“Don’t tease me. Don’t offer me something you won’t really give me.”
“I’ve been trying to give this to you for a while,” he said as his lips traced the top of her neckline and he dipped his tongue beneath her shirt, but not reaching the place she wanted it most.
“Have some mercy, Cam,” she cried, pushing her hips into him again before reaching for his head and dragging it downward.
He opened his mouth over her nipple. The cotton of her shirt prevented him from tasting her skin, but when he sucked through the fabric, her body sang anyway, and need poured through her.
He moved his hands down to her behind and then she was on her back and he was on top of her, pressing his hardness against her while he sucked harder on her straining nipple. Their clothes were a maddening barrier between them.
“More,” she demanded.
Letting go of her peaked nipple, he ran his tongue up her throat and finally kissed her the way she was meant to be kissed, possessing her mouth as he pulled against her hips and ground himself against her core.
“I need you, Cam,” she murmured into his mouth.
He released her lips briefly. “I’ve wanted to hear that for so long,” he said, and he lifted her shirt away and then ripped the side of her panties to free her for his easy exploration.
Sliding his mouth down her throat, he at last circled first one nipple and then the other, wetting them, hardening them, making her scream out her passion. When she was at the point of madness, he kissed his way down her quivering stomach and spread her thighs apart with his hands.
Grace arched off the bed, into his mouth, greedy for what he was about to bring her. His tongue toyed with her swollen folds, and she felt her pleasure hanging right on the edge as he flicked his tongue around the one point of her body that cried out for him the most.
“Now, Grace,” he groaned before sucking her swollen bud into his mouth at the same time that he pushed two fingers inside her.
She didn’t disappoint either of them. Her body let go, explosions of pleasure ripping through her, making her call his name over and over again until there was nothing left inside her. He slowly climbed back up her body and let his hips—still clothed, dammit—rest against hers, making her burn once again, and even hotter than before.
“I want to do that over and over again,” he said, his lips touching hers so softly, with so much control.
“Mmm,” she murmured, in complete agreement.
“Tell me you won’t pull away. Tell me this isn’t just one more time, and then six months will pass again without you allowing me to touch you.”
He cupped her chin and forced her to look at him. She tried not to, but he wouldn’t let her go, his passion-filled gaze nearly undoing her.
“I can’t make that promise, Cam,” she said, her lips quivering as she reached for his hips and pulled him against her. “I just can’t do it, so please don’t make me. You want me, so take me.”
She tried reaching for his lips again, but he wouldn’t kiss her. He just lay there, poised above her as his hips ground against hers and the two of them stared at each other.
“All you have to do is admit you’re mine, Grace, and I will continue to make your body sing,” Cam said.
He shifted his body slightly to the right so he could reach up and cup her still-aching breast and trace her nipple with his thumb. She had to bite her lip to keep from groaning.
“You’re only punishing yourself by withholding, Cam,” she told him as she pressed up against him once more.
“Yes, I’m punishing myself,” he said, then pressed hard against her, showing her how thick and full he was, showing her how good it would feel if he cast aside his shorts and thrust inside her. “But I want more than to have you only once in my bed.”
“This is all I can give you right now,” she said. She nearly cried out when he pulled away from her. “Don’t do this, Cam. You want me.”
He paused next to the bed and looked down at her, something burning in his eyes that she couldn’t comprehend, couldn’t imagine being for her. It appeared to be love, but there was no way he loved her. No one ever had.
“I do want you, Grace. And I will have you.”
With that parting shot, he left her alone and aching in his bed.
“Thank you for the ride home.”
Grace climbed stiffly from Cam’s car and tried to scurry away, but he was right on her heels. “I’ll walk you up.”
“Not now, Cam. I don’t want to talk to you anymore.”
This morning had been traumatic enough, and she was still reeling from their intimate talk in the middle of the night and then waking up that morning in his arms. But mostly, she was mortified about what had followed. The way he’d walked away had nearly killed her, but she wouldn’t beg him, and she definitely wouldn’t commit to him. What had her on edge more than anything else, though, was the fact that it had felt so right being there with him.
Not just the sex, or almost sex.
But also his scent, his expert hands, the feel of his warm chest beneath her fingers. All of it had been what she’d pictured waking up to every morning for the rest of her life. But some dreams were meant to die, and that was one of them. She wouldn’t let a man control her ever again, and Cam was incapable of relinquishing control, especially to a woman. All the Whitmans were that way. Maybe all men were.
“You’re running away, Grace. You do it every time you think there’s even the slightest chance of a connection.”
“If I may remind you, you were the first to run. Back then, I wasn’t going anywhere, Cam. And I’m not running anywhere now. I’m just . . . I’m tired, that’s all,” she told him as she reached her door and inserted her key. “So go home.”