Page 125 of Dallas

She skimmed her fingers over his abs and nearly whimpered. He was so freaking hot.

With one hand, she worked at his belt buckle, the other enjoying all of his amazing muscles. Then she got frustrated with her one-handed technique and attacked the belt with both hands, pushing his pants and underwear down to the floor, dropping to her knees in front of him.

They hadn’t done this yet. She hadn’t. Because...stupidly maybe, it seemed so intimate. And now she wanted to taste him so bad she was shaking with the need for it. Tobring it back down to sex—that was why. To stop him from saying all these sweet things. To stop him from talking about her living here full-time, like that could ever happen.

She cupped him, sliding her palm up and over his shaft, squeezing him gently before leaning in and tracing the head of his cock with her tongue. He sifted his fingers through her hair, tugging hard when she took him into her mouth.

A harsh curse escaped his lips, and he tugged harder as she moved her hand in time with her lips and tongue. And she liked it. This was raw. This was sex. This was something she could understand.

It was Jace, her lover. The man who made her feel like she could do anything to his body and he would like it. The man who whispered dirty promises in her ear at night.

Not the man she ate cupcakes with. Not the man who hated dog hair and kept a small vacuum in his pickup truck to take care of dirt.

This was the easiest way to put a sharp divide between those two men, and she needed the divide. Without it, things were too dangerous. Without it, Jace was everything.

She pushed that terrifying thought away and focused on pleasuring him. On how hot and hard he was, on how perfect. On how this had never, ever been an arousing act to her before, but had her on the brink now.

“Enough,” he growled, tugging lightly on her hair. She followed the motion, rising to her feet, breathing hard, her entire body shaking. “I need you,” he said, his voice rough.

He wrapped his arm around her waist and gripped her thigh with his other hand, lifting her and setting her on the counter with one smooth motion. He pushed her skirt up to her hips, his hands rough as he pulled her wool tights and then her panties down her legs.

He held her open to him, thrusting hard inside of her,kissing her deep, in time with his thrusts. His desperation fed hers, her heart hammering so hard she thought it would eventually come to a dead stop, too exhausted to beat once more.

He pulled away from her, then entered her again, slowly this time, his eyes on hers, intense, dark, predatory, but for some reason, the line between Jace, her friend, and Jace, her lover, blurred. And they became one man.

He became everything.

A choked sob rose in her throat and she wanted to close her eyes. To bury her face in his neck like she’d done the first time. To hide from what they were doing. From what she was feeling.

But along with the pressure, the emotion building in her chest was the climax building deep inside of her, tension that was winding tighter and tighter. A sob broke through her lips, and still she looked at him, at his eyes. And she saw the emotion there. Flecks of light breaking through that dark gleam.

Something that went beyond sex. Something that pulled hard at her heart, at all of the feelings swirling inside of her. That forced the desire, the building climax and all of the emotion into one massive knot that made it impossible to breathe.

Panic assaulted her, and she tried to fight it. Tried to fight everything. The feelings. The desire. But it was too late. She was too far gone.

“Oh, Sam,” Jace said, his voice rough, broken as he thrust, harder and faster. And his voice, her name on his lips, his heat and hardness around her, in her, pushed her over the edge.

Everything shattered around her, shards digging inside, splintering the knot that had built into tiny glass slivers thatburned through her, stuck into every part of her. Pain and pleasure in equal parts. A tear slipped down her cheek as the wave of her release washed through her, soothing the burn left behind by the emotion.

But only for a moment. The wave was salt on a wound, leaving her feeling raw, in pain, in the aftermath of the most incredible, devastating release of her life.

Jace lowered his head, kissing her, desperate, intense. It wasn’t sexual, it was something more. A bid for connection, for an even deeper closeness. When they parted he kissed her forehead, her cheek. “I love you,” he said, his voice broken. “Samantha, I love you.”

Chapter Ten

She shook her head and tried to look away. “Samantha,” he said again, cupping her chin, redirecting her focus, forcing her to meet his eyes. “I love you.”

“No,” she said. “No.”

“Sam...”

“No!” She pulled away from him and got off of the counter, panic surging through her, her entire body shaking. She pushed her skirt down her hips, covering herself.

“I do,” he said.

“Stop it. That’s not what this was. This wasn’t supposed to change anything.”

“Too damn bad. It changed everything.”

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