Inspire
breath at the sensation, glad for the thickness of his leather jacket that hides the way my breasts have become swollen and tight and gods … this is wrong. So very wrong . But I’m not sorry.
    I hear the jingle of keys, but I don’t know how he manages to get the door open because his eyes never leave mine. Our faces are so close together that when he leans forward to push the door open, my lips accidentally brush his jaw. He sucks in a breath and closes his eyes. Stepping over the threshold, he shuts the door behind us, and I don’t think. I just act.
    Before he can lower my feet down to the gray carpet below me, I tilt my chin up and touch my mouth to his. His arm returns to my back, his fingers curling around my side, but other than that, he doesn’t move. Doesn’t kiss me back.
    I press a little harder, willing him to respond because if he doesn’t … if I read all of this wrong … that would be the icing on the terrible fucking cake that is this night.
    I pull back, already squirming in an attempt to get him to put me down.
    “I’m sorry. I—”
    He drops my legs, but loops that arm around my waist too, keeping me up and against him, my toes still off the floor. I don’t look up at him and he says, “Kalli.”
    His voice. It’s so smooth and warm, and I just want him to keep talking to me. I could forget everything about tonight, ignore it all to listen to his voice.
    “You’re really sober?” he asks.
    He must take my scowl as truth enough because as soon as I open my mouth to reply, his lips slam into mine, hot and hard.
    He pulls my bottom lip into his mouth, sucking and nibbling and driving me crazy. I thread my fingers through his hair like I’ve wanted to do since the first time I saw him. One of his hands slides up my side, grazing the curve of my breast before trailing up to my neck. A thumb runs along my jaw, and he tilts my head back, taking control.
    Passion .
    It comes from a Latin word that means to suffer . And that’s what the slick thrust of his tongue against mine is—a suffering so sweet that my head spins.
    His mouth slants over mine, rough and possessive, and all I want is to be closer to him. Slipping a hand beneath the back of his shirt, I follow the slopes and valleys of his muscled back with my fingers. When he drops to my neck, grazing his teeth and then tongue over my pulse, I dig my fingers into his lower back. He groans, and the feel of his hot breath where my neck meets my shoulder pulls goose bumps across my skin. So, of course, I do it again, slipping my hand farther up and then dragging my nails down.
    He says my name, and I say his back.
    “Wilder.”
    He traces two fingers over my swollen lips and groans. “This mouth has been driving me wild since the first time you smiled at me.”
    I do just that, pulling my lips wide, and he kisses me, frenzied and so, so good. He takes a step forward, then another, moving toward a plain couch in the center of the living room. When we’re almost there, he finally lowers my feet to the floor, sliding his hands down to the curve of my ass. I stumble a bit and wince when a sensitive part of my foot drags across the carpet.
    “Shit,” Wilder breathes, pulling away. “I forgot. I’m a jackass. Sorry.”
    It takes me several long seconds to stop staring at his mouth. His lips are wet and swollen, and I know I have a matching pair. “It doesn’t hurt that bad. Really.”
    He scoops me back up, and this time I don’t pay attention to my dress. I wrap my arms around Wilder and go to kiss him again. He shifts, placing a kiss on my cheek instead and says, “Feet first.”
    “Look at you,” I say, dragging my mouth over his jaw. “Chivalry is alive and kicking apparently.”
    He groans when I close my lips around his earlobe. “Alive, yes. But definitely in danger of being put aside for a better offer .”
    He nudges open a door with his foot and says, “Light on the right.” I reach out and flip the switch. The bathroom is

Similar Books

Haitian Graves

Vicki Delany

Breathe Again

Rachel Brookes

The Return

Nicole R. Taylor

Atonement

Kirsten Beyer

Perilous Choice

Malcolm Rhodes

White Heat

Pamela Kent

Murder Plays House

Ayelet Waldman

Fireworks

Riley Clifford