As if he was trying so desperately to keep himself in place and maintain that distance between them. Her heart hammered in her chest, every fibre of her body on edge.
‘Oh, believe me, I have no intention of either of us doing any sleeping.’
She could see him, coiled and ready. Just about holding himself in place.
‘This isn’t who you are, or what you do, Anouk,’ he growled. ‘I’m trying to be a good man here, but there’s a limit to how far you can push me.’
‘So this isn’t what you wanted tonight?’ She flicked a tongue out over her dry lips.
She had expected him to break by now and seduction wasn’t really one of her skills. How did she convince him that she wanted this, too?
‘I’m sick of playing the good girl,’ she bit out. ‘The responsible girl.’
Noukie Hartwood, the reliable, responsible, boring child of the amazing Annalise. Tedious, joyless, a killjoy. And all the other words her mother had flung at her throughout her childhood that had suggested that she didn’t have a fun, daring, spontaneous bone in her body.
‘Maybe I’ve decided it’s time I had a bit of fun.’ She shrugged, almost starting when her dress slipped and threatened to expose her completely, but just about catching herself in time. ‘With you.’
‘Consider this your last warning, Anouk,’ he growled, his gaze riveted on her gaping bodice.
With a final grasp of that confidence she seemed to have acquired for one night only, Anouk shimmied and let her dress slide gracefully down her body to puddle at her feet. She had no idea how she managed to make her legs move enough to step elegantly out of the pool of blue fabric, her eyes locked with Sol’s.
‘Duly considered,’ she murmured.
He moved so fast she was barely aware of it, crossing the space between them to haul her to him.
‘Don’t say I didn’t warn you, zolotse,’ he growled.
And then suddenly his lips were on hers, only for a fraction of a second, brushing them softly, almost as if he was testing her. It was startling, and it was dangerous, not least because it didn’t unsettle her so much as thrill her. Yet still she didn’t pull away, not even when he laced his fingers through her hair, met her unblinking gaze again and held it as he slowly—torturously slowly—lowered his mouth to hers and everything...shifted.
It wasn’t just a kiss. Or, at least, it wasn’t like any kiss Anouk had ever known before. It was the most powerful, intense, head-rush kiss that she had ever believed possible. He was claiming her, teasing her, torturing her. There was something so primal, so raw in his tone that every thought melted out of Anouk’s head and it seemed to go on for ever. Dipping and tasting, scraping and teasing. Electrifying her like nothing Anouk had ever experienced before.
But then, Sol was like no one she had ever kissed before. With every slide of his lips, hunger seared through her, white-hot, torrid. With every sweep of his tongue she was rent apart. With every graze of his teeth she struggled to control a slew of fracturing sensations, too many to contain. Too much.
With each drugging drag of his mouth, and every divinely wicked slide of his tongue, he detonated something inside her. Over and over. Until he angled his head for a better, deeper fit, his hands dropping down her back, skimming the skin, tracing her sides, spanning her lower chest, just under her breasts.
It was how she imagined an initial bump of ketamine would feel, giving her a sudden head rush, making her feel giddy and fluffy. And yet, inconsistently, she was also entirely too aware of herself.
Too hot. Too jumpy. Too everything.
He drew whorls on her bare skin, leaving the rest of her body resenting the material that barred him from drawing them everywhere else. And when he returned to cup her face, her entire body ached for him.
Sol was too much. And yet she simultaneously couldn’t get enough. She placed her hands on his chest as if to anchor herself, realising too late her mistake. The solid wall of warm steel beneath her palms only served to detonate even more fireworks within her. It was impossible to stop her fingers from inching across, exploring and acquainting herself with all the care that her old grandmother used to take reading her braille books. Anouk’s imagination filled in all the blanks of the utterly masculine body that lay beneath the slick, tailored suit. Every ridge, dip, and contour. In stunningly vivid technicolour.
How she longed to see it for herself. She felt helpless, and aching, and desperate. Her body entirely spring-loaded with a kind of wanton desire.
When had sex ever been quite like this? So charged, so full of expectation and need? She didn’t have an abundance of experience, it was true; but she wasn’t exactly an untried virgin, either.
Without qu
ite knowing what she was doing, Anouk flattened her body to his, crushing her suddenly heavy breasts to his chest as though it might afford them some relief. And then Sol let one hand glide down her collarbone, over her chest, and all he did was gently graze one thumb pad over a straining peak and pleasure jolted through her as if he’d just shocked her.
She arched into him, a silent plea for more. She couldn’t seem to get close enough. Perhaps she couldn’t.
‘If you carry on like that, we’re not going to stop,’ he warned, his mouth barely breaking from hers and yet she felt the loss acutely.
Looping her arms around his neck, Anouk pressed herself closer to him. If she was going to do something so outrageously out of character, then she was going to enjoy every single second of it.
‘Promises, promises,’ she muttered.