Page 53 of The Criminal

When she repeated the word, it nearly gutted me, so I let go.

She bowed her head, and everything shifted. No longer was she attacking my body, trying to wring a response from my flesh as hard and fast as she could. She had softened. Her mouth and hands were delicate and worshipful. My pleasure built with each touch. Something voluptuous replaced the visceral biological reaction she had been pulling from my body.

I moaned her name, and she looked up. Her hands and mouth coasted up and down my length. I watched a single tear slip down her cheek.

I couldn’t handle her like this. Everything about tonight was wrong.

“Enough, angel.” My voice was a ruin of need, rough and deep. I tugged her hands from my body and tried to pull her to her feet.

“Please, please. Let me finish. Make this unforgettable for you.” She sagged toward the floor, with only my hold on her wrists keeping her up.

“Lee, every time with you is unforgettable.” I pressed my forehead to hers.

Our breath mingled together, hot and humid, laden with unspoken words and raw emotions.

She turned her face and nuzzled against me. “Show me.”

Her words were hardly more than a whisper, but they lodged in my chest like an arrow.

Everything between us was changing tonight. It was a turning point. If I couldn’t say the words, I would make her feel them. My touch would declare everything I was too chickenshit to say. Or even think. She was my world, and tonight she would understand.

Chapter 27

Lee

Derekloweredmedownonto his soft sheets, his weight pressing me into the bed. He cupped my face, and with a touch as soft as a whisper, he kissed away the remains of the tears that had slipped past my guard. His tender touch prompted a fresh wave of turbulent emotions, and I fought against a sob growing in my chest.

In the kitchen, I’d been falling—trying to crash and burn, to self-destruct—and he stopped me. Pulled me from the edge. The gentle way he carried me into his room and stripped off my clothes… I didn’t deserve his care. I wasn’t a good woman, and he… God, he was the best of men.

His lips pressed to mine, and I tasted my tears.

I opened my legs and wrapped them around his naked hips. The ridge of his erection slid over my center. I held him to me as tightly as I could, imprinting every sensation into my bones. I would never again have the perfect weight of him above me.

He kissed my neck, my chest, his mouth lingering on each nipple until it ached. He worshiped my flesh, and I melted beneath his touch. No words passed between us, only gasps and moans. He moved slowly, reverently, like making love underwater.

He took his time savoring me. Licking and sucking as I twisted on the sheets, drowning in perfect sensations. My quivering thighs crushed him to me as I came on his tongue, his name tumbling from my lips over and over.

“Angel, you’re so lovely.” He sat up and leaned toward the nightstand to get a condom. I caught his arm and stopped him.

“Not tonight. I don’t want that between us.” There were enough barriers that I couldn’t do anything about.

“Lee? You’re sure.”

My thighs opened for him as I tugged him down. “I want to feel you. Only you.”

It was a slow descent. His thick arms braced on either side of me quivered with restraint. He pressed his length into me, stretching me. Filling me. Making me whole for the last time.

I couldn’t stop the silent tears. This was making love, and I wasn’t prepared.

He cupped my head and held my gaze as he thrust home. His thumb rubbed away the moisture on my cheek.

“Hard, please.” I tried to dislodge his weight, make him move. My emotions were becoming uncontainable and difficult to endure. A good hard fuck would tamp them down. Save me from them.

“Not tonight.” He moved with slow, gliding strokes and deep, unrelenting thrusts that trapped me. That made me experience everything I wanted to escape. This was the beginning of the end.

I sank my nails into his back and tipped my hips to meet his.

“Good girl.”

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