Sweeter Than Sin (17 page)

She pulled back and turned back to stare out the window. “This has all been a long time coming. And there’s going to be a reckoning.”

Those words filled him with foreboding. And because the want in him, the heat, the hunger, the love he’d felt for her all his life had to be denied, it tripped out of him in a rage he just couldn’t silence. “Yeah?” A snarl curled his lip and he watched as she turned to look at him. “Why don’t you just tell me about that, sugar?”

*   *   *

The rage wasn’t exactly unexpected.

But how he’d gone from raw misery to raw rage in the blink of an eye, it caught her off-guard.

“I don’t think I’m ready to talk about that yet.” She turned away from him but hadn’t taken even a step before she was spun back around. Instinct warred with fury and logic and compassion. Muscles bunched, clenched, ready to strike out, but she didn’t do anything as he loomed over her, his face all but lost in the shadow.

“And when are you going to be ready? You show up out of nowhere after twenty years and you won’t say a damn thing.
When
are you going to talk, Lana?” he murmured, reaching up and pushing a hand into her hair. “
Are
you going to talk or are you just going to disappear again?”

Her skin prickled at his touch.

She looked away from him, away from the intensity of his eyes, and tried to breathe. It had gotten hard in the past few seconds. Probably had something to do with how hot it had suddenly gotten, or maybe the fact that her heart had short-circuited and was racing away at about two hundred beats a minute.

The hand in her hair tightened as he tugged, guiding her gaze back to his. “No answers?” The smile on his face was just this side of cruel. “Why am I not surprised?”

“I can’t give you answers I don’t have, Adam,” she said, keeping her voice level.

And her gaze off his mouth.

She really, really wanted to feel that mouth against hers. All of a sudden, it seemed very important, like the center of her world. It might even be the most important thing
in
the world in that very moment.

“What can you give me?” he asked, his voice low.

She was imagining the need in his voice. Imagining it because she
wanted
to hear it there. Except when she forced herself
not
to look at his mouth, she noticed that he was looking at hers.

Hunger lashed at her like a whip and she curled her hands into fists to keep from reaching for him.

“What do you want?” she asked, her voice hardly more than a whisper.

His lids drooped low.

Silence hung between them, heavy, taut, sharp as a blade. Then, as it stretched out for almost longer than she could bear it, he reached up and rested his hand on her hip. “I want things I shouldn’t. I always did.”

His thumb slid beneath the hem of her T-shirt and Lana could feel her breathing hitch in her chest. This was insane, the way she wanted.

This was insane, the way she needed.

But then again, she’d taken one look at him behind the bar and she’d wanted. Each second since then seemed to draw that need even tighter and now, standing there, practically surrounded by him, she felt like she was coiled like a spring, just ready to snap.

Maybe it was stupid. Maybe it was insane.

But she didn’t care.

She’d been
careful
for twenty years.

She’d shut herself down for twenty years.

She could have one damn night when she didn’t have to worry about anything and everything, couldn’t she?

Slowly, she lifted one hand and rested it on his chest. Through the thin material of the shirt he wore she could feel the heat of him, and it scalded her. His heart hammered against her palm, hard, fast beats that seemed to echo the rhythm of her own. Swallowing, she dragged her eyes upward and found herself caught in his gaze. Caught, held.

“What do you want?” she asked softly.

He just stared at her.

And when she leaned forward and pressed her lips to his, he held still. Almost like he was frozen. But she felt the hunger, like it was a beast, snarling from within. It practically vibrated inside him and she pressed closer, desperate to unleash that hunger and just
feel
.

To let go for a little while and have somebody else—no. Not somebody else.

To have
Adam
with her while they both enjoyed the ride.

She stroked her tongue across his lips and he just stood there.

She caught his lower lip between her teeth, tugged, and he just stood there.

She kissed her way across his cheek, his jawbone, and down his neck. He just stood there. His pulse raced under her touch, but he didn’t do anything. Didn’t even show any sign that he wanted her.

