The Love Coupon (Stubborn Hearts 2)

He broke eye contact and looked out toward the ignored towel, the block of marble coffee table and other people’s playlists. “Been there, done that.” His eyes snapped back. “It was all very nice, but let’s not make a habit of it.”

The more he denied himself, the worse he made it. His hands were fists. He couldn’t step away. He couldn’t keep his eyes from drilling into her.

She unhooked her bra.

He crashed into her space and loomed over her. He was so close to losing his temper, but she wasn’t afraid. He wasn’t angry with her. He was angry because he wanted her and that messed with his plans.

“If you drop that—”

“What are you going to do about it?” His breath was in her hair. She pushed her chest forward, bra covering her precariously, dared him to touch her. “You going to kiss me? Ooh. You going to press me against a wall and make me feel good? I’ll take it.”

“Stop.” He hissed it, face alive with the challenge.

She dropped the bra.

He was on her so fast she lost her balance, but he had her, hugged up against his torso, her feet barely on the floor. “You don’t know when to leave a thing alone.”

“You don’t know how to take what you want without a ten-point plan and a week to prepare.”

He kissed her meanly, punishing her with the delight of it. She’d climbed him before he had a chance to regroup. “Like this. Tom, like this. Take me like this.”

A dozen strides and they were in his bedroom. He didn’t put her down, he threw her on the bed. She bounced, laughed. He stared at her, hand crumpling his shirt, his eyes lit with recognition. She was going to lose him.

“It’s a wet towel, soaking, dripping wet.” It was the first thing she thought to say and it wasn’t going to be enough. His breathing was short. He closed his eyes. The rational part of Tom knew this was a game, knew she’d engineered this and he could stop it with a tilt of his chin. He was trapped between her manipulation and his own desire, and it made his hands tremble. “I’m wet too. Dripping for you. Come get me.”

That did it.

He groaned, dragged his shirt from his trousers, toeing out of his shoes. She stood on the bed to take her panties off. They got naked simultaneously, came together with searching hands and hungry mouths. Tom on his knees, Flick grateful, relieved and beyond excited.

He urged her legs around him, took her down to her back. She locked her ankles behind his waist and bucked her hips, carved her fingers through his hair. His skin was hot and a fine tremor played through his muscles.

“Trust you,” she whispered against his mouth, permission to go wild.

He tore that breath up, ripped it from her throat and fed it back to her in sips and licks. “Safe,” he said, voice gone so deep and torn it sounded tortured. “I’m safe.”

Teasing presses at her opening made her moan, but she went still when he entered her on one thick, easy push. “God. Tom.” Filled and pinned and wanting.

“Feels—” he dropped his face into her neck “—feels perfect, this sweetness. You’re gonna turn me inside out.”

He didn’t dominate. He wasn’t rough. He unwound her deliberately, a jagged edge to his consideration, a selfish calculation matched with desire he didn’t leash. He worked her over with steady drumbeat pulses of his hips, grunts of exertion, eyes locked on her face, glazed, not seeing until he reached a point of tolerance and the beat became a rabbit kick, fast and furiously aimed at striking both their pleasure spots over and over, wrecking her breath as his body took control, exploding her core, lighting her brain up.

He came behind her with a shouted curse, taking her mouth for a kiss that was exhausted and possessive, his weight going heavy. A second of being crushed before he dropped to her side, face-planting a pillow with a muffled groan.

In the breathless silence, it was clear they’d destroyed the bedclothes, been riotously noisy and everything had changed.

Flick hoped it was for the better.

Chapter Nine

Tom needed Flick’s touch. He was scalded, his skin too tight. Like he’d walked through fire and burned off a protective layer he’d painstakingly built up to stop from feeling. Now he felt too much. Leftover splinters and sweat in the crease of his elbow, an ache in his eye socket, a wrinkle in the sheet under his hip, Flick’s panted breath, his own creaking lungs, the laughter they couldn’t contain.

“Holy fuck, Tom.”

She touched his shoulder with her hand then her lips, and it wasn’t too much, it didn’t sting. He rolled to snatch her up, bringing their bodies together, and there was no shock, no pain, only the gentlest, richest ease.

He wanted to live in it.

She kissed his cheek, his jaw, his brow. “Are you okay?”