The Coldest Summer✓

Forty

"I hope you won't regret asking me to stay," he warns, staring ardently at me with darkened eyes.

My cheeks pinken in color, heat burning me from the inside out.

"Why? Will I have a reason to?" I raise a playful eyebrow, trying hard to control the impact of his so tight grip around my waist, possessive even, and his pink lips that have deepened in color to near reddishness.

And if those same lips are capable of driving me out of my wits, how will it feel when his other objects wander on, in, and out of me? Just the thought makes my body flame.

"What do you think?" His hand slips underneath my robe, heading to places I've imagined him touching so many times.

I suck in a breath and reply, "I don't know."

"Well, Ms. Jones . . ." He smiles wickedly, drawing me closer to him using one arm while another fist into my curls. "I can't promise to be a gentleman now that we're alone. I'm just warning you."

Whisper of a devil? How lovely!

"Oh really?" I laugh out loud, blushing all over again at this delicious warning. "Well, I think I accept the danger, Mr. Darcy. It's more exciting and thrilling than a perfect harmony that barely exists."

And I want to be as defiant as I can be just for that matter. 

"We shall find out soon enough." He starts kissing me again, more voluptuously this time until my whole body flames.

Relentlessly, he lifts me and my legs curl around his waist. I firm my hand around him, my breasts crushed tightly by the muscles of his hard chest, and onto the couch, he lays me down without taking his lips off mine.

He only stops when I'm all settled beneath him. My head rests on the pillow wedged against the armrest. My chest shores on and off like capricious ocean waves—stirred and restless—and Liam places his one knee on the cushion to bulk himself as he leans over me.

His face closer to mine, breath to breath, he grins down at me.

Damn, the look of devouring he gives me as if I'm the last woman standing. It makes me feel needed and wanted. Responsively, I grab the sides of his jacket, urging him to shrug it off in a similar design.

He's finally mine.

"I love you," I confess heavily, eyes on his as he hoists himself up to flap his jacket away.

"And I you," he replies while pitching it on the floor.

His lips find mine in nanoseconds, his body weighing me partially as I lay back on the couch. We kiss deeply, gently, full of passion I only see in movies and romance books I read, caressing each other unhurriedly.

I've pictured this moment for so long. I've yearned assiduously for the man who can plague my desire and need to make love, to strip me away from fear, and eventually, he's here, capable and willing to turn me into the heroine I wanted to be. 

His firm fingers run over my curves, caressing my thighs with so little patience.

It's fine. This is Liam Darcy and not him. I hold my breath and let him proceed.

But it suddenly feels anything but right.

The more I fight it, the harder it gets into my head. My breath hitches and certainly not from pleasure. No, it's from pain. From torture. From the dark memory that holds me on a leash. I don't feel as I should be feeling and so my eyes shut tightly to repel.

Liam's tongue is on my chest, kissing the swell of my breasts while undressing me subtly. My mind begins to spin. It's kind of déjà vu: the crawling sensation of dirty hands all over my body, the forced kisses, and most terrifying of them all . . . the brutal thrust between my legs.