Page 78 of Stolen for Keeps
And then his mouth was on mine. The contact was earnest, like he couldn’t hold back. He wrapped himself around every part of me, no halfway. As if he’d decided that, no matter what I’d done, I was still worth holding on to.
The storm howled, thunder breaking fiercely over the valley, like the heat on my lips. Noah kissed me like a man who’d lost too much already, and I kissed him back like destruction was the only language I spoke.
But this moment wouldn’t break me. Even if I had no clue what it meant.
“I want you as you are, Maya.” His voice was raw, his forehead pressed against mine. “I’ve left too many times. Let go too many times. Sometimes, I had no choice. Sometimes, I regretted it. But you?” He pulled back just enough to look at me, his hands framing my face like I was something worth holding on to. “I’d curse myself for the rest of my life if I let you go.”
How do you say no to a man like that?
Noah Lucas.
More than a cowboy. More than an ex-media flirt. More than a waltz partner or a man who pulled me from a landslide.
He was the first man who ever made me feel wanted. Never a mistake. Even my mother hadn’t granted me that. Not sincethatday.
He hurt hard, and I knew that. So how could I let myself be the one to cause it?
And maybe that was why I cracked, hopeless, cornered, and seconds from exploding.
I pressed into him, my body greedy and aching. The thick ridge of him against my jeans made my pulse tumble.
Being in prison at eighteen had cut short a lot of things, like my freedom, my future, and my chance at knowing what real intimacy felt like. But I’d had others. Fast hands. Quick scrambles. All experiments, zero emotion. I’d never let it mean anything.
But this? This was different.
Noah was like the forbidden apple finally hitting my tongue. And suddenly,I knew.
I fumbled with his jeans, the fabric soaked and stiff, clinging to him. I didn’t care. My hands wouldn’t stop shaking.I needed him too badly. Needed to prove to myself that I could have someone and still feel whole.
“I want you,” I whispered, kissing his throat and licking the rain off his skin like it belonged to me.
“Maya…” His voice cracked. “You don’t have to?—”
“Iwantto.” I looked up at him as I pressed his hardened cock. With him, the forbidden apple didn’t just tempt. It made me ache to give, to please, to surrender. “Let me.”
And he did.
He let me slide down and take his length into my hands and mouth, eagerly and fully. I kept at it until his fingers gripped my hair.
He tasted like salt and heat and rain, and something I’d never had before—trust.
22
NOAH
Rain rushed around us, but Maya burned like she’d been lit from the inside. My fingers slid into her hair, the slick strands tangling in my grip as her mouth moved over me.
“Maya…” My voice broke around her name. “God…what are you doing to me?”
She released me with a wet pop that made my spine lock. I tried to breathe, to reset, but there was no coming back from that. Not with her lips that swollen. Not with her eyes looking up at me like she already owned me.
“You stopped me from leaving,” she said. “Let me return the favor.”
And then she took me in again.
Hot. Wet. Consuming.
My head thudded back against the truck door. The women I’d been with before had been careful. Size wasn’t always a blessing. Most had treated it like a chore. But Maya? My Blue Storm?
