Page 60 of Until the Storm Breaks
“I never said it was temporary.”
The words surprise even me. She stops, stares at me, eyes wide. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying I don’t have answers. I’m saying my life is in Seattle but I can’t stop thinking about you.” I run my hand through my hair, frustrated. “I’m saying everything’s complicated and I have no idea how to fix any of it, but I know I don’t want to leave things like this.”
The air between us crackles with tension and want and frustration all tangled together. We’re standing on a precipice, both of us knowing that one more word, one more move, will send us over the edge into something we can’t take back.
CHAPTER 15
MAREN
“Maybe you should just go,” I say, eyes narrowed, trying to rebuild my walls. “I can’t do this right now.”
He doesn’t move. Just stands there looking at me with those dark eyes that make rational thought impossible, and I hate him a little for it. For coming in here and dismantling my carefully maintained control with his confessions and his intensity and his stupid perfect face.
“Did you hear me?” I ask, though my voice betrays me by wavering.
“I heard you,” he says quietly.
“Then why aren’t you leaving?”
“Because you don’t want me to.”
The arrogance of it should make me angry.Shouldmake me tell him to get out. Instead, it makes heat pool low in my belly despite my best efforts to stay angry. To stay safe. Because he’s right, damn him. I don’t want him to leave. I want him to stay and finish what he started with all those confessions. To push me up against the wall and…
“You don’t know what I want,” I manage, but even I can hear how unconvincing it sounds.
“Don’t I?” He takes a step closer, and my breathing picks up, shallow and fast.
“Calvin, don’t?—”
“Look me in the eye and tell me you don’t feel this too.” His voice is rough now, scraping over my nerves. “Tell me you don’t want this. Tell me to leave and mean it, and I’ll go. I’ll walk out that door and we can pretend this conversation never happened.”
I open my mouth to do exactly that. To protect myself. To be smart for once in my life. But the words won’t come. They lodge in my throat like broken glass, cutting me from the inside. “I meant what I said about temporary,” I whisper, my last defense.
“I don’t want it to be temporary either.”
“You don’t mean that. You’re going back to Seattle and?—”
“Fuck Seattle,” he says roughly, and then his hands are framing my face and his mouth is on mine.
The kiss is desperate from the first second. No gentle buildup, no tentative exploration. Just heat and want and weeks of tension finally snapping. I make a sound against his mouth and my hands come up to grip his shirt, pulling him closer, always closer.
He kisses like a man starving. Like he’s been thinking about this as long as I have. Like he wants to consume me whole and I’d let him. His tongue sweeps into my mouth and my knees actually buckle. He catches me, one arm banding around my waist, holding me up, holding me against him.
My back hits the bar and he follows, pressing against me until I can feel every hard line of his body. And God, he’s hard everywhere. Solid chest, strong thighs bracketing mine, and when he shifts I can feel exactly how much he wants this too. The evidence of his desire makes me dizzy. One hand tangles inmy hair while the other grips my hip, fingers digging in possessively, like he’s afraid I’ll disappear.
I’ve never felt anything like this. Like being consumed and worshipped at the same time. Like I might actually combust from wanting someone. Every nerve ending is firing, every cell reaching for him.
I nip at his bottom lip and he groans, the sound reverberating through me, making me feel powerful and reckless. The taste of him that’s better than any drink I’ve ever served. His hand tightens in my hair, angling my head exactly how he wants it, and I let him. God help me, I’d let him do anything right now.
“Maren,” he breathes against my lips, and my name in his mouth sounds like salvation and damnation all at once.
“Don’t stop,” I gasp, pulling him back down. “Just don’t?—”
He cuts me off with another kiss, this one slower but no less intense. Like he’s trying to memorize me. His hand slides from my hip to my waist, fingers spreading wide across my ribs, and I arch into him shamelessly. He makes a sound of pure satisfaction that goes straight to my head like top-shelf whiskey.
My hands find their way under his shirt, nails dragging across his abs, and he shudders against me. The power of it, of affecting him this way, makes me bold. I scrape my nails harder and he tears his mouth from mine to curse.
