Page 22 of The Interstellar Rake's Irresistible Kiss
Releasing his grip on her, he leaned back on the couchand linked his hands behind his head. “And you have whatever you want from me.”
Her ankles felt chilled without his touch, and she would’ve wobbled a little at the loss of his support, but he spread his legs, anchoring her with that wider base.
She fisted her hands in the front of his shirt. “Why are you making this harder?”
“Because while you makemehard”—he canted his hips upward, nudgingher with the bulge behind his pants—“I’m not sure what you want. Or ifyouknow what you want. And you still have that recharged blaster somewhere…”
She frowned at him repressively. “I missed you.”
“I missed you too. That’s why I came over here tonight.”
She hadn’t meant that, and she knew he was probably teasing. And yet…
He wasn’t wrong. For a charming rogue who admitted he was still badat heart, he was being awfully slow to take advantage of her. So she’d have to show him.
She clambered off his lap, almost painfully aware of the robe sliding across her sensitized skin.
Nor angled his hips to protect that impressive bulge of his, and disappointment creased his brow. “Trixie…”
He thought she was rejecting him? She grabbed the bottle of booze and his hand. “Come to the bedroom.”
For a second, his weight was a rock, holding her in place, but then he sprang to his feet, so fast she stumbled a step back.
He swung her up into his embrace. “Point the way.”
She gestured with the bottle before taking a swig. The potent burn made her gasp. Or maybe that was the feeling of being held so high above the ground.
“I won’t drop you,” he said when she tightened her arm around hisneck.
It had happened before, though not actually physically. And she’d survived.
She wasn’t sure she’d make it through again. But it wouldn’t matter because tonight was about forgetting. She took another drag from the bottle.
At the threshold, she gasped, spewing a fine spray of ghost-mead. “Stop!”
He did but he groaned. “Mishkeet, you’re killing me.”
“Well, I’m trying to not. Uh, theremight be boobytraps in the bedroom.”
He took a slow step in reverse. “Why?”
“So I can sleep.”
His lips quirked. “At least you warned me.”
“I got sidetracked,” she said defensively. “By the booze.” When he angled a wry stare down at her, she felt obliged to confess, “And the kisses.” She squirmed in his arms. “Let me down.”
He allowed her to slide to her feet and plucked the half-empty bottlefrom her hand. “No more of that for you, in case you forget to tell me about any plasma cannons or concussion grenades you have tucked away.”
Taking a shallower draw of the ghost-mead himself, he watched her disable a proximity alarm and a sonic stunner she’d, er, borrowed from the gardens that was used to chase vermin from the shrubbery.
“Okay, it’s all good,” she said hastily. “No more traps.”
His gaze glittered silvery in the unfocused nightlighting that had come on as they entered when he deposited the bottle beside a vase of sculpted greenery on the delicate side table by the door. “No more of forgetting anything,” he chided. “I want you, but I wantallof you, here, aware, and wanting me back, not drifting like a ghost in mead.”
Her throat tightened with the urge to yell at him.He didn’tgetto have any part of her she didn’t want to give. She’d told him that already. If she only offered her body, that was it. But of course he was a pirate, so she shouldn’t be surprised he wantedeverything.
No, what horrified her was how much she wanted to give it all. Had she learnednothingfrom her mother’s terrible experiences with handsome, charming devils?
