mesmerizing irises, he could read them, could tell exactly what she was about to say.

“Don’t lie to me, Harper.”

She winced and the cutest puff of breath left her lips. “I’m not with anyone.”

Perfect. “Then you’re mine.”

She shuddered as his mouth descended on her neck. He sank his teeth into her, scraping her skin like he knew she loved. There was no time. No air. No thoughts. There was only touch and taste and smell.

There was only Harper and her need that couldn’t be denied.

He unbuckled her belt and expected a protest that didn’t eventuate. He’d won her over. Her body at the very least. Her delicate hands gripped his upper arms and he closed his eyes at the sense of belonging. He’d been adrift for too long. He’d been alone.

Not anymore.

She wouldn’t walk away again. He refused to allow it.

“Have you thought of me?” he spoke against her skin. “Have you touched yourself and pictured me in your mind?”

“Of course,” she drawled, heavy with sarcasm. “Every night.”

He chuckled and shoved at the waistband of her black jeans, lowering them a few inches. “That’s good. Because I think of you every damn time I come.”

She growled, losing the battle to hide the way her body became soft against his.

“Just touch me,” she demanded, all anger and defiance, “and hurry up.”

“Let me see you first.” He gripped the hem of her shirt and lifted.

“No.” She grabbed his wrist, her eyes wide with panic. “This is all you get. I’m not taking off my clothes.”

That was new, too. His woman wasn’t shy. Maybe it was punishment. Retaliation for winning her over with his touch. “Fine.” He’d look his fill in time. For now, he’d be content staring into those defiant eyes.

He released her shirt and snaked his fingers into her panties, over her smooth pubic bone and lower, to the tiny bundle of nerves at the top of her pussy. His dick demanded precedence, his thickening shaft pulsing against the zipper of his pants. He wanted to be all over her. To be inside her. But that would come later.

“What are you waiting for?” She jerked her hips, sending his fingers through the slickness of her arousal and moaned.

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