Free Deceptions: A Collection by Shiloh Walker Page B

from his, tried to find something easier to look at, something a little less unsettling than his eyes. She found herself staring at the strong column of his throat—flames. They came from the phoenix that spread its wings out over his back. And the flames on his neck were throbbing—or at least the area right over his pulse was.
    Which made sense, really. She had her hands flat on his chest and she could feel the rapid-fire beat of his heart, slamming away. “Let me up,” she whispered, a need, a dream, a desire she’d made herself forget twisting up from the depths of her soul. She couldn’t do this again.
    “In a minute.” He dipped his head and she gasped as his lips skimmed across her cheek. “I just…” A harsh groan rumbled out of him and that groan seemed to make his entire body vibrate. His hips twisted, then rolled against hers at the same time and that movement brought an answering moan from her.
    “Lizzie.” Her name was a rasp on his lips. She hadn’t heard his voice like that in a long, long time.
    Shaken, she looked at him, feeling drugged and lost in the heat that had come out of nowhere.
    His mouth brushed over hers. Once. Twice. Three times. And then he kissed a path to her ear where he caught the lobe between his teeth and tugged. “I want to kiss you,” he whispered. “Now…we can do one of two things. Either you tell me to stop, to go away…and I will. I’ll let this go and we’ll pretend it never happened.”
    Even thinking about that made despair rise in her. It was so wrenching and so strong, she could barely breathe for it, but somehow, she found enough oxygen because she heard herself asking, “And what’s the second thing?”
    “You can open your mouth and let me taste you.”
    Now he lifted up, bracing his weight on his elbows and the shift in his position brought them more intimately together. She whimpered, instinctively bringing one knee up and arching up against him, seeking to deepen that connection.
    Realigning his body atop hers, he rested one hand on her hip, started to drag it up, up, up, until work-roughed fingers rasped over bare skin. “Which one is it going to be?” he asked, his gaze locked on her mouth.
    Heart pounding, head spinning, Lizzie stared at him.
    She couldn’t find it in her to say the words.
    So she reached up and fisted her hands in the dark, deep red silk of his hair, tugged his mouth to hers.

Chapter Six
    Lizzie tasted of tears and vanilla and coffee and her—she tasted exactly as he’d remembered, from that one faint, brief taste. Only so much better, a hundred times better, a thousand times more intoxicating.
    Her mouth was soft, damp, hesitant under his and that was the only thing that gave him the patience to take his time. Teasing the soft curve of her lower lip with his tongue, he reached up, fisting his hand around the edge of the futon’s mattress to keep from grabbing at her.
    Then she moaned and angled her head, opening deeper for him, her hands sliding down to grip his sides until short, neat nails were biting into his flesh.
    She slid her tongue out to rub against his and his cock pulsed as though she’d been stroking him there instead of kissing him. And that image had him rocking against her, driving his cock against the heat that was already gathering between her thighs. She’d be wet, he thought, half delirious. Wet, and ready and he could make her come so hard…
    A hundred times, a thousand times, he’d dreamed about this.
    But—
    Snarling, he tore his mouth from hers and jerked away, sitting at the far end of the futon. With hands that shook, he rubbed at his face.
    Son of a bitch.
    “Lizzie…fuck. I’m sorry.”
    A harsh intake of breath reached his ears and the last thing he wanted to do was face her, but that was what he made himself do.
    The minute he turned his head to look at her, she surged up off the futon, moving across the small office to stand by her desk, head bowed, arms wrapped around herself. “Get