style="font-size:15px;"> Softly his fingers untangled from her hair and trailed across the silky smooth skin of her cheek and jaw. Touching her was the most amazing form of torture. The kick of awareness and need would have brought him to his knees if he was upright.
This woman had always had the ability to cut straight through him. He’d wanted her since he was seventeen. It had taken him almost a year to convince her to go out with him. To look at him as something other than her big brother’s best friend.
In those months he’d done everything he could to show her he was serious and not just looking for something quick and easy. And the day she’d finally agreed to go out with him...he’d never forget the powerful, joyful feeling that had swept through him. Or the delight and wonder in her expression when she’d opened the box to find the camera he’d saved six months to buy her. The extra hours he’d worked had been totally worth it.
He hadn’t given her the gift just in the hopes of breaking through her defenses. He understood the reasons she’d resisted, but he’d always known they’d be amazing together.
At seventeen he’d been sure Lola Whittaker was the woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. And up until the day he’d almost killed her brother, that had continued to be the plan.
So, yes, he should listen and let her go.
But he couldn’t. He might have left, but he’d never let her go in his heart. Not really. Lola had haunted him for six years. He’d done the right thing once. Apparently he wasn’t strong enough to do it again.
“I can’t,” he whispered right before his mouth claimed hers.
She stiffened, but the reaction lasted only a handful of seconds before she gripped his shoulders and pulled him closer. A sound leaked out of her throat, a cross between a groan and relief.
At a single swipe of his tongue across her lips, she parted her mouth and let him in. God, she tasted just like he remembered. Spearing his tongue deep inside her mouth, he stroked against her own silky tongue.
She sucked and nipped. Chased after him when he tried to pull away. “Easy, baby,” he murmured. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Her legs tangled with his, hands chasing urgently over hot skin. She was just as frantic for him, which settled something deep inside him.
Erik pulled back, needing to look at her. Take her in. See her again. His gaze scraped down her lush body, all golden skin and compact muscle. God, she was gorgeous. And he wasn’t just talking about the outside.
Lola had always intrigued him. Even as a kid, her confidence and determination were enviable and contagious. She knew who she was and what she wanted. From the outside looking in, he didn’t think she’d ever faltered or questioned her own path.
He was someone who always questioned who he was, where he was going and what his purpose was, so her attitude had been like a shining beacon, pulling him in.
Lola, eyes half-lidded and sparkling with promise, arched up. Reaching behind herself, she popped the clasp of her bra open. Shaking the straps down her arms, she tossed the thing to the floor.
Just as he’d remembered, even her breasts were that warm, golden tone. He wanted to run his tongue over every inch of her skin, breathe her in. Her dark, dusky nipples puckered hard, begging him to touch and taste.
She squirmed beneath his gaze, a flash of unease crossing her expression. “Don’t,” he whispered. Erik didn’t think he could take it if she changed her mind. Not now.
“I don’t do reckless,” she murmured. And Erik knew just how true that statement was. Losing her mom so suddenly, living with her remaining parent risking his life every night...and then falling for Erik even after he started living the same life. That fear she’d kept bottled up had made her cautious, not that he blamed her.
Colt’s accident had surely made her even more so.
His life, on the other hand, was nothing but reckless.
Erik shifted, ready to climb out of bed even though it was the last thing he really wanted.
But Lola’s grip on him tightened, holding him in place. “Tonight I’m stepping outside my comfort zone,” she whispered. “You walked away without giving me anything, Erik. Give me this.”
Her words lanced through him, mixing pain into the pleasure that swamped his body. But he couldn’t tell her no. Had never been able to tell her no. Which was why he’d texted that he was leaving—because he knew if he’d looked in her eyes and she’d asked him to stay, he would have.
The thought of watching the love she’d felt for him morph into accusation and loathing—blame he’d rightly deserved replacing everything they once shared—had nearly killed him.
Tomorrow they’d deal with whatever came next. Right now he just planned on loving her.
Her hips shifted beneath him, rubbing the moist heat of her sex over his throbbing erection. This time, Erik didn’t bother trying to bite back the groan that twisted through him. Although he did smother it when he wrapped his lips around the irresistible flesh of her breast.
He sucked hard and then smoothed the flat of his tongue against the tight peak. Scraping his teeth softly up, he stopped, gently holding her nipple prisoner...and then blew. She writhed beneath him, her leg wrapping high on his hip.
“You were always so responsive,” he growled, dragging his mouth, tongue and teeth over every inch he could reach.
“Only with you,” she breathed.
A possessive sense of wonder slammed through him. His. Lola had always been his. But that possessiveness came with a dark edge, because while her statement made him feel powerful, it also made it glaringly obvious that he hadn’t been the only man to touch her like this.
He had no right for that to piss him off. And yet it did. She’d been a virgin when they’d come together. That had meant something to both of them.
Dammit, this was not the time or place for those thoughts.
Scooting down the bed, he pushed the memories away with the need to put his mouth on her and make her whimper.
Kneeling between her spread thighs, Erik hooked his fingers into the waistband of her panties and slid them down her legs.
“Look how wet you are. For me,” he murmured, swiping a finger through the dripping evidence of her arousal. She moaned, her hips chasing after him.
“Please, Erik. Please.”
“You’re so pretty when you beg, Lola.”
Her feet flat on the bed, she bucked up. Her sex was pink and swollen. Pulsing with arousal. The scent of her made him dizzy.
Sweeping in, Erik ran his tongue up her slit, letting the taste of her burst through his mouth. Salty, with a tang he wanted more of.
Finding her clit, he circled around it over and over again, never quite touching it, until her body was strung so tight he thought she might break. And she whimpered again. Only then did he stroke across the tight bundle of nerves.
Her
