Page 40 of Seducing Cinderella

He came to an abrupt halt but didn’t turn around. With hands fisted at his sides and his wide shoulders heaving, he looked feral and dangerous, and God help her, sexy. Shivers ran down her spine and goose bumps raised over the flesh of her arms, but it wasn’t from the cool rain pelting her skin and drenching her hair. Even seething angry the man affected her on the basest of levels, and it both thrilled and frustrated her.

When he turned and stalked toward her with a menacing gleam in his eye, Lucie wondered if she shouldn’t have let him walk it off and apologize later as he backed her up to the brick wall. She knew she should apologize again, should say something,anything, but words failed her as she stared up at a side of Reid she’d never seen. His demeanor was positively animalistic, and it sure as hell wasn’t of the cute and cuddly kind.

“What is it about that asshole that has you so twisted up?” he shouted. “I’m serious, please tell me, because lately I’ve been trying to figure it out and I fucking can’t!”

Twisted up? If she was twisted up over anyone, it was Reid. This was supposed to be a casual arrangement, nothing more than lessons on how to be the kind of woman who attracted a certain orthopedic surgeon so they could live happily ever after in her companionable relationship based on mutual interests and professional respect.

As it was now, she wasn’t sure what she wanted anymore. Actually, that was a lie. Her brain told her she wanted Stephen. But her body—and Lucie feared even her heart—was screaming for Reid.

She shook her head, sections of her hair slapping against her cheeks. Hot tears spilled over and she prayed they blended in with the raindrops so she didn’t look as pathetic as she felt. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”

The peak of his faux-hawk arrowed slightly over his forehead, heavy with the water streaming from its tip. His shirt, a pale gray with silver pin stripes he’d left open at the collar and cuffs rolled up over his muscled forearms, was now soaked through and plastered to his body.

He braced his hands on the wall by her head and leaned into her personal space a little more. He imprisoned her gaze with a stare so intense she was helpless to look away, and when he spoke, his words were razor-sharp. “Are you thinking of him when I’m inside you, Luce? Do you wish it washiscock buried inside of you instead ofmine?”

She’d hurt him. More specifically, the softer side of him. The side that made him a thoughtful friend and considerate lover. The side that touched her body as though his fingers worshipped every curve, then transferred that reverence to canvas.

So now his fighter half was taking over, fortifying his defenses with harsh and crass questions in an effort to disguise his wounds. But though it might be the fighter’s words pouring from his mouth, it was the artist’s feelings behind them. For the first time, she truly understood the duality of his nature.

Lucie shoved all thoughts of what she needed aside and focused on what it washeneeded. Confidence settled over her as she framed his face with her hands, the short stubble of his beard tickling her palms.

“Never.” Surprise flickered in his eyes before his mask slipped back into place. “The moment you touch me, I lose myself to you, Reid.” Stretching up on her toes she placed a kiss on his lips. “Every. Single. Time.”

Thunder boomed overhead as a strobe of lightning cast his animalistic features in a pattern of shadows and highlights revealing his intent. She only had a moment to prepare and then his mouth descended quicker than a viper strike and just as deadly.

She moaned and opened to him, reveling in the hot swirls of his tongue as his hands palmed her ass and pulled her in hard against his rigid cock straining behind his zipper. Arching into him, she tried to obliterate every air molecule that separated them, needing as much contact with him as possible for fear she’d die without it.

He slipped a hand between them, moved her panties aside, and thrust two fingers deep inside. She broke their kiss, unable to stop herself from crying out to the storm above as the sudden intrusion rocked her to her core.

“Goddamn it, Luce,” he said gruffly. “I love that you’re always so wet for me. I’ve never felt anything so tight and hot. I want to live inside of you and never leave.”

Speech was impossible, so she made do with a pleading whimper and a roll of her hips to try and get him to move. It worked, but not how she’d meant it to. Instead of fingering her like she thought he’d planned, he pulled completely out and left her empty.

“Reid, please…”

“Don’t worry, baby, it’s only for a second.” She watched as he ripped the fly of his jeans open and pushed them down enough to release his erection. Long and thick, ridged with veins and capped with the smooth, round head, she had a sudden desire to drop to her knees and take him in her mouth, but he didn’t give her the chance.

Digging his fingers into the flesh of her cheeks, he hoisted her up, deftly moved her underwear aside, and drove himself in to the hilt. Lucie buried her face in his neck and clamped down on her bottom lip as darts of pleasure shot through her center. Immediately he retreated and thrust forward, setting a feverish pace that felt necessary for their survival.

The mineral scents of wet stone mixed with the floral scent of her drenched hair and the spicy cologne on Reid’s shirt. The sounds of rumbling clouds and rain pelting the world around them wrapped them in an elemental cocoon and almost made her believe they were the only two people on earth.

His mouth ravaged her lips, her jawline, her throat, her shoulder. The tips of his fingers gripped at the edges of where he penetrated her, his large hands spreading her apart to allow him as deep as he could go.

She dug her nails into his nape, mimicking the bite of the bricks at her back. Rain streamed down their faces, yet they didn’t blink as they stared into each other’s eyes, connecting their souls as he connected their bodies. In a million years, she could never think of another man when she was with Reid. She wasn’t capable of thinking at all when she was in his arms.

Everything melted away except this moment, this man who had the power to consume her until nothing mattered but the way he filled her, stretched her…completed her.

All too fast she felt her climax bearing down on her. She didn’t want this to end. She wanted it to go on forever. Clenching her teeth, she tried to hold it back, but it kept building and building.

“Let it go, baby. I want to feel you squeezing my cock. Come for me,” he growled.

In another half a dozen strokes his teeth clamped down where her neck met her shoulder and she lost her last thread of control. They came together in a cataclysmic explosion. He roared like the feral beast he’d become in the dark alley as he spilled his hot seed into her clenching sex.

Lucie shattered into a million pieces, dancing in the thunderous clouds above for a time before falling with the rain back to earth…back to Reid.

When they’d caught their breath, he gently lowered her to the ground, keeping his arms around her until he was sure her legs would hold. He cupped her cheek, kissed her lips, and said, “Let’s go home and get you out of the rain, hmm?”

She gave him a small smile and nodded. “What about the drawing? It’ll get ruined in the rain.”

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