Free The Muscle Part One by Michelle St. James

hadn’t heard her slip from the room. Bu even as she thought it she knew it wasn’t true. He heard everything, saw everything.
    About her especially.
    He’d let her go as a gift. Risked Diego’s wrath to give her some semblance of privacy while she worked. Would he welcome her now? Or had he already gotten tired of her indecision? What if he didn’t want her anymore?
    It didn’t matter. She had to let him know how she felt. It was all there in the painting. In her heart. She would die if she didn’t release it.
    She continued down the hall to his room and knocked softly on the door. He didn’t answer, and she hesitated before finally easing it open and stepping into the dark bedroom. She shut the door behind her and scanned the room, her eyes coming to a stop on the empty bed. She found him a second later, standing with his back to her, looking out over the ocean beyond the property.
    She didn’t say anything at first. She didn’t know what to say. How was she supposed to tell him everything she was feeling? How was she supposed to open her heart and her body to someone when both had been shuttered for so long?
    In the end she didn’t have to worry. He spoke first.
    “You came,” he said, without turning to look at her.
    “Yes.” She crossed the room, came up behind him, wrapped her arms around his torso until her palms lay against his chest. “I’m sorry.”
    “For not wanting me?” he asked.
    She hesitated, looking for the words. “For wanting you so much and not telling you."
    He turned around, and pulled her body hard against his. There was no gentleness in his eyes. Only fire. But still she wasn’t afraid. “Don’t say it if you don’t mean it.”
    She pressed against him, ran her hand down his chest, rested it on his cock, already hard in his jeans. Then she leaned in and kissed the place where his heart lay under his skin.
    He groaned, and his big hands came up to her face. He cupped her cheeks in his hands, searching her eyes. “If you don’t leave now, I’m going to take off your clothes, Isabel. And I’m going to carry you to my bed and kiss every inch of your body before I fuck you and make you mine.”
    She nodded solemnly, wanting him to know she understood. “Yes.”
    And then his mouth was crushing hers, his tongue easing between her lips. He slanted his head so he could take the kiss deeper while he cupped her ass, pressing her even tighter against his erection. It was like lighting a stick of dynamite at the center of her body, and she moaned in his mouth as her hands explored the bare peaks and valleys of his chiseled chest, the hardness of his stomach. She dipped her hand into his jeans, and he growled, then lifted her into his arms and carried her to the bed, his eyes on hers the whole time, like he was afraid she would disappear if he looked away.
    When they got to the bed, he laid her down gently and lifted her nightgown over her head, then drew in a long shudder of a breath as he stood back and looked at her.
    She resisted the urge to cover herself under his searching gaze. No one had ever looked at her so closely before, like they wanted to memorize every curve and dip, every shadow, every hollow. But she wanted to give him this. Wanted to give him herself in a way she’d never given herself to anyone. Freely. With only love.
    “Sometimes I think your beauty will kill me, Isabel,” he finally said.
    She held out her hand for him. “It won’t.”
    He stripped off his jeans, revealing his body in all its glory. Every inch of him was hard, lean muscle. His chest was broad, and she had a sudden memory of him on the beach the night they met, the feeling she’d had of being guarded by a giant angel, his arms like enormous wings. Every muscle in his abs was defined. She wanted to run her tongue along each corded ridge on her way to his cock.
    And what a cock it was. Big and wide, she could almost feel the weight of it in her hand. Feel the push of it into her body. She was