Slow Burn (16 page)

His eyes widen, his teeth clench, and I know I’ve gotten him with my forward demands. My body tenses in reaction at his silent acknowledgment.

We stare at each other in a suspended state of acceptance of the hard and fast that is about to happen. I feel like everything raging inside me is reflected perfectly in his eyes and in that telling hitch of his breath.

And between one heartbeat and the next Becks’s mouth is suddenly on mine, where it belongs. One hand fists in the sequined shirt on my back and presses my body against his while the other cups my ass through my skirt, fingers kneading into the flesh there. He nips my bottom lip, soothing it with a tender lick of his tongue before taking ownership of the kiss once again.

There’s something about the way he kisses that makes me hope he never stops. Soft and firm. Demanding yet giving. Teasing but desperate. I get lost in it. Get lost to him. I can’t think. His tantalizing assault on my mouth doesn’t allow me to. I’m ready and willing, my body his for the taking, and he’s done nothing more than kiss me.

That single thought breaks through the haze of desire clouding my mind and causes little flutters in my stomach and tingles in my toes at the anticipation of what’s to come.

I want to urge him to hurry, to rip my clothes off and take me right here, right now, but something tells me that I might have gotten away with ordering Beckett Daniels around one time, but one time is all I’m going to get.

Becks just might be that rebel at heart that I go for after all. Sweet, ever-loving fuck yes!

My hands find the hem of his shirt and snake their way beneath the fabric so I can score my fingernails against the
hardened slab of muscle. I feel his torso flinch in reaction, as I use touch to entice him, to connect with him, to tease him. I map my hands along his flank and then up the strong lines of his back.

His hands inch under my skirt so that his fingers can tempt my bare flesh. Chills race across my skin from his incendiary touch despite the surge of heat intensifying with each passing second. I lift my leg and wrap it around his hip so the apex of my thighs rubs perfectly against his denim-clad erection.

The moan falls from my lips without thought. My hands act on reflex to pull his shirt over his head while our mouths break contact for the first time so that it can pass over his face, and then our lips crash back together as if we need each other’s air to breathe.

My hands roam freely now. So many places to discover, so many nerves to tease into a frenzy. And I know it’s working—the combination of kissing and touching—because slow-and-steady Becks begins to move faster, dominance evident in his touch, but he’s anything but steady. Cupping my face, taking the leisurely trip from the curve of my ass up the line of my spine to fist my length of hair, demanding more of me from our kiss before easing back some and then starting the process all over again.

I’m left breathless by his thoroughness—no man has ever kissed me this completely—and I’m ready to scream for him to lay me back on the couch or table or floor and press into my wetness. Drive me to the edge so that I can score his back and yell out his name.

“Becks …” His name is a pant on my lips, my call to him that foreplay is overrated because right now I don’t care about lighting the fuse or the leftover collateral damage.

I’m in the moment—the here and now—and all I care about is the detonation, the need for release.

I allow my hands to leave his skin for a moment, crossing them in front of me as I pull my shirt over my head, tossing
it to the side without a second thought. And hell if the groan that Becks emits from the back of his throat when he realizes that there’s nothing else beneath my top—no bra, nothing—isn’t sexy as hell and spurns my need brighter.

I back away from him, ready to take this erotic dance to the next step. I stay facing him and retreat to the couch until the backs of my legs hit the edge. He follows, eyes locked on mine before momentarily running up and down my naked chest, miniskirt, and high heels. My lips are numb from his kisses and my sex is damp and humming with anticipatory need.

And he just stands there, fists clenched, body tense, staring at me as if the thoughts in his head are working way too hard when it’s the other head on his body that I want working hard in me right now.

“Fuck me, Becks.” I have no shame in admitting that I want him. No embarrassment in confessing my needs. But a trace of unease tickles the base of my spine when he stands there and looks at me, head angled to the side, eyes probing through the darkened room into mine.

