Page 51 of No Kind of Hero
She struggled to her feet, but her heels didn’t make it easy. She was only halfway up, in fact, when Evan reached for her, got her under the arms, lifted her with no apparent effort, and putheron the bed. On her back.
“Nice,” he said, with absolutely no smile. “Very nice. Turning the tables, huh? Well, they just turned back. I’m going to be your fantasy tonight, too. Stay right there.”
Oh, boy. Her body was already pulsing with arousal, and all she wanted was to satisfy it. But if Evan was going to be her fantasy . . . she’d shared alotyesterday.Or he had. She couldn’t remember whose ideas they’d been. She just remembered how good they’d sounded.
He’d already switched on the bedside light. Now, he padded across the bedroom and switched off the overhead one, then stopped at his dresser and pulled something out, and she might have forgotten to breathe. Some sort of . . . fabric.
When he came back and draped a red scarf over the lampshade—well, the rosy glow was nice, but it was also a distinct letdown. Except that he was still holding another one. He dropped it on the bed beside her, and then he just stood over her.
He didn’t start unbuttoning her dress, not the way she’d imagined. Instead, he traced gentle fingers along the delicate gold chain she wore. Along her neck, over her collarbone, and lower. Like he could wait. Like he had all night. Around to the other side, until his hand was at her throat again, his thumb wrapping around, and he was holding her neck gently in one big hand.
It was a power move, and she knew it. It was gentle, and it was dominance. A stallion sinking his teeth into his mare as he mounted her. Just that hand, and she was already shivering.
“Want to see how much I want you?” he asked. His voice was low, nothing rough about it. But his hand was still there.
“Y-yes,” she said. A wise woman didn’t sign anything until she read the fine print. Unfortunately, she wasn’t a wise woman. Not tonight.
“Do you trust me?” His eyes were shining too hot. His eyes were seeing too much.
“Yes.” This time, it was a whisper.
“If you want me to let you go,” he said, “you tell me. And if you don’t want me to let you go . . . I won’t.”
She was burning up. Every secret part of her was tingling, throbbing. She needed thisnow.
He took her hand in his, ran a hand all the way up her arm and back down again, then lifted her hand to his mouth and kissed it. First the back, and then he turned it over and kissed her palm. There was no smile on his face when he said, “I’m going to tie you up. And then I’m going to take off your clothes.”
He was on the bed, straddling her, pulling her hand over her head, then taking hold of the other one. Both her wrists held in one big hand, and then something wrapping around them. That piece of silk.
She’d wanted a man who could do mechanical things. Who could change his own oil. Put in a floor.
Tie knots.
He moved off her, then, so he was standing by the bed again. His chest was rising and falling as if he’d run a race, and she knew how he felt. Her arms were stretched all the way over her head, and she couldn’t move.
She didn’t say anything, and neither did he. The moment stretched out, and then stretched out more, until he reached a hand out and unbuttoned her top button, then the next one. He was looking down at her, his fingers tracing over that sensitive spot between her breasts where the clasp of her bra would have been. If she’d been wearing one.
One more button, another, and he was pulling back the fabric on either side of her breasts, baring them.
“Nice,” he said, his hand grazing first one, then the other, and just like that, she was shifting on the bed, the unfamiliar restraint driving her up higher.
He was over her again, straddling her, his hands cupping her breasts, teasing the nipples, and then his mouth was on her, and . . . oh. Sogood.
It didn’t last nearly long enough. Just when she thought that surely, if he kept doing that, she’d come from that alone, his mouth left her, and he was moving down her body, unfastening more buttons, touching and caressing every inch he uncovered. The dress was parting, and he was below her navel, almost . . . there.
She’d been wet since she’d sat at that table with him, drinking her wine. Or before. When she’d walked toward him, had seen his eyes sweep her body, and had known he could tell everything she wasn’t wearing. Everything she was feeling. Now, though, he’d moved down farther, was unbuttoning the dress up from her mid-thigh, his hands whispering over her sensitized skin, making her shift.
When he finally unfastened those last two buttons that were all that hid the evidence of her spa trip, he sighed, shoved the two sides of her dress apart so all of her was bared, and drew a slow hand straight down her body, all the way to the heart of her. He opened her, explored her, like he had all night and he was never going to stop. And she didn’t want him to.
And then he did stop, slid his hands all the way down her thighs, and stopped at her ankles. He looked into her eyes, and he untied the bows.
“Ah.” He sighed, because under that ribbon that encircled her ankle, he’d found the golden chain. Even thinner and more delicate than the one around her neck, with a tiny golden heart hanging from it.
“You said . . .” she managed to say, “that you wanted it.”
His hands were around her ankles again, dragging her legs apart the same way he’d done the day before. But this time, she was so keyed up, she could swear she was almost there, her muscles contracting as if they could do it all by themselves.
“Evan,” she said, and it was a moan. “Evan. Please.”