Other than the fact that she could
feel
it.

Doubt started to whisper inside her and she went to pull back.

That
was when he moved.

Her breath lodged in her throat as he spun them around. Her head was still whirling and then her heart stuttered to a stop as hard, calloused hands closed around her waist and boosted her up, settling her butt on the edge of the bureau that took up nearly half the wall. She opened her mouth to say something. Anything. She didn’t even know what she might have said, though, because Adam’s mouth caught hers in the next moment and anything she might have said just … died.

His kiss consumed her.

It was as though he breathed her in and just … consumed her.

His hands cupped her head, held her steady, and that touch might have been the only thing grounding her, too, because she felt like she was about to fly into pieces just from the kiss.

His tongue rubbed across hers, a sensuous, teasing rhythm that sent a low, demanding pang through her. Groaning, she arched against him, and he responded by sliding an arm around her waist and pulling her up against him, firm and tight so that nothing but their clothes separated them.

Too many clothes … through those layers, she could feel the heat of him and the strength of him and that hunger that vibrated inside him, barely held in check.

With teeth and tongue he all but devastated her, with just that kiss. And then he shifted his attention, working his way down to her neck, and she fell back, slamming her hands down on the bureau. Dazed, dizzy, she stared up at the ceiling as his teeth raked over the sensitive curve of her neck. “Adam…”

His hand curled over the hem of her shirt. “You asked me what I wanted.”

“Yes.” She sucked in a desperate breath of air and watched as lifted his head, staring at her through his lashes.

His hand skimmed up along her torso. She felt her heart bump against him as he passed over her chest, and then he stopped, his palm curved over her neck. “And what if I want this? Do I get this?”

Heat flooded her.

She should say no.

Logic should step in and she should think and she should push him away.

Instead, she reached for the hem of his shirt and pulled it up.

He let her. She dropped it to the floor and reached up, resting her hands on the wall of his chest. He had a light smattering of hair between his nipples, running down the middle of his torso, disappearing under his jeans. She wanted to follow that line with her mouth. Her throat went dry as she reached up and traced her fingers along the ink. Here the chains were broken, like something had caused the links to break, just along his powerful shoulders.

The sexy, sexy tattoos. She had such a weakness for them.

Biting her lip, she traced her finger down his chest, studying the dates written in scrolled ink. They started above his heart and continued down the lean line of his torso, stopping shy of his hip bone. Three dates, in bold, scrawling font. She could barely read them in the dim light. Easing in, she cocked her head, studied them. “Why the dates?” she murmured, pressing her lips to them.

“To remind me.”

She lifted a brow. “Yeah? Wouldn’t a calendar be better?” she teased.

He hissed as she touched her tongue to him, one hand coming up to curve over the back of her flesh.

“Some things are more important than that.” He tangled a hand in her hair and tugged her head back. “Open your mouth. I want to taste you.”

She groaned and he swallowed the rest of the sound down, his mouth slanting over hers.

Against her chest she could feel the raging rhythm of his heart, and when she closed her mouth around his tongue and sucked, his heart rate jacked up even more, his arms tightening around her.

“Bed,” he growled against her lips a split second later, pulling back just enough to press a line of kisses down her jawline, along her cheek, up to her ear to catch her lobe between his teeth. “We should move to the bed.”

“Sounds good to me.” She angled her neck and shivered as he scraped his teeth across her skin. That was … bliss. Yeah.
Bliss
described it. She hadn’t felt alive like this in, maybe, ever.

Instead of either of them moving to the bed, though, they fumbled with their clothes. He stripped her jeans away while she fought with the zipper of his. He kicked off his boots and she hurriedly unlaced hers.

He came back to her in the dim light and reached for the hem of the shirt she still wore, but she evaded him, smoothing her hands across his torso, studying the tattoos she couldn’t quite make out.