He glances up to the ceiling momentarily as if he’s gathering his strength to push me away. Panic fires anew because his words from moments ago hit me.
I’m not letting you go until we talk
. I know that he’s going to start asking questions I don’t want to answer. But why now? Why in the middle of what was about to become some incredible nail-scratches-down-his-back and teeth-marks-left-in-my-shoulder type of sex?

Because he wants
more
.

The thought dawns on me. Well, at first it dawns on me, and then it turns into a wrecking ball of panic bearing down on me. I know Becks isn’t that manipulative, know that he grabbed me from making a mistake with that guy from the club because he’s a good guy, but hell if the mixture of alcohol and his possible rejection isn’t feeding my irrationality right now.

He rolls his shoulders and spits out a slew of curses as he turns from me and stalks away for the second time tonight.

My temper ignites into an inferno of rage fueled by warring pride and desire with a touch of disbelief. “What?” I yell, the sound of my heels filling the frigid silence as I stomp after him. He starts to walk one way and then stops and paces back the other way, shaking his head, shoulders tense. I walk the few feet to where my shirt lies discarded and tug it over my head as if it’s a layer of armor to protect me from what I fear will come next. “You haul me from the club, kiss me like you want to fuck me, and then what? Change your mind?” There’s fire in my veins and ice in my voice.

“Yeah, imagine that,” he huffs, sarcasm rich in his tone, as he puts his hands on his neck. He lets his head hang momentarily as the silence grows stifling. “Christ, Haddie, I know all you want is a quick romp and to walk the fuck out the door with an ‘I hope this won’t be awkward next time we see each other.’”

I stare, face impassive at him and his dead-on assessment before he continues. “But one of has to step back to prevent the disaster this is heading toward since you sure as fuck are determined to give nothing of yourself.”

“Nothing of myself?” My voice escalates with each word as my temper flashes hot again. Does he have any clue how hard it is for me to hold back right now? How much I think about him? How I want to take the leap, not look at tomorrow and see what the future holds?

But I can’t.

I can’t until I know for sure. Until I know that I have tomorrows to offer him.

“I’m giving you everything I can right now, Beckett.” My voice is soft but resolute, and I can practically see my words drift across the space between us and slam into him full force.

“I call bullshit,” he swears as he continues toward the
wall of windows. He shoves his hands in his pockets and stares out at the world beyond us. A striking solitary silhouette. And all I want to do is walk up behind him, wrap my arms around his waist, and let him in. Tell him I want more so that I can share this pain, the fear, with someone so that I’m not alone anymore, but that would make him feel obligated to stay when things go to shit—and that’s not fair to him, either.

How can I ask so much of him when I feel like I’m a ticking time bomb myself?

I force myself to look away from everything about him that calls to me. I make myself take a moment to glance around the room so that I don’t have to look at him or acknowledge the comment he’s thrown at me. So that I don’t focus on how the confliction he’s feeling is so palpable that I can feel it roll off him and collide into me. Because right now if I acknowledge it, if I accept it, then I might take that step forward and tell him I want those strings tied to him with knots and pretty little bows covering them.

The whole package.

The Danny and the Maddie.

I squeeze my eyes shut and pull myself from a momentary panic attack that threatens at the thought of what I’m never going to allow myself to have. I tell myself to shut down, to disengage so that I can’t feel.

I open my eyes when I hear movement to see Becks walking back toward the entryway. He stops and turns to face me, an apology etched on his handsome face. “I promised myself that I wouldn’t break my rules again regardless of how damn tempting you are. Haddie …
we either are or we aren’t
.” He shrugs, his eyes begging me to make the right decision. “So you tell me, what the fuck is this, Haddie?”

Panic claws its stifling fingers around my throat as he asks me to make a decision I can’t make. Either answer hurts one of us, hurts him or breaks me. So I try to play dumb, hope he thinks I’ve had enough alcohol to pull it off.
“What the fuck is what? Seems to me you wanted me, and now you don’t. What else is there to figure out?”

And I know I’ve failed miserably because he’s on the move again, crossing the few feet until he stands at the front door. He pounds his fist against the wood—the boom reverberates around the room—before turning and leaning his back against the door, thumbs stuck in his pockets, one foot propped behind him and his eyes assessing every inch of me.

