Page 36 of Salvaged Heart
I had him completely pinned under me, and he writhed, half screaming, half coming undone with laughter. He’d gained a little weight in the last few weeks, but I still greatly outweighed him. My legs, thick and muscular from years of conditioning, restrained his arms effortlessly at his sides.
Digging my hand into the bowl, I brought out a fistful of frosting. His eyes caught on it, widening. “You wouldn’t dare.”
“Wouldn’t I?” I leaned down, bringing my face within inches of his. My frosting-covered hand was placed menacingly in his periphery. “Apologize.”
He squirmed more. I let him wriggle just a little, but not enough to get free. The friction of his hips moving under mine set every nerve ending on fire. I could tell by his smirk that he felt the effect his movements were having on me.
“Tell me it’s the most beautiful cake you’ve ever seen.”
“My mother told me good boys don’t tell lies.”
I hummed, “You’re not a good boy, though, are you, Anders?”
The words came out huskier than intended. Based on how his eyes dropped from mine to my lips then back up again, hisAdam’s apple bobbing in his throat, he'd heard the change in tone too. The world stood still for half a moment, his lips parting as if to whisper my name in that way I was becoming addicted to. I found myself leaning into him as if pulled by some magnetic force. My lips desperately seeking his and…
The mother fucker licked me.
Not a sweet, sexy lick, either. A sloppy, wet, spit-covered long lap from my jaw up the side of my face, like an overexcited Labrador. I recoiled in surprise, loosening my lock on his body just long enough for his arms to escape and him to shove me onto my back. He threw his leg over me, flipping our positions but unable to control my flailing arms. I shoved my frosting-covered hand up over his mouth, the thick mixture caking his face, him half choking, half laughing around it. He reached behind him, grasping for something, a wicked twinkle glinting in his eyes before his own two hands came crashing down on mine, coated in sticky buttercream, pinning them over my head.
“I got you now.” He smirked.
I could be free in a second, but my desire to escape his control was nonexistent. “I guess so.”
He leaned in, running the flat of his tongue up the side of my neck, this time in a slow, intoxicating way. My hips bucked on their own accord, ripples of desire rolling through me. Moving to the other side of my neck, he repeated the motion, lapping the frosting slowly up to my ear, where he bit down playfully on my lobe.
“You are the most beautiful cake I’ve ever seen.”
He took his time running his tongue over me, slurping up the buttercream in open-mouth kisses, gently nipping at my skin as he went. Whispering things like, “So fucking tasty,” and “I want to eat you up” against my neck. His hips grinding against mine in a slow, tantalizing rhythm, drawing out whimpers and moans from me. I was so freaking turned on it took me a minute tonotice he had released my hands to run his up the inside of my shirt, painting a trail of sticky mess over my stomach.
I wanted to touch him, feel his tongue run between the valleys of my abs, but as my hand dropped to his fly, he pulled back. His fingers moved quickly to wrap around my wrist. One word left his mouth, firm and uncharacteristically harsh, “No.”
I froze, searching his gaze. “No?”
I didn’t move other than to pull my hands away from him, holding them up either side of my head in surrender. His whole demeanor shifted before my eyes until he looked almost scared.
“We need to get showered and changed if we want to make the meeting.”
I nodded, not knowing what to say, as he rose to stand.
I didn’t know what I’d done to ruin the moment. Mere seconds ago, we had been lost in each other, and now he was pulling his walls back up around himself. His expression looked hauntingly like the one he'd given me in the alleyway after our first kiss. He hadn’t let me touch him then, either.
I filed that away for later.
Anders disappeared upstairs, and the sound of water rushing through old pipes a moment later let me know he was in the shower. I lay where he left me, gazing up at the ceiling, trying to quiet the thrum of blood in my veins. I’d never wanted anyone the way I wanted Anders, and while that should terrify me, for some reason, I found it did not. The truth was, if he hadn’t stopped us, if he hadn’t pulled away and left me, I don’t think there would have been a single thing he could have asked me for that I wouldn’t have given him.
Things were changing between us, evolving into something strange and complicated. There had been something about Anders from the moment I met him, something that called to me that I hadn’t been able to put my finger on. I'd chalked it up to the desperate need I'd always had to fix broken things,and just like the house that creaked and rattled around me, I’d recognized Anders for all he was. All he could be beneath the thick layer of dust that hung heavy over his soul. I’d wanted to make him smile, laugh, eat, and let me see beneath that cracking exterior to the man hidden inside. But it hadn’t been that way for a while. Now, I didn’t just want him to smile. I wanted him to be happy. I didn’t want to make him laugh. I wanted to make him feel joy. I continued to pile food on his plate and shuttle him back and forth to meetings because I wanted him, above all, to be healthy. And that need to see inside the enigma that was Anderson Carmichael had become so desperate that I no longer wanted just to know his heart but also carve myself a place in his soul.
As if the universe knew I needed a reminder of the reality of things, my phone buzzed in my back pocket with an incoming call. I pushed myself into a seated position, shuffling backward slightly until I could lean against one of the packed cabinet boxes behind me. For the first time since Anders and I had wrestled on the floor, I took in the devastation our frosting war had left. It would take hours to clean up. But a grin spread across my face at the memory and the knowledge that, regardless, I wouldn’t change a damn thing.
Well, except for whatever caused him to run away.
I fished my phone out of my back pocket as it rang out, sending the call to voicemail. ‘1 Missed Call, Laurel Mitchell’ flashed up on my screen. Knowing I had spent too much time ignoring and blowing her off over the last week to do it again, I hit the call-back button and put the phone on speaker.
“Beck?” She answered like she didn’t expect me to be on the other end of the line.
“Hey, Laurel. Sorry, I didn’t get to my phone quick enough.”
“I was starting to think you were screening my calls.” She was scarily accurate with that statement, and guilt twisted in my gutas a result. However, I was surprised to find that the source of it wasn’t what it should have been.
