And he did, he really did.
“You think I’m blind? That I don’t know?” he murmured against the top of her head. He drew back and stared into her face, noticing how soft her lips looked parted. “What you want is right here—and you’ll want it whether you’re in this room with me or all the way in Florida. You’ll want me.”
He didn’t know why he was testing her like this. But he wanted to see...
If she feels anything for me.
Anything even remotely resembling this madness that I feel.
He caught her closer when she squirmed and tried to push herself away. “You have no idea what I want!” she angrily spat.
“I know exactly what you want! I notice it every time you look at me, like I’m everything you’ve ever wanted. But I’m not, Kate. We both know I’m not. There’s not a day I don’t remember what I took from you—”
“Shut up, Garrett! You’re sick and...medicated and clearly out of your mind.”
He caught her back against him and stroked her cheeks as tenderly as he could, but knew his hands were shaking. “I know you’ll probably hate me for this, but I still won’t let you go to Florida. I want you close to me, where I know you’re safe.”
“I’m not asking for your permission!”
He frowned and stared into her beautiful shining eyes, wondering why he couldn’t have this girl, why he felt like he was poison for this girl.
“So you’ll make me follow you? Hmm? Is that what you want, Kate?”
She glared at him, and he couldn’t stand that little glare. He set a kiss on her forehead and rubbed her back under her dress, and she shuddered and pressed closer. Her need seeped into him, warming him to the core, until he felt like a torch was blazing inside of him. Blazing for her. He could feel her need of him like you’d feel rain pelting your back or the sun on your face. There were days when he could successfully ignore the pull between them, the undeniable chemistry. But tonight, his heart beat like a crazed drum for her. His muscles strained with aching desire. He could hardly stand not to touch her, felt dizzy with temptation, weak from fighting it.
“Do me a favor and say you’ll stay?” He nuzzled her face with his own. “Stay with your family. With me.”
His chest cramped as he thought about what he felt for her. What he felt for Kate was like a storm, and it was always there, consuming him from the inside, tormenting his every living moment.
Her voice sounded resentful. “Why? So I can keep on playing my Oscar-worthy role of the good little—”
He lost it. It was the anger and need in her voice, the closeness of her body. It was Kate. Driving him past the point of obsession, past the point of reason. He curled his hands around the back of her head and growled, “Damn you, the only one playing the role of a freaking wallflower, pretending not to want you like this, is me,” and his mouth pressed, scorching and hungry, against hers.
He hadn’t meant to kiss her. He hadn’t planned to crush her body against his and part her lips with his own. He hadn’t planned to hungrily push his tongue into her soft mouth, but he did all that, because he needed to. And when she responded by twining her arms around his neck and releasing a soft moan that nearly drove him to his knees, he did more.
He wanted her, wanted her more than air, more than food, water, anything.
Blood boiling in his veins, he grabbed her curvy buttocks and molded her body tighter against his as he twirled his tongue around hers, wildly tasting every inch of her warm, giving mouth. The kiss was fire, lightning, electrifying to him, surpassing his every dream and fantasy about her. Surpassing any other kiss he’d ever had.
He was thirty already, and he had never felt so out of control, gotten so carried away with a woman before. His arms, his legs, his every muscle shook uncontrollably with pure, raw lust, as if one mere taste of Kate alone was enough to make him addicted to her. And he was, he was addicted.
Her luscious flavor, the erotic little moans she poured into his mouth, stimulated his thirst to levels far beyond quenching. He wanted her so much he could eat her up alive and still not be satiated. He could lick every inch of her creamy skin and be still ravenous for more. Because she was everything he wanted and everything he couldn’t have. Dammit.
It took an inhuman effort for him to draw back, and he did it with a pained sound from deep within his throat.
“Kate, do you know what’s happening here?” He panted hard for his breath, and dropped his head, unable to resist her.
His hungry mouth opened wide around the fabric of her dress and he sucked hard, mindlessly, as his hand cupped her breast from beneath and squeezed the tip even farther out for him to suck.
“Garrett,” she gasped as he drew her nipple, fabric and all, deeper into his mouth.
He groaned in ecstasy, turning his head to nuzzle the tip of her second breast. “Kate, if you don’t want this—stop me...stop me now....”
She palmed his jaw and drew his mouth up to hers, searing him with her eager kiss, her lips trembling with desire.
He groaned and shut his eyes when she dragged her mouth up to kiss his nose, then his eyelids, and an out-of-control shudder wracked his large body.
He knew he was losing himself in the fragrant scent of her arousal, in the feel of her small body trembling against his, in the sound of tears in her voice. He should make her leave, so he could go back to hell. But some demon was shouting at him that he was losing her, that she would be out of his life in weeks, and suddenly he couldn’t take it.