“That’s how you want to play this? Turn this into you pretending that I don’t want you. That I’m rejecting you? Haddie, everything about you makes me want to beg to take you … to fuck you into oblivion so thoroughly that you forget your own name because you’re so goddamn busy moaning mine.” He rolls his head back on his shoulders, staring at the ceiling for a moment while my body recovers from the visceral reaction to his words, my panties now damp from their dark promise. He’s offering everything I want. “Hell, I’m all for casual sex, Had—been there, done that—but this,
us
, it’s too goddamn complicated to be anywhere near the realm of casual. So make me the bad guy if you have to—
blame me
—but really, this is on you until you answer the question: Are we or aren’t we?”

Images flash through my mind. Memories we could make together if I answer the question truthfully. If I let him in … allow myself to feel with one hundred percent of my heart rather than the bits and pieces I dole out when I’m not cautious.

Then the images switch from hope and happiness to darkness and grief: Lexi’s casket, tears falling like rain, and my heart cinched like a vice. My body may be screaming yes to the thought of so much more with Becks, but my head and heart argue no.

They say disengage.

And I’m a hot mess. A cornucopia of fucked-up and conflicting thoughts that pushes me toward the irresistible man
before me and pulls me back all at the same time. I try to rationalize, to tell myself that my heart is in the right place. That the fight I’m about to instigate to push him away is justified. To save him from the train wreck I can’t control.

Please, forgive me
. I throw the thought out into the silence of the room and hope that somehow the universe delivers it to his mind, allows him to understand sometime in the future that I’m doing this to save him in the long run.

“It doesn’t have to be this way. Complicated. You’re the one rushing in to save the day when I was far from the damsel in distress.” If I wanted him to look at me, this was obviously the right thing to say because his eyes snap to mine and anger sparks in them.

I see that muscle in his jaw pulse from his gritted teeth as he tries to contain his emotions. As he tries to rationalize my lie and hide the hurt I see flash in his eyes. “If he’s what you want, feel free.” He shifts off the door. “You know the way back to the club.”

His eyes taunt me, dare me, say,
Try me
. And hell yes, I want to walk toward him—but not to leave. Every part of me tells me to answer the question honestly—say,
we are
—and that right there is exactly why I have to walk out the door and back to the club.

Except I’m not thinking too clearly. I still have that last shot humming through my blood and the taste of Becks’s kiss on my lips. Just enough of both to make me defiant, want to pick a fight with him for his caveman stunt. For pulling me away from quick and easy with club guy and bringing me here to the worth it and complicated. Two things I can’t have right now. I know that I can’t be tempted with wanting more even though for some reason it just feels so damn right with Becks.

And he mistakes my internal struggle for something else, for wanting someone else. “Cat got your tongue? Weighing your options because I’m sure Slick back there will treat you like a lady. Make sure the bathroom is empty at least
before he brings you in there and tries to fuck you in one of the stalls.” He lifts his eyebrows.
“Real classy.”

He’s pushing my buttons. I recognize it, but it’s just what I need to hold on to to make me leave and prevent the mistake I’m about to make. The one I want to make to sate the craving he started when he pinned me to the goddamn couch and kissed me like a man starving for more.

But it’s so much easier to hold on to the anger, latch onto it and be mad at him. Use his words as my reason to hold fast to the fight. I tell my feet to move, tell my sexy-as-hell heels to put one foot in front of the other, but they stay rooted to the floor right along with my gaze.

He chuckles low and even, a sarcastic amusement woven through the sound that pisses me off. “What are you afraid of? Why is his offer so much more tempting than mine, huh? Oh, I know why,” he says, sarcasm dripping from his words. “He’ll walk away without any questions. But I won’t, will I, Haddie? I have plenty of questions. The first one being, what
exactly
are you running from?”

My eyes flash up to meet his, and the look—the moment that passes between us—is too honest, too raw. I have to break it. I can’t let him see the truths that even I’m trying to hide from. How I feel and what I need to fix me—the answer being
him
—because I’m not going to allow it to happen.