Page 74 of Tender Heart
The tight leash I’ve had on my impulses around her since she woke up this morning snaps. Every last thought of putting distance between her, of trying to stay away for her sake, vanishes like the morning fog on a sultry day. Curling out of existence like it was never there.
“Is that you asking me to stay, Callum?” Her words are threadbare.
My heart flings wildly in its ribbed cage.
Yes. No?
Christ.
I can’t ask such a thing of this woman. She’s too incredible to be wasting her life away on an isolated island with just me for damn company. I can already see how it would end. Her hurt, me cemented into this life like the immovable, intolerable bastard I am.
Her face reddens when I can’t respond.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean...” She tilts her head, gaze fixing on some random point in the hut.
I take her face in one hand, sliding the other under her shoulders. Leaning back on my heels, I haul her up to me. Thatoption, her staying and this thing having a real chance, will never make daylight. I’ll never let it.
She can’t want that.
This is her empathy talking. The sweet woman, with the big brown doe eyes and even bigger heart. It’s her way of trying to fix what she didn’t break. “You have a big, wonderful life to live, and this island ain’t where that’s going to happen.”
Evie studies my face. Her mouth works like she wants to say something, but she can’t find the right words.
I cup her face and dot a kiss on her lips. “Hey, don’t feel sorry for me. I won’t have that shit. You’re going to write your book, have an amazing career. Then one day, you’ll think back to the old guy on the island you spent nine months with. That’s all, baby girl.”
Releasing a huffy breath, emotion tightens her face.
“That okay?” I ask, hating myself right now.
She nods, and I tamp out my disappointment. I can barely get the next stupid fucking word out. “Good.”
“Good,” she echoes, and her chest rises and falls in quick succession. Her brown eyes are so damn dark, they appear black in the muted firelight.
“What do you want right now, Evie? Tell me, or I’m taking.”
Her arms move, lifting her shirt over her head. She shakes her head, and her long brown locks spill over her shoulders, tickling the top of her perfect tits. I tug at the bra straps and plant kisses to her shoulders, over her collarbones. Impatience finds me, and I rip the lacy garment from her body. The most tender squeak puffs from her as she startles and settles on my lap.
“Fuckingmine,” I growl.
My mouth closes around her soft, fleshy breast. Her moan sinks somewhere central to my soul. Cock throbbing, I work my way to her dusky hard peak. As my teeth close over her nipple,she leans back on both hands, flat on the floor, offering up a feast for this desperate man.
Mouth watering, I devour one peak and then the other. She wriggles on my lap, whimpering with every long, hard stroke I send over her nipples. The sight of her writhing on my lap almost takes me under.
I may not be able to give her everything, but I can give her this.
She’s so fucking beautiful like this, half dressed, lapping up every little movement my tongue, my teeth, my mouth make. Old wounds split right open against her skin on mine. My self-deprecating thoughts are tossed around my mind like rusted, blunt javelins. I don’t deserve happiness.
She’s not mine to have.
She deserves better.
She . . .
She—
“Fuck,” I choke out. “Eve, we shouldn’t.”
Her head snaps back up, confusion and lust warring for dominance in her eyes. She pants, “Why not?”
