Free B00VQNYV1Y (R) by Maisey Yates Page A

motion on the other side until her skin was clean. She didn’t know what she expected him to do next, but it wasn’t what he did. He dropped to his knees, undoing the snap on her jeans. He lowered her zipper, and as the fabric parted he swept his tongue over her tender, bared skin.
    “There’s no frosting there,” she said, her voice shaking.
    “I don’t need it. You’re sweet enough.” He grabbed hold of the waistband of her jeans, pulling them and her underwear down her thighs, down to the floor.
    “Luke…” It had been one thing to do this for him, but it was quite another to have him do that for her.
    She wasn’t really sure why. Maybe because she’d been confident in her attraction to him. Tasting him, taking him into her mouth had been fantasy fulfillment for her. But for him?
    He said he wanted you. He said he wanted you then and not anyone else. Just trust him.
    He kissed the top of her thigh and she shivered. She didn’t have the brain power to worry about what he wanted or didn’t want. She couldn’t think about anything but the way his hands felt, holding her so tight. The way his mouth felt, so hot against her skin.
    “Mel…” His voice, the reverence in his tone. The desire so evident in his voice, in his actions, it healed jagged pieces inside her she hadn’t even known were there.
    He pressed her back against the counter, lowering his head and tasting her deeply. The sudden, decisive action shocked her, stole her breath. This wasn’t tentative, no careful, slow sampling. He was devouring her.
    She laced her fingers through his hair, holding him tight against her as he continued to tease her with his tongue. He pressed deeper, letting go of her hips, bringing his hand down between her thighs, pushing one finger inside her.
    She gasped, moving her hands to his shoulders, her hands digging into his skin, her eyes closed tight. She didn’t want to close her eyes. Didn’t want to miss this. Didn’t want to miss him.
    She forced herself to look, to take in the sight of his dark head between her legs, her hands braced on those familiar, broad shoulders.
    Intimacy .
    The word burned itself across her brain. Hot and deep and impossible to will away. This wasn’t just sex. This was intimate.
    He had licked her. Everywhere. He was tasting her now like she was the most exquisite dessert he’d ever had.
    A man who had seen her cry, had seen her, bruised and broken, beaten by her own father. A man who’d watched her grow from a skinny, teenage girl into a woman.
    The man she’d known since he was a lanky boy, with a home haircut that stuck out at odd angles and pants that were too short because he’d grown too fast and his parents’d had a tight clothing budget.
    The boy she’d held onto while he’d told her about how he was barely graduating. How he was going to leave Marietta and start his own business. How his parents would hate him for it, but he wasn’t smart enough to do anything else.
    She’d held onto him, and he hadn’t cried, but she’d known he wanted to. So she’d just held him while he’d sat there in misery. And he was holding her now. Holding her while he took her to ecstasy.
    That boy and this man were the same person, and she couldn’t ignore it. Didn’t want to ignore it, even if it made her feel like her chest had been cracked open, left vulnerable to anything and everything that might hurt her, might destroy her.
    Even if exposing her heart might mean it got stolen, twisted, tortured by the person who held it.
    He pushed her higher, the tension in her stomach like a bowstring about to break. The tension wound itself around the emotions building in her chest, binding them tight, so tight she couldn’t release them, couldn’t let them go. Couldn’t separate the physical from the emotional.
    It was a struggle just to breathe.
    A second finger joined the first, his tongue sliding over her clit at just the right moment. And she fell. Endlessly, forever, in Luke’s