The dates written in scrolling ink down the left side of his chest and abdomen, while on the right side of his chest what looked like a firebird that stretched across his skin, the wings edging over his shoulder, the flames meeting and appearing to melt the chains as the wing continued on down his back. It was like the giant bird had mantled his wings over Adam and settled into his skin. There was an odd design in the bird’s chest, one she couldn’t make out in the light. She rubbed it with her thumb and leaned in, but instead of trying to study it, she found herself kissing Adam, pressing her mouth to his chest, seeking out the flat circle of his nipple and biting him lightly.

Adam groaned, the sound hoarse and broken as he wrapped his arm around her waist.

“Bed,” he muttered again, his voice more urgent.

She laughed, clinging to him as the room whirled around him. The sound died in her throat as she found herself sprawled on her back, staring up at the ceiling as he came down over her. His mouth, hungry and hot, caught hers, his hands going to the inside of her thighs and pushing wide.

She fumbled with his jeans, all but panting as she finally freed the thick, heavy ridge of his cock, a rush of want arrowed through her and she felt feel herself getting wetter. Wet and ready and so hungry for him.

Closing her hand around him, she dragged her palm up, down, felt him throb under her touch. As she reached the crest, she circled her thumb around the tip and felt the bead of fluid there. She spread it across his head and watched his face as she stroked back down.

He jerked in her hand and she smiled, staring up at him. A snarl crossed his face and she did it again, and again. He started to push against her hand and need twisted inside her, almost painful.

“Lana…” he whispered, the sound shaking and rough, almost reverent. Then, abruptly, he was gone and she shivered, sitting up and staring at him as he snagged something from the ground.

She blinked, feeling a little dazed, and then understanding dawned as he pulled out his wallet. Something that might have been humor tried to work free as he tugged a rubber from somewhere inside the wallet.

At any other time, she would have made a flippant remark.

Just then, she was only glad he had something with him.

She heard the foil tear and she reached for him as he came back to her.

He reached for the hem of her shirt and she caught his hand out of instinct, held it down. Those were questions she wouldn’t answer. Catching his head in her hands, she tugged his mouth to hers. His hand stroked across her torso, back up her neck to rest there, and his gaze bored into hers as he moved up and pressed against her.

Her breath caught and she shifted, spreading her thighs and curling her arms around his neck.

A shaken curse slid free as he slowly pushed inside. “You … fuck, Lana. You’re so tight and hot.” He stroked a hand down her thigh, seeking out the rigid knot of her clit, and she jolted as he started to stroke. “Easy, girl … relax.”

Relax?
She sucked in a breath. Was he insane?

He rocked against her, pushed a little deeper. “You’re so wet … that’s it.…”

She whimpered, rocking against his hand, unconsciously working him a little deeper inside her.

“Fuck, that’s good … more,” he muttered. “Take more.”

She shuddered and did just that, arching and moving against him, feeling bruised from him, but she didn’t care. It didn’t matter; nothing mattered but getting closer, taking more, just like he’d asked.

He slid a hand under her, tugged her closer as he rotated his hips and sank deeper inside. The thick pillar of his cock stroked against sensitive flesh, stretched too tight, and she shuddered as he swiveled his hips, changing his angle so he hit her just
there,
right against her G-spot, and she cried out, arching her spine and moving against him again.

The hot, heavy wall of his chest moved against hers as he crushed her closer. “Like that?”

“Yes.…”

He did it again and she cried out again as he found his rhythm, each stroke taking him deeper. It had been so long for her and she hung on the blade between pleasure and pain, so desperate for him, for more of this. Watching him, feeling him moving inside, getting lost in his eyes, was too much.

All of it swamped her and she closed her eyes, desperate to center herself, even a little. A hard, warm hand came up, circled the front of her neck.

“No,” Adam said, his voice guttural and harsh. “You said I could have this … that includes you seeing me. Me seeing you … Look at me, Lana.
Look
at me.”

She groaned and forced her lashes up. He retreated and then surged forward, flexing his hips and driving deeper inside. And he watched her … the whole time. It felt like he was staring straight into her soul and all the secrets, all the darkness and the fear and the misery, was just laid bare for him to see.