Give Me a Reason (Redemption Hills 1)

The tip of my index finger found the inside of her knee at that, and I dragged it down her slender leg, all the way to the delicate curve at her ankle. I found myself kneeling, pressing my mouth to that spot, rumbling, “You’re mine.”

I let my mouth follow that path back up, kissing along the silky soft flesh of her leg. Inhaling as I went because fuck the girl smelled like me.

Mine.

Wanted to mark her with it.

A brand.

Tattoo myself on her flesh.

Sink right in until we were nothing but one.

Where we existed in a place that only belonged to us.

She whimpered, bowing off the mattress as I kissed along the inside of her knee and rode up the top of her thigh. Her fingers dove into my hair and yanked like she wanted to mark herself on me, too. “God. Trent.”

I pressed my face into the fabric of the boxer briefs she wore, girl swimming in them, looking sexy as fuck and destroying another bit of my mind.

“Little Temptress,” I whispered.

Eden sighed, clutched at my hair, and I moved to straddle her at the waist, my knees on either side.

That time, it was a gasp, passion seeping from her pores and spilling into me.

Taking in the delicious sight, I gathered the hem of the shirt she wore and dragged it up that lush body, never slowing until I was peeling it over her head.

Chills lifted across her skin as she sank back down to the mattress.

All that hair spilling out.

Had to bite the inside of my cheek with how fuckin’ stunning she was.

Her tits were these tiny, perfectly perky things that made my mouth water. Nipples pebbled up and begging like the rest of her body.

“Beautiful.” I murmured my praise as I brushed the pad of my thumb over the left bud.

A whisper fell from Eden’s lips as she arched into my touch. “Please.”

I guessed it was the faith coming off her that did me in.

Way a shockwave of energy burst from her body.

The way that unfound connection blistered through the air and bounded against the walls.

Ricocheting.

Amplifying with each pass.

Intensity building and building.

My heart beat a riot, a fuckin’ battering ram at my chest.

This boom, boom, boom that promised the two of us were about to combust. No care to what might be left in the aftermath.

I edged back so I could slip off the bed. I dipped my fingers into the waistband of the boxers as I went, not slowing as I dragged the fabric down and twisted it off her ankles, unable to look away as the girl shivered and shook where she gazed up at me.

Completely bare.

Just heart-stoppingly gorgeous.

Truth.

Because my goddamn heart skipped an erratic beat.

Tried to catch my breath. To stop the avalanche of need that plowed right through the middle of me. Maybe regain a little control.

Impossible.

One glimpse and I was done. Gone.

Reaching up, I tugged my shirt over my head and dropped it to the floor. My teeth clenched in a bid to keep from losing my cool while every muscle in my body flexed.

Bowed in restraint.

Ticked in want.

Eden whimpered her desire, taking me in, doing a little of that devouring, too.

Every angle.

Every inch.

She sat up, that gaze rushing across the nightmare written across my body. It went sliding to the one that judged and condemned. She traced her fingers over the script.

“Ghost.”

She said it like she understood what it meant. Like she was accepting it. Accepting me. And fuck, there was nothing I could do to stop the feeling that rushed through my veins, filling me to overflowing.

“Who I used to be,” I grunted out.

One to be feared.

A reaper sent to slay.

Someone I didn’t want to be any longer.

“The only thing that matters is who you are now.” She repeated it. Her voice nothing but belief.

Didn’t want to tell her she was wrong. That I would never outrun it. Could never rewrite the sins on my soul.

Not when she was looking up at me when she said it. Not with the way she meant it.

She had her body angled just to the side, a single shoulder curled in. The tiniest bit of shyness pinked her flesh, and all those blonde locks fell down around the temptation of her body.

“Don’t hide from me. Not now,” I told her. Not when she was seeing right through me.

Eden lifted that chin. No defiance left in it. It was surrender. Welcome. An invitation. “I couldn’t if I tried,” she admitted.

I trailed my fingertips down the trembling of her throat, words grit. “Gonna own this body, Kitten. Gonna score myself in you so deep you aren’t ever going to forget me. Tell me you’re good with that.”

She gulped, and then she scooted back and leaned back on her elbows, her knees bent and rocking in anticipation.

Fuck.

She was a vision.