Page 61 of The Last One You Loved
My hands went to either side of her on the file cabinet. “Why are you here, McKenna?”
It was a question I’d asked her several times and never gotten a straight answer, but today, I didn’t mean in Willow Creek. I meant in my office.
She crossed her arms, and it pushed her breasts up, causing the swell to peek above the scooped neckline. A goddamn temptation I couldn’t stop myself from taking. I placed one hand on the bare skin, thumb sliding along the curve. My body slowly burned from head to toe at the simple touch, an aching need to reclaim her lips filling me. A raw, all-consuming passion to repeat our kiss from last night.
A kiss that had been better, deeper, fuller than any we’d shared as teens, and it only made me wonder what it would be like if we were fully tangled, with me inside her. Would the absolute oneness I used to feel when we were joined become something greater? Would we find another plane of existence altogether?
Her eyes closed briefly, but then she opened them again and pushed my hand away. I set it back on the file cabinet, squeezing the metal viciously in an attempt not to touch her. What I really wanted to do was ignore everyone outside my office door, take her down to the floor, and pound out a decade’s worth of longing.
“Why are you trying to find Trap?” she asked, her voice deep and husky.
Her nipples were hard, poking through her sweater, and I suddenly wondered if she had a bra on at all. There were no visible lines. That singular thought only added fuel to the fire threatening to overtake me.
“Why do you care?” I grunted out a response, bending until my nose could brush aside her hair and my breath coasted over her cheek. She shivered.
“I…I wanted to see if I could help. I…” She swallowed hard, and then her chin came up, defiance in her eyes. She placed both her palms on my chest, pushing as if to create a distance between us. The touch scorched me, heat spiraling through every vein. “Can you back up?”
“No,” I grumbled. “Not until I get answers.”
Her eyes squinted in a disapproval her body didn’t feel. She was breathing rapidly, little pants proving she was as affected by our nearness as I was. I shifted, moving closer instead of farther away, until I could feel the outline of her against my hips and legs. The hard length of me pressed into her belly.
Her fingers on my chest moved tantalizingly slow, and then she twisted a nipple—hard.
“Fuck!” I said, taking a step back and putting a hand on the bruised skin.
She grinned, and damn, if that didn’t do me in as much as her bated breath. Pure guts and determination radiated from her as she put me in my place just like she’d done as kids. She’d never let me have the upper hand for too long before she flipped the balance back.
“That was hardly fair,” I said, rubbing my chest and practically shattering from the desperate need to have her back in my arms.
“And you were being fair?” she tossed back. She started toward the door, but there was no way I was letting her go yet. I caught her arm and hauled her back until we collided again. Chests, hips, shoulders. The frantic pace of her heart matched mine, and I suddenly had no desire to ever be fair again.
I kissed her, immediately thrusting my tongue between her lips and being rewarded with a whimper breaking from her. I wasn’t gentle. I was borderline cruel as I devoured her, demanding she respond, and she did. She moaned, core shoving against mine, arms going around my neck, and fingers digging in at the back. We were engaged in a war—who could take the most, give the most, last the longest without breath. One hand went to her lower back, pushing her even closer, while the other went to her hair, twining my fingers into the silky strands and pulling so her neck was exposed. I left my assault of her mouth to trail licks and nips down the smooth column, over her collarbone, and down to the swell my fingers had sought moments ago.
I bit the curve like it was the juiciest of apples, and she gasped, “Maddox.”
My name on her lips, as well as her hand urging my head into her breasts instead of drawing me away, sent me over the edge. I inched aside the neckline of the sweater and found her just as I’d thought?bare. I growled at the sight, licking and sucking one nipple before going to the next. Her body pulsed against me, a little rocking motion my hips echoed.
I was two seconds away from shoving my pants down and pulling her onto the chair when my intercom went off, Amy’s voice filling the room with regret. “Sorry to interrupt, Sheriff, but Trap’s parole officer says he needs to speak with you immediately.”
I growled quietly before reluctantly letting McK go and stepping backward. She looked like a goddamn dream. Tousled hair, pink skin, pebbled nipples. I wasn’t going to survive McKenna Lloyd being in town. Not without losing myself completely.
It was that thought which brought me to my senses.
I couldn’t afford to be lost.
I had responsibilities. I had Mila. McKenna would leave again, and now more than ever before, I wouldn’t be able to follow her.
“Sheriff?” Amy’s voice called.
I jammed my finger onto the intercom button and said, “Send him through.” When I looked back at McKenna, she was righting her sweater with shaky fingers.
That’s when the remorse hit me.
“McK, I’m…”
She shook her head. “No. Don’t. We both kind of lost our heads there for a moment.”
I hated the calm in her voice. I didn’t want her calm. I wanted the breathy yearning I’d had not even a minute before. I wanted my face buried inside not only her chest but her legs. I wanted to taste the sweetness of her like I had once upon a time